Kassia

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Kassia, also spelled Kassiani, was a Byzantine Greek composer, hymnographer and poet. She lived from about 810 to 865 and is regarded as the only known woman whose music is heard in the Byzantine liturgy. She was born in Constantinople into a wealthy family and was known for being exceptionally beautiful and intelligent. Later she became abbess of a convent in the west of the city.

Music and breakthrough

About fifty hymns by her have survived, mainly stichera, short sung texts for church services. For at least twenty-six of them it is uncertain whether they are really hers, because many hymns are anonymous or are attributed to different writers in different manuscripts. In addition, at least 261 epigrams and maxims are attributed to her. The oldest manuscripts of her work are centuries younger than her own life, as is the case with her predecessors Romanos the Melodist and Andrew of Crete.

Influence

A well-known story tells that she took part in a bride show, by which Byzantine princes sometimes chose a wife. The young emperor Theophilos told her that evil came through a woman. Kassia replied that the better things came through a woman too. He then rejected her and chose Theodora. Kassia is one of the few women of the medieval Byzantine period who wrote under their own name. In that way she is a rare early female voice in the history of Western music.

Listening