Coptic Chant
With its roots in Ancient Egyptian music, Coptic Christian chant is one of the oldest liturgical genres still
performed today. Drawing on the Ragheb Moftah Collection, this presentation explores some of the
earliest music transcriptions by explorers, missionaries, and scholars in Egypt, highlighting Moftah's
efforts to notate, record, and preserve all Coptic Orthodox hymns. Learn more about current scholarship
and what is happening in the Coptic community today.
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The Copts and Coptic Music: An Introduction
And we too, who are sojourners in
this place, keep us in Your faith,
and grant us Your peace unto the
end. Excerpt from The
Commemoration of the Saints,
The Coptic Liturgy of St. Basil
The Coptic Orthodox Christian community is the largest and oldest Christian minority in the Middle East
today. While there is no accurate consensus of their size in Egypt, numerous accounts place them
between 8 to 12 percent of Egypt's current population.[1] Moreover, they are also a growing immigrant
community in the United States, Canada, Australia, and throughout parts of Europe. Historically, the
word Coptic is derived from the Greek word aigyptos, which is borrowed from the ancient Egyptian ha-
ka-ptah, meaning "house of Ptah's spirit." Ptah was the god of Memphis, the very first capital of Lower
Egypt and the first administrative center of a united ancient Egyptian kingdom in 3100 B.C. According to
ancient Egyptian mythology, Ptah was believed to be the god who created the world.
Christianity was first introduced to Egypt sometime between 45 and 60 A.D., when St. Mark, the
evangelist and author of the oldest canonical gospel, arrived in the city of Alexandria. Though the exact
year of his entrance into the country is unknown, it is traditionally held that he began the unbroken
succession of Coptic patriarchy in 61 A.D., and he is credited as the founder of Christianity in Egypt.
Today, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III is the 117th successor of this Apostolic Seat of Alexandria.
Much like ancient times, most of Coptic life is celebrated musically. In the Coptic Church, all traditional
rites and services accompanying major life transitions are sung. Even the afterlife is believed to be an
eternal musical celebration in the presence of God. To understand the Coptic community better, one
must understand the reigning spiritual metaphor that largely defines their faith, culture and,
consequently, the music that expresses it: life on earth is a transient journey, with the human spirit
always longing to return to God. After death, one may rejoin God in heaven where one will live in
eternal tasbīh, or musical praise, as it is translated from Arabic. Musically then, Copts believe that their
liturgical hymnody, as it is sung during worship services, helps to create momentarily a sense of heaven
on earth, as music is the medium that bridges the everyday mundane life with a higher, spiritual realm.
St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church,
Washington D.C. Photograph by
Carolyn M. Ramzy
Coptic religious music is composed of three distinct genres: alhān, or the Coptic liturgical hymns
performed during church services and traditional rites; tasabīh and madā'h, Coptic and Arabic doxologies
that are usually performed in praise of Coptic saints, St. Mary, the Mother of God, or God; and
Arabic taratīl or taranīm, non-liturgical folk songs that are sung outside these formal contexts. These
three genres do not include the newly emerging materials that immigrant communities are performing in
the languages of their new home, such as translated Coptic hymns and Arabic taratīl, or Power, Praise
and Worship songs borrowed from other Christian denominations. This presentation will highlight the
Coptic canonical genre of alhān, the oldest and most revered of these three, now preserved in their
entirety in the Ragheb Moftah Collection at the Library of Congress.
As early as the thirteenth century, the Coptic community had fascinated early explorers, missionaries,
and scholars traveling to Egypt for, besides the many murals, excavations, and other tangible historical
artifacts, Coptic liturgical chant was, and still is, regarded as the last living testament of an Ancient
Egyptian artistic and creative process. In Egypt, writings by Coptic intellectuals such as Ishāq al-
Mu'taman Abū Ibn Al-'Assāl and Yuhānnā Ibn Abī Zakāriyyā ibn Sibā' emerged in the thirteenth and
fourteenth century describing Coptic music and Church ritual, but a recently discovered transcription
dating to 1643 by the German Jesuit polymath, Athanasius Kircher, is among the very first transcriptions
undertaken by Western scholars. This interest in Coptic music, though lingering through the eighteenth
and nineteenth century, was strongly revived in the twentieth century with the efforts of musicologists
such as Ilona Borsai, Hans Hickmann, O.H.E. Khs-Burmester, Marian Robertson-Wilson, and many
others. However, no one has matched the efforts of Egyptian scholar, Ragheb Moftah, who dedicated his
75-year career to the collection, notation, and preservation of Coptic liturgical chant. With the help of
Margit Tóth and Martha Roy, he published his monumental work, The Coptic Orthodox Liturgy of St.
Basil with Complete Musical Transcription, in 1998.
Note
1. According to the 2006 census undertaken by the Egyptian State Information service, the
population of Egypt is estimated at 72.6 million people. Numerous scholars have accounted for
the neglect of an accurate Coptic census. Please see S.S. Hasan, Christians versus Muslims in
Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality. New York: Oxford University Press,
2003; and, Edward Wakin, A Lonely Minority: The Modern Story of Egypt’s Copts. New York:
William Morrow & Company, 1963.
2. Music Recordings Gallery
3.
4. What does Coptic music sound like? An exclusively vocal tradition, Coptic music is only
accompanied by two percussion instruments today.[1] The first instrument is a metal triangle
otherwise known in Arabic as muthallath. Among Copts, it is also referred to as
a turianta. Themuthallath is generally suspended by one of its corners on a cantor's forefinger,
while the other hand strikes its three edges alternately with a metal rod, producing a very bright
and chiming sound. The other instrument is a small pair of hand cymbals otherwise known as
the sanj (pl.sajjāt). While many Coptic cantors and singers identify this instrument as a daff,
this can be rather misleading because, throughout the rest of the Middle East, a daff refers to a
wide frame drum that resembles a tambourine. When the muthallath and the sajjāt are played
together, not only do they keep time, but they also produce an intricate rhythm that mimics the
embellished vocal lines they accompany.
5.
The sajjāt (cymbals), St. Mary and
St. George Coptic Orthodox
Church, Tallahassee, Florida.
Photograph by Carolyn M. Ramzy
6. Vocally, Coptic singing style is especially bright and resonant, as most cantors choose to sing at
the higher end of their range. It is important to note that there are three parties who are
musically involved during the celebration of a liturgy: 1) the clergy or the officiant of the service
(known in Arabic as al-Kāhin); 2) the choir of cantors and deacons (known as al-shammāmsa);
and, 3) the congregation (known as al-sha'b). Musically, it is the Kāhin whose singing is the
most rhythmically free and characterized by rich ornamentation and embellishments.
Responding to him, a deacon, or a shammās, will also sing in the same ornate style, though a
sense of time begins to emerge as their solos are typically accompanied by the muthallath and
the sajjāt.The choir of deacons, divided into bahrī,meaningnorthern, and qiblī, or southern,
sides, leads the rest of the congregation during lay responses. This singing style is typically
declamatory, less ornate, and framed within a simple duple meter.
7. Lastly, Coptic liturgical chant is unique for its elongation and extended melodies of vowels, a
phenomenon that scholars believe Copts inherited from their ancient Egyptian ancestors. In
their article, "Coptic Music: Description of the Corpus and Present Musical Practice," Ragheb
Moftah, Marian Robertson, Margit Tóth and Martha Roy have differentiated between two forms
of these embellishments, the vocalise and the melisma(pl. melismata). A vocalise is the
elongation of a particular vowel within a rhythmic framework, [2] many of which are passed
down orally as a part of the Coptic hymn. Amelisma, on the other hand, is the elongation of a
vowel in free rhythm, allowing singers to improvise and to illustrate their individual virtuosity.
8. Among the many recordings from the Ragheb Moftah Collection, it was the Coptic Orthodox
celebration of the Eucharist, the liturgy of Saint Basil, which received the most scholarly
attention. Moftah was not alone in capturing this most widely sung service among the Copts.
The German Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, and two French Jesuits, Fathers Blin and Badet, as well
as Kāmil Ibrahīm Ghubriyāl, who came before Moftah, took special notice of the Saint Basil
liturgy as well. The recordings of this liturgy are at the heart of this presentation for two
reasons. Firstly, it is performed every Sunday during the year, except for seasonal festivities,
such as Christmas and Easter, when it is replaced by the liturgy of Saint Gregory. Secondly, as
a liturgy, it is at the center of Coptic religious experience, because the majority of Coptic chant
comes from this service. Articles such as "Coptic Music: The Divine Liturgy and Offerings of
Incense" by Ragheb Moftah, Marian Robertson, Margit Tóth and Martha Roy in The Coptic
Encyclopedia [3] further explain the relevance and the order of this three- to four-hour service
that is sung in its entirety.
