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The tradition of use of nonsense syllables in Greek music has its roots in Ancient Greece, as a system of solmization in gnostic music, based mainly on the Greek alphabet’s seven vowels. Their use is found to be a common tradition later and up to date in Byzantine music performance. These nonsense syllables te, re, to, ro, ti, ri, reappear first during the 14th century in musical compositions in Byzantine music of the Byzantine empire, called teretismata, obviously derived from teretismos, thus the practice of singing upon nonsense syllables beginning from t and r, as already described by Manuel Bryennious in his treatise the Harmonics, written the 13th century A.D. Both teretismata and kratēmata were interpolating musical parts whose soloistic technical features constituted the ornamental basis of the kalophonic compositions. The latter characterized the golden age of Byzantine chant, the Byzantine Ars Nova and the new musical style appeared in the 14th century, the melismatic Kalophonic or Beautified style of Byzantine music. In this style, the music compositions present extended melismatic ornamentation with interpolating prolonged musical passages of soloistic coloraturas called teretismata and kratēmata, based on nonsense syllables. The 14th century is characterized by the appearance of great masters in Byzantine music. During this period, the kratēmata reached their artistic peak, but after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks, the musical production remained still until the late 16th century when they revive again. From the 17th century, the Byzantine music was influenced by the Ottoman and Persian music and a significant number of Greek musicians started copying or imitating these musical styles. This resulted to a significant number of new composed secular kratēmata, although discrete traces of kratēmata in profane secular music can be detected back to 13^th-15^th centuries. The theoretical consonance between Byzantine music’s treatises written between 11^th and 13^th century and earlier treatises on the ancient Greek music written by ancient authors, indicates that the Byzantine theorists extracted material from the ancient world.

The present work aims to study the meaningful function of the nonsense syllables in teretismata and kratēmata compositions of Byzantine chant. For this purpose, their historical background and origin, and their functional role in culture and music of the Byzantine tradition, will be studied, critically analyzed, and presented.