Different versions of the Lord’s prayer. A comparative approach
ALEXĂNDREL BARNEAABSTRACT. As a musical production, the Lord’s Prayer occupies a large area of the liturgical answers of the choir. In printed books we will find its polyphonical harmonic versions, which are closer or further, from the point of view of the composition, to the church spirit. Some variants were written only for the sake of the tonal-functional or modal aspects, others in order to prove the compositional or interpreta¬tive virtuosity, but there are only a few versions that predispose the listener to intro¬spection and prayer. That is why we will provide a monodic version of “Our Father” that is less known, to use both in compositional activity and in the course of services, especially during the Holy Liturgy. The “problem” of this “Our Father’ is that its origin is unknown: we do not know who the composer is, where and when it was composed. In the course of my research, many people promised to help me identify the composer, but unfortunately all the leads were deadends. The problem is then still in the air when it comes to establishing correctly the composer by finding the original composition. In this respect, musicologist Vasile Vasile once stated in front of several passionate practitioners of church music that this melody belongs, with a probability of 60%, to Isidor Vorobchievici and 40% to Dimitrie Bortneanschi. His opinion may be a good starting point for the solution to this problem. But probability is not the same as certainty...
Keywords: Lord’s prayer; church music; Byzantine tradition; monody; tone; melody