Controversy between N. I. Kompaneyskiy and Priest V. M. Metallov on the Principles of Arranging the Znamennïy Chant

The polyphonic arrangement of church chants was a key issue for the composers of the New School in Russian sacred music, as well as for the music criticism of the early 20th century. Authors of previous periods did not always manage to preserve ancient sources and express the specificity of chant structures in polyphony. In 1891, priest Vasily Mikhailovich Metallov published a collection of “Sacred Musical Works for Mixed Choir,” which included 13 arrangements of the Znamennïy chant. In the chant “To Thee Who Art Clothed,” the arrangement of chants and shorter motifs in different voices leads to a break in the melodic line and the actual loss of the original source. The methods of arrangement of the Znamennïy chant in this piece were criticized by the St. Petersburg composer and publicist Nikolay Ivanovich Kompaneyskiy in an article of 1903 written for Russkaya Muzïkal’naya Gazeta (“Russian Musical Newspaper”). The article remained unpublished at that time; its autograph manuscript, preserved in the Manuscript Department of the Russian National Library, shows how dissimilar were the aesthetic positions of the two authors and how intense was the controversy over current issues of national church style.