Cretan idiosyncrasies in the liturgical chant of the Ionian Islands

Abstract

From the mid-15th century onwards, but especially during the last two centuries of Venetian rule in Crete, a unique repertory was developed probably in order to serve the specific needs of Liturgies and other offices, common to Catholics and Orthodox. The compositions included in this repertory thus merge Byzantine and Western elements, in the image of the meeting between these two cultures playing out in Crete during this period. This Latin influence could be identified on different levels, namely, in the liturgical texts, the morphology of the compositions, the modality and the notation.