Strochnoe Penie

(literally, “line singing”), a type of old Russian polyphonic church singing. In strochnoe penie, two, three, or, more rarely, four voices were used. Each voice carried a melody, and the work was sung without harmony. In scoring, the principal melody occupied the middle range, and this part was called the put” (“path”). The voices in the upper range were called the verkh (“upper”), and those in the lower range were called the niz (“lower”); the singers were known as putniki, vershniki, and nizhniki, respectively. In a four-voice work, the fourth melody was known as the demestvo (from Latin domesticus, “household”), and its singers were called demestvenniki. The principles of lentochnoe (“ribbon”) polyphony, in which the pitch and rhythm contours of the melody were sung by all voices, and of podgolosochnaio (“supporting-voice”) polyphony were usually combined in the scoring. According to some sources, strochnoe penie was already known in Moscow by the 1620’s; extant manuscripts date from the mid-17th century. Stochnoe penie was later supplanted by partesnoe penie (part singing).