Musicologist-medievalist, PhD in Arts, researcher at the Institute of Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of RA and at the Komitas Museum-Institute, a member of Verein zur Erforschung der Monodie (Austria). Amiraghyan has graduated from the Department of Musicology of the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan and has undertaken her post-graduate studies at the Institute of Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of RA. She defended her dissertation thesis in 2012 at the Institute of Arts. She is the author of a monograph entitled The Eight-Mode System in the Armenian Chant of New Julfa or the Indian-Armenian Chant (2016), published volumes, a number of articles, as well as radio programs on Armenian traditional music. The scope of her musicological interests includes issues related to the history and theory of the Armenian sacred music and comparative medieval studies.

CONCERNING A PRINCIPLE OF KOMITAS’S METHOD
OF THE ANALYZE OF MODES
(BASED ON THE EXAMPLE OF ETCHMIADZIN’S AND NEW-JULFA’S CHANTS
OF ARMENIAN SACRED MUSIC)

One of the most valuable components of Komitas’s method for the study of eight-mode system of the Armenian sacred music is the consideration of the melodic skips typical to cetrain modes and the forms of manifestation thereof, which greatly contributes to a more precise and full description of the mode. The approach of Komitas to the analysis of skips reflects its two main functions: the intonational one and the form-structural one. This paper concerns the comparative study of modal skips with form-structural function in two branches of the Armenian sacred chant: Etchmiadzin’s and New-Hulfa’s (Indian-Armenian) chant. The research has been based on the ritual book representing the Etchmiadzin’s chant Šaraknoc‘ (Hymnal), recorded by N. Tashjyan (Vagharshapat, 1875), and the Šarakans (hymns) gathered in the collections of New-Hulfa’s sacred chants, recorded and published by Amy Apcar (1896, 1902, Calcutta; 1920, Leipzig). The research aims at underlining the high relevance of the study of melodic skips in order to ensure the precision of the modal comparison of different chants.