Spyridon Antonopoulos City University, London “ 'We shall clearly hear him say 'Rejoice!' as we sing': Hearing, Intelligibility, and Performance in Byzantine Chant" The complex strophic poems known as the Kanons were first composed during a flourishing of literary creativity that took place in and around the Palestinian monastery of St Sabas in the seventh and eighth centuries. Kanons typically consisted of eight or nine textually and melodically unique heirmoi, to which multiple thematically linked troparia (contrafacta) were adapted. The heirmoi formed the basis for the notated musical collection of the Heirmologion, which can be found in its most archaic form as early as the tenth century. The heirmoi found in medieval Heirmologia were unascribed, brief, and mostly syllabic. By the fourteenth century, while traditional styles of psalmody continued to be sung and written, a new style of singing and composition – kalophonia – had begun to touch nearly every genre of liturgical poetry, including the Kanon’s heirmoi. Thus, elaborate kalophonic heirmoi, composed by named musicians, appear at least by the fourteenth century, characterized by long, melismatic phrases, text troping, insertion of non-­‐textual elements, modal variety, and an expanded melodic range. This paper shall provide an analysis of select kalophonic heirmoi in contrast to their syllabic forebears in order to confront questions of aural reception, intelligibility, and performance