The publication gives a detailed overview over the eighteen liturgical
manuscripts of the "Supplementum graecum" at the Austrian National
Library. These manuscripts are of great interest for the research of
music in general as they date from 12th to the 19th centuries. They
contain a great variety of notational practices, musical traditions,
genres and composers. With the help of these manuscripts not only the
evolution of music liturgical books can be reconstructed but also the
compositional styles and the various stages of development of the
different notations until the reform of 1814 can be traced. The first
part of the book contains the overview over the individual manuscripts,
their structure and their repertoire, whereas the second part is
dedicated to the composers and their biographical details. The third and
central part of the book brings analyses of selected genres, such as the
"Anastasimatarion", the eleven "Heothina" and the "Cherubika". A special
chapter deals with the so-called "Papadike" - a sort of short
introduction to Byzantine notation, which can be found at the beginning
of most of the manuscripts. The publication also includes a detailed
register of the more than 1600 chants and their composers, as well as
colour plates of parts of the manuscripts.