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The present study investigates the function of the kratēmata in the Byzantine chant tradition, as a proto-programmatic music. The kratēmata were interpolating musical parts whose soloistic technical features constituted the ornamental basis of the melismatic Kalophonic or Beautified style of Byzantine music which appeared in the 14th c. The main features of this vocal style were music compositions with extended melismatic ornamentation and interpolating prolonged musical passages of soloistic coloraturas based exclusively on nonsense syllables, mainly te, re, to, ro, ti, ri. During this period, the kratēmata reached their artistic peak and evolved to independent musical compositions of the repertoire of Byzantine music, due to the fact that revered individual composers in Byzantine music of that period, composed a significant number kratēmata. Many of the composed kratēmata could bear extra-musical names from instruments (e.g., syrinx, miskal, trumpet, psaltery), aesthetic categories (e.g., pleasant, very sweet), or ethnic names (e.g., Ismaelite, Bulgarian, Muslim).

The Kratematarion was a music collection of kratēmata arranged according to each ēchos (mode). As an autonomous book it appeared in the 15th c. (Sina, MS 1552), although its tradition became richer after the 1st half of the 17th c. The kratēmatarion of 128 kratēmata exists in two codices from 1817, MS 710 and MS 711 in the library of Athens, transcribed and explained into the New Method by Chourmouzios Chartophylax. For the purpose of the present study, four kratēmata from the kratēmatarion were compared in terms of melodic, rhythmic, modal and syllabic structure. These kratēmata are entitled a) σημαντήρα (“Simantro”), b) ταταρικόν (“Tatar”), c) χορός (“Dance”) composed by Ioannēs Koukouzelēs (13th-14th c.) and d) ἀηδῶν (“Nightingale”) composed by Xenos Koronēs (approx. 1320-1350). The transcribed parts of the kratēmata from the neumatic Byzantine notation into Western music notation, revealed the intention of the composer to bear extra-music ideas, like to represent notions of the nature and mimic sounds of certain instruments. The device for those representations in the exclusively vocal compositional style of the kratēmata, is the nonsense syllables, which – in the case of the kratēmata - serve as substitute of instruments.