The present study is an initial announcement on the author’s ongoing analytical cataloging of the corpus of music manuscripts found on throughout the islands of Greece. The project’s purpose is threefold:With the present paper the project is simply defined, its usefulness is delineated, but also thoroughly outlined is the to-date related secondary bibliography.
- It attempts to locate and describe in detail the music manuscripts preserved today on the various islands of Greece as a unique group;
- The project also takes on the identification and study of the specific local psaltic traditions on the numerous islands in an attempt to successfully formulate observations, reinforced by the already accessible Byzantine and post-Byzantine psaltic manuscript tradition and the published secondary bibliography;
- The study will also make possible for the first time a complete overview of the general Grecian island with regards to their psaltic tradition, allowing for the formulation of useful conclusions, correlations and other general comments. This final purpose, of course, precludes the completion of the first two stages and is the desired goal of the entire research project.
Finally, a special attempt is made to concentrate on the Argosaronic (where research has reached its completion and clear conclusions have already been formulated) and Cycladic (where the island of Andros is the first stop and research is still under way) island areas. A synoptic presentation of the data is conveniently made for each geographic area, offering a useful overview of their unique music tradition as well as identifying the specific clusters of preserved music manuscripts.
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