These selections provide a broad overview of the newest and most popular Byzantine Music releases, ideally suited to new devotees who are English-speaking and excited to begin exploring the vast repertoire of Byzantine hymnology. These selections provide a broad cross-section of Byzantine chant, covering weekly services and major feasts, all rendered in accessible forms.

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• Byzantine Music In The New World — Vassili Hadjinicolaou
  This recording immerses the listener in the ethos and majesty of Byzantine chant in English with a comprehensive selection of hymns, troparia and kontakia, while still true to its historical musical roots.
• Gates of Repentance — Fr. Apostolos Hill
  This selection begins to develop the Byzantine tones in English beyond their most basic renderings, especially with regard to phrasing, and introduces the hymns from the season of Great Lent and into the first part of Holy Week.
• Paraklesis; Eikona — Eikona
  The beautiful poetry of this supplicatory canon to the Virgin embraces the listener and weaves a calming tapestry of sound, in this recording of the complete service in English.
• Thy Passion — Boston Byzantine Choir
  A recording in English from a choir firmly grounded in the Antiochian (Arabic Orthodox) Byzantine chant tradition with nine of the nineteen tracks from the Arab chant genre and the rest arrangements from Holy Transfiguration Monastery.

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These intermediate recommendations expand the range of offerings from English-only to Greek and Arabic, include major church and monastic choirs, and feature some instructional materials as well as some of the favorite hymnology of the Orthodox Church. This is a wealth of material in only four offerings that will provide hours of listening and learning enjoyment.

Byzantine Intermediate Listener Package. You save 12% off purchase price when you order this package. To buy this package, click here.

• Divine Liturgy of the Holy Orthodox Church of Antioch — Mt. Lebanon Choir
  An introduction to the big sound of a Byzantine Choir in English, including all the hymns of the liturgy sung to melodies common in the Arab Orthodox Churches, performed superbly, with delicacy and conviction.
• Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom — L. Angelopoulos & the Greek Byzantine Choir
  A classic recording in Greek of the major hymns of the Liturgy, from one of the top extant Byzantine choirs under Lycorgos Angelopoulos; the power, beauty, and reverence of Byzantine music is clearly conveyed in this extraordinary recording.
• Byzantine Prosomia — Holy Transfiguration Monastery
  Both an instructional CD and a joy to listen to, this CD presents the original melody of each Prosomion, chanted clearly and simply in English, followed by a second example, some of which are taken from English services to Saints not in the original Greek Menaia.
• Agni Partheni — Monks of Simonopetra Monastery
  This selection opens up the original language to the listener with a much-beloved hymn written by St. Nectarios, and offers an introduction to an Athonite form of Byzantine chant.

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These advanced selections delve more deeply into the tradition of Byzantine chant and include authentic chant forms in Greek and English, ranging from original medieval compositions to contemporary parish forms. More familiar hymnology from the Divine Liturgy is mixed with some less well-known services to the saints. This is perhaps the most "listenable" of all the recommended collections, and lends itself to contemplation and prayer as readily as instruction.

Byzantine Advanced Listener Package. You save 12% off purchase price when you order this package. To buy this package, click here.

• Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom Mode 1 — Romeiko Ensemble
  Fast becoming recognized as probably the best single recording of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, based on medieval manuscripts and performed by one of the top choirs: the sound is wondrous, and the performance is both devotional and tight.
• Myron Melodikon — Orthros for St. Nicholas; Choir of St. Nicholas
  An unusual recording from the feast day of St. Nicholas, with a good recording made in a church with good acoustic qualities-it sounds like you just walked into a parish church in a traditional Greek village in early December.
• Service of the Supplication Canon to St Nektarios of Pentapolis
  — Byzantine Choir of Odigitria
  An English recording remarkable for its traditional and authentic sound that delivers the feeling of being a monastery on the saints day for St. Nektarios, and which includes both the read portions and the sung portions of the service.
• Music of Byzantium — Cappella Romana
  A recording offering a cross section of classic medieval Byzantine chant from original manuscripts sung by one of the top performing ensembles in America, with a special emphasis on two momentous compositions by Chrysaphes and Dufay lamenting the fall of Constantinople.