Collection Items

  • Biography
    Oswald Hugh Edward Burmester (1897-1977) [and] Bibliography o... Biography. Bibliography reprinted from Bulletin de la Société d'Archéologie Copte 23(1976-1978): [235]-244; biography from [309]-310. (Source Note). Courtesy of Society for Coptic Archeology, 222 Ramses Street, Cairo, Egypt. (Copyright Notice). "I have a lost a friend, I have lost a teacher": these were the first thoughts that flashed through my mind when I heard that Dr. B. -- as I used to call him...
    • Contributor: Meinardus, Otto Friedrich August
    • Date: 1978
  • Biography
    Guillaume-André Villoteau Biography. From Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique. Paris: Chez Alph. Royer, 1844, vol. 8, pp. 459-464. Reprinted in the second editions. Paris: Librarie de Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1878 and 1884, vol. 8, pages 349-353; and in the reprint of the second edition in 1972, vol. 8, pages 349-353. (Source Note). Translation by Jan Lancaster from the 1844 edition. (General)....
    • Contributor: Fétis, François-Joseph
  • Article
    Survey of Twentieth-Century Studies of Coptic Music Article. 11 x 8 1/2 in. ; 11 p. | Paper presented at the 9th International Congress of Coptic Studies (International Association of Coptic Studies), Cairo, Egypt, 14-20 September 2008, and to be published in the Proceedings of the International Association of Coptic Studies. (Source Note). Courtesy of Marian Robertson-Wilson. (Copyright Notice). Musicians and other scholars who study Coptic music face many questions. For...
    • Contributor: Robertson-Wilson, Marian
    • Date: 2008-05-30
  • Article
    A Musical Inheritance: Coptic Cantors and an Orally Transmit... Article. Coptic chant has been largely preserved due to the role of mu'allimūn (plural for mu'allim), or church cantors, who orally transmitted hymns from one generation to another, yet very little is known about them before 1850. According to scholars such as Hans Hickmann, the use of blind professional cantors is one of the musical traditions that, along with the long, florid singing of...
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Biography
    Ernest Newlandsmith Biography. British violinist, composer, and writer, Ernest Newlandsmith was one of central figures involved in Ragheb Moftah's preservation of Coptic music. With the help of Moftah, he notated a total of 16 folios of Coptic hymns between 1926 and 1936, transcribing the complete Coptic liturgy of St. Basil as well as 25 major seasonal hymns. Yet, for such a monumental figure in Moftah's life...
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Biography
    Hans Hickmann (1908-1968) Biography. From The Coptic Encyclopedia. Edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991, vol. 6, pp. 1741-1742. African and Middle Eastern Division. Call number: BX130.5.C66 1991 (Source Note). From Atiya. Coptic Encyclopedia 8 Volumes, OE. © 1991 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. http://www.cengage.com/permissions/. Contact: Cengage Learning Global Rights and Permissions, 10 Davis Drive, Belmont, California 94002...
    • Contributor: Atiya, Aziz Suryal - Robertson, Marian
  • Biography
    Ilona Borsai (1925-1982) Biography. From The Coptic Encyclopedia. Edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991, vol. 6, pp. 1741. African and Middle Easter Division. Call number: BX130.5.C66 1991 (Source Note). From Atiya. Coptic Encyclopedia 8 Volumes, OE. © 1991 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. http://www.cengage.com/permissions/. Contact: Cengage Learning Global Rights and Permissions, 10 Davis Drive, Belmont, California 94002...
    • Contributor: Atiya, Aziz Suryal - Roy, Martha
  • Biography
    Margit Tóth Biography. While it was Martha Roy who undertook the transliteration of Coptic and Arabic liturgical texts in the 1998 publication of The Complete Orthodox Liturgy of St. Basil with Complete Musical Transcription, it was Hungarian ethnomusicologist Margit Tóth who meticulously transcribed the Coptic melodies. Born on June 20, 1920, in Budapest, Hungary, Tóth initially began her studies at Ranolder Institute as an educator of...
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Biography
    Martha Roy Biography. Martha Roy is fondly remembered by many Egyptian school children in Luxor, and later in Cairo, as a monument in their childhood. Others remember the tall, Egyptian-born American teacher as a presence in the back of their Coptic churches, quickly jotting down the Coptic texts and transcribing Coptic melodies during the liturgy. Today, she is not only recognized as a great educator and...
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Biography
    His Holiness Pope Shenouda III Biography. One of the most important advocates of Moftah's project, and the person instrumental in the publication of The Coptic Orthodox Liturgy of St. Basil with Complete Musical Transcription (The American University in Cairo Press, 1998) was the Coptic Patriarch himself, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III.
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Biography
    How I Became Interested in Coptic Music Biography. Biographical essay written for the Music Division of Library of Congress, July 2008. (Source Note). Courtesy of Marian Robertson-Wilson. (Copyright Notice). I write this essay at the request of the staff in the Music Division of the Library of Congress who asked me to tell how I, a little lady from the high mountains of Utah, became interested in the Copts and their...
    • Contributor: Robertson-Wilson, Marian
  • Biography
    Father Jules Blin (1853-1891) Biography. Translated from the Latin by David Shive. (General). From Litterae Annuae Provinciae Lugdunensis Societatis Jesu, 1890-1891. Brussels: Typis Polleunis & Ceuterick, 1892, page 64. (Source Note). Digital image of original text kindly provided by Justine Hyland, a librarian, in the Burns Library. (General). John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections, Boston College University Libraries. (Copyright Notice). (born November, 1853; admitted...
  • Biography
    Father Louis Badet (1873-1933) Biography. Based on the biography of Father Badet given in Henri Jalabert, S.J. Jésuites au Proche-Orient (Jesuits in the Near East). Beirut: Dar el-Machreq sarl, 1987, p. 405. African and Middle Eastern Division, Library of Congress. Call number: BX3746.1J35 1987. (General). Born in 1873, Louis Badet was a French Jesuit priest like his predecessor, Father Jules Blin (1853-1891). Father Badet eventually came to live...
    • Contributor: Lancaster, Jan
  • Biography
    Edward William Lane, 1801-1876: Biographical Sketch Biography. From "Biographical Sketcn" in An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians written in Egypt during the years 1833-1835. Paisley and London: Alexander Gardner, 1895, pp. [vii]-ix. (Source Note). Edward William Lane was born at Hereford on September 17, 1801. He was the third son of the Rev. Theophilus Lane, LL.D., a prependary of Hereford Cathedral. He was educated privately,...
  • Article
    Concerning the Laws, Customs, and Patriarchs of the Coptic or... Article. From Lingua Ægyptiaca restituta.... Rome: Apud Ludovicum Grignanum, 1643, pages 515-516. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Call Number: PJ2033.K5 (General). Translated from the Latin by David Shive Edited by Carolyn M. Ramzy
    • Contributor: Kircher, Athanasius - Shive, David
  • Article
    About the Music of the Copts Article. From Description de l'Égypte, ou, Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'éxpédition de l'armée française, publié par les ordres de Sa Majesté l'empereur Napoléon le Grand. Paris: Imprimérie impériale, 1809-1828. 21 vols. Text: Vol. II (1809), pt. 1a, pp. 754-757: Chapitre V: De la Musique des Qobtes, a brief description of Coptic music and Villoteau's transcription...
    • Contributor: Lancaster, Jan - Mavroukakis, Maryvonne - Ramzy, Carolyn M. - Villoteau, Guillaume-André
  • Article
    Preface from Liturgical Chants of the Copts. Notated and plac... Article. From Chants liturgiques des Coptes. Notés et mis en ordre par le père Jules Blin de la Compagnie de Jésus missionnaire en Egypte. [Première] Partie chantée par le peuple et le diacre. Cairo: Imprimerie nationale, 1888. Music Division, Library of Congress. Call Number: M2159.8.B7 (General). Translated from the French by Maryvonne Mavroukakis Edited by Jan Lancaster and Carolyn M. Ramzy
    • Contributor: Lancaster, Jan - Blin, Jules - Marvoukakis, Maryvonne - Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Article
    Preface from Liturgical Chants of the Copts. Notated and plac... Article. From Chants Liturgiques des Coptes, notés et mis en ordre par Le Père Louis Badet, S.J. [Première] Partie Office de la Sainte Messe, Chants du Peuple et du Diacre. Cairo: Collège de la Sainte-Famille, Petit Séminaire Copte, A.M.D.G., [1899]. Reprint. Rome: La Filografica, 1936. Music Division, Library of Congress. Call Number: M2159.8.C6L5 (General). Translated from the French by Maryvonne Mavroukakis Edited by Carolyn...
    • Contributor: Mavroukakis, Maryvonne - Ramzy, Carolyn M. - Badet, Louis
  • Article
    The Chant of the Coptic Church - Its Character Article. From "II. Le chant de l'Église copte. - Son caractère." In "Chapitre Septième. Le Chant dans les Églises de l'Afrique" of his Histoire Générale de la Musique.. Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot Frères, Fils et cie, 1874, vol. 4, chapter 7, pp. 96-101. Music Division, Library of Congress. Call Number: ML160.F42 (General). Translated from the French by Maryvonne Mavroukakis Edited by Jan Lancaster
    • Contributor: Mavroukakis, Maryvonne - Lancaster, Jan - Fétis, François-Joseph
  • Article
    Notating Coptic Music: A Brief Historical Survey Article. In the field of Coptic music studies, scholars are now recognizing two emerging notation systems of Coptic liturgical chant: transcription into Western music notation predominately undertaken by European or Western-educated scholars, as well as an early form of notation appearing in Coptic papyri of Greek hymn manuscripts found in Egypt as early as the third century. [1] This presentation outlines the various attempts...
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Article
    The Musical Notation of the Responses of the Church of Saint... Article. From Al-Tawqi'at al-Musiqiyah li-Maraddat al-Kanisah al-Murqusiyah. [Cairo]: Printed by the Government of Sudan and Egypt, 1916. Music Division, Library of Congress. Call Number: M2159.8.G3C5 (General). Translated from the Arabic by Magda Wadie Atalla. Edited by Carolyn M. Ramzy.
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M. - Atalla, Magda Wadie - Ghubriyal, Kamil Ibrahim
  • Biography
    Athanasius Kircher, 1602-1680 Biography. Throughout his lifetime and certainly until today, Athanasius Kircher has had a varied and, at times, quite a controversial reputation. Considered a polymath, he is best remembered as a scholar of medicine, history, physics, astronomy, math, music, and linguistics. Most importantly, however, he is recognized as the father of Egyptology, that is, the study of Egyptian antiquity.[1] It was also Kircher's claim to...
    • Contributor: Ramzy, Carolyn M.
  • Article
    The Challenges of Notating Music in General and Coptic Music... Article. Languages exist for the purpose of communication: communication of thoughts, stories, impressions, imagery--all of which are greatly intensified by emotion if the language be music.
    • Contributor: Robertson-Wilson, Marian
  • Article
    My Memories of My Uncle Ragheb Moftah: The Mission that I Had... Article. 11 x 8 1/2 in. ; 9 p. | By Laurence Moftah
    • Contributor: Moftah, Laurence - Croom, Philip
    • Date: 2008
  • Article
    Destined to Live Article. 11 x 8 1/2 in. ; 5 p. | By Laurence Moftah
    • Contributor: Moftah, Laurence
    • Date: 2008
  • Article
    Ragheb Moftah and Coptic Music Article. 11 x 8 1/2 in. ; 11 p. | Laurence Moftah (author), The American University in Cairo's Librarian Emerita for Coptic Studies (2007).
    • Contributor: Moftah, Laurence - Croom, Philip
    • Date: 2007
  • Article
    Ragheb Moftah, Scholars of Music, Sound Engineer, Audio Recor... Article. 11 x 8 1/2 in. ; 7 p. | By Laurence Moftah
    • Contributor: Moftah, Laurence
    • Date: 2006
  • Article
    The Coptic Philanthropic Society: Al-Jam'iyyat al-Khayriyyah... Article. 11 x 8 1/2 in ; 10 p. | By Laurence Moftah
    • Contributor: Moftah, Laurence
    • Date: 2006
  • Biography
    In Memoriam: John E. Gillespie, Professor of Music, Emeritus,... Biography. Courtesy of Professor Geoffrey Rutkowski and Professor Emeritus Carl Zytowski, USCB Music Department, 215 Music Building, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-6070. (Copyright Notice). John E. (Jack) Gillespie was born in Greencastle, Indiana, where he received his early education and degrees (A.B. in German, 1941, and B.M. in piano, 1942) at DePauw University. Like others of his generation he saw service in...
    • Contributor: Zytowski, Carl - Rutkowski, Geoffrey
    • Date: 2003
  • Web Page
    Related Resources Web Resources CopticHymns.net http://www.coptichymns.net External Coptic Orthodox Electronic Publishing Australia http://www.coepaonline.org External Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States http://suscopts.org External Tasbeha.org http://tasbeha.org External The Heritage of the Coptic Orthodox Church http://www.copticheritage.org External Print Resources Abdel-Malek, Moushira.
  • Web Page
    Rights and Access The Library of Congress is providing access to these materials for educational and research purposes and makes no warranty with regard to their use for other purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as holders of publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or...
  • Article
    Articles and Essays Top of page Skip to main content Library of Congress Search Everything Audio Recordings Books/Printed Material Films, Videos Legislation Manuscripts/Mixed Material Maps Notated Music Newspapers Periodicals Personal Narratives Photos, Prints, Drawings Software, E-Resources Web Archives
  • Article
    Collection Galleries And we too, who are sojourners in this place, keep us in Your faith, and grant us Your peace unto the end. Excerpt from The Commemoration of the Saints, The Coptic Liturgy of St. Basil The Coptic Orthodox Christian community is the largest and oldest Christian minority in the Middle East today. While there is no accurate consensus of their size in Egypt, numerous...
    • Date: 3100
  • Article
    Biographies Ernest Newlandsmith, 1875-after 1957 [photogravure]. Reproduced in Newlandsmith, Ernest. A Minstrel Friar: The Story of My Life and Work. London: The New Life Movement, 1927, frontispiece. The seventeenth-century German Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, made the earliest-known attempt at transcribing a piece of Coptic music. It was not until the early nineteenth century, during Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, that Villoteau transcribed an Alleluia; and, in the...
  • Article
    Books and Articles Page from The Divine Liturgies of Saints Basil, Gregory, and Cyril. Books, chapters from books, or articles from periodicals having to do with Copts and Coptic music are featured in this Gallery. Ethnographic books by the famous Egyptologist, Edward William Lane, and S.H. Leeder, are reproduced in part or entirely. Rites, Services and Offices of the Coptic liturgy by Evetts, Bute, and Woolley were...
  • Article
    Correspondence Letter from Ragheb Moftah to Ernest Newlandsmith, May 5, 1927 View Correspondence Gallery
  • Article
    Essays Ernest Newlandsmith's Transcriptions of Coptic Music: A Description and Critique, by Marian Robertson. The essays presented here by Carolyn Ramzy and Coptic scholars Marian Robertson-Wilson and John E. Gillespie – some written especially for this presentation and others previously published – introduce Coptic liturgical music to an audience beyond the confines of academe. For two centuries, this music was handed down by word of...
  • Article
    Maps Deserta Aegypti, Thebaidis, Arabiae, Syriae etc. ubi accurata notata sunt loca inhabitata per Sanctos Patres Anachoretas, created by Matthaeus Seutter. 17??. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Geography and Maps Division, this Gallery features some maps of Christian Egypt from the end of the seventeenth century to the 1950s, and general maps of Egypt and Cairo until the 1920s. Much like the presentation Timeline...
  • Article
    Moftah [Ragheb Moftah poses next to his close friend, renowned Coptologist Dr. Aziz Atiya, ca. 1980s]. Photograph. Courtesy of Laurence Moftah. This Gallery is devoted to essays about Ragheb Moftah. Presented here are the following: a recent biography written by Raymond Stock for Turath; a family tree from Moftah’s papers in the Ragheb Moftah Collection in the Performing Arts Division; and five essays by Laurence...
  • Article
    Music Recordings The muthallath (triangle), St. Mary and St. George Coptic Orthodox Church, Tallahassee, Florida. Photograph by Carolyn M. Ramzy What does Coptic music sound like? An exclusively vocal tradition, Coptic music is only accompanied by two percussion instruments today.1 The first instrument is a metal triangle otherwise known in Arabic as muthallath. Among Copts, it is also referred to as a turianta. The muthallath is...
  • Article
    Newspapers The Way of the World: Sing Something, Simple, by Peter Simple, April 23, 1931. In April and May of 1931, Ragheb Moftah and Ernest Newlandsmith traveled to England to give a series of lectures at Oxford, Cambridge and other universities, in which they described their work transcribing Coptic music in Egypt since 1927. Newlandsmith also lectured again in England in the summer of 1932....
  • Article
    Photographs Le Caire. Intérieur de la cathédrale cophte / Maison Bonfils (Beirut, Lebanon), [between 1867 and 1899]. Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress. The photographs of Ragheb Moftah are sub-divided into topical groups: 1) Moftah with family and colleagues; 2) Moftah and others at Anba Bishoy and Anba Macarius in Wadi al-Natrun – Easter 1995; 3) In the recording studio; 4) Moftah at...
  • Article
    Transcriptions De Ecclesiae Coptae, by Athanasius Kircher. 1643. Thanks to Ragheb Moftah and other scholars in the field, the entire Coptic hymnody is archived as sound recordings at the Library of Congress, and includes music that has been notated into Western notation for scholarly study. This Web presentation traces the earliest-known transcriptions of Coptic music by explorers and missionaries from the seventeenth through the nineteenth...
  • Article
    Videos [His Holiness Pope Shenouda III chanting into tape recorder at Ragheb Moftah's funeral], June 18, 2001. Raymond Stock, the author of a recent biographical article on Ragheb Moftah featured in the Biography Gallery, interviewed Moftah in 1996 and 1997 as part of the Library of Congress World Heritage Series. These four video recordings, as well as an interview with Moftah by Dr. Adel Kamel,...
  • Article
    Glossary of Terms Al-Kāhin, Father Armia Toufiles.St. George Coptic OrthodoxChurch of Brooklyn, New York. Photograph by Carolyn M. Ramzy Though the following terms can be found in a series of articles by Ragheb Moftah, Marian Robertson, Margit Tóth and Martha Roy, "Coptic Music," in The Coptic Encyclopedia, 1 they are also listed here for easy reference.
    • Date: 3100
  • Article
    Timeline of Coptic Music Moftah's work emerged during a pivotal moment in Egyptian history at the beginning of the twentieth century. Egyptians were gaining a strong sense of national consciousness and a strong desire for a self-rule that they had not seen since the fall of the last Ancient Egyptian monarchy in 671 B.C. This nationalist fervor penetrated all aspects of their lives, including religious institutions such as...
  • Article
    1643 to 1869 /* example: http://localhost:8000/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/tools-and-resources/history/timeline/ */ .timeline-title { margin: 0; background: #F6F6F6; text-align: center; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; font-family: 'Roboto Slab', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; top: 0; left: 0; } .timeline-new { padding-left: 0; list-style: none; height: 100%; padding-left: 200px; margin-bottom: 2rem; padding-top: 3.5rem; position: relative;
  • Article
    1874 to 1922 /* example: http://localhost:8000/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/tools-and-resources/history/timeline/ */ .timeline-title { margin: 0; background: #F6F6F6; text-align: center; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; font-family: 'Roboto Slab', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; top: 0; left: 0; } .timeline-new { padding-left: 0; list-style: none; height: 100%; padding-left: 200px; margin-bottom: 2rem; padding-top: 3.5rem; position: relative;
  • Article
    1925 to Present /* example: http://localhost:8000/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/tools-and-resources/history/timeline/ */ .timeline-title { margin: 0; background: #F6F6F6; text-align: center; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; font-family: 'Roboto Slab', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; top: 0; left: 0; } .timeline-new { padding-left: 0; list-style: none; height: 100%; padding-left: 200px; margin-bottom: 2rem; padding-top: 3.5rem; position: relative;
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    3100 BC to 1517 /* example: http://localhost:8000/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/tools-and-resources/history/timeline/ */ .timeline-title { margin: 0; background: #F6F6F6; text-align: center; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; font-family: 'Roboto Slab', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; top: 0; left: 0; } .timeline-new { padding-left: 0; list-style: none; height: 100%; padding-left: 200px; margin-bottom: 2rem; padding-top: 3.5rem; position: relative;