Gregory Bounes Alyates

Archon Protopsaltes of the Great Church of Christ

Gregory Bounes Alyates was a hieromonk, whose name before becoming a monk was George. He was an excellent musician, the Archcantor of St Sophia at the time of the Fall. Together with another musician (probably one of the Domestikoi), he was honoured and given gifts by the Conqueror, as the chronographer Dorotheos of Monembasia describes:

«When the Sultan Mehmet learned that the Romans write down the voices of the cantors and the singers, he called them to the Palace, and had a Persian singer whom he ordered to sing. The cantors George and Gerasimos wrote down the voice of the Persian. They sketched thus the song of the Persian, and the Sultan ordered them to sing it. And as they sung it better than the Persian, the Sultan was very pleased and marvelled at the fine detail of the Romans; and he gave them gifts. The Persian musician seeing the art of the cantors, worshipped them».

From his compositions, most were not preserved after his age; those saved belong to the papadic genre. He created the Propaideia in mode pl II. for the introduction of novice students in the chromatic genre. In the libraries, there exists a work of him: «Method of metrophony of hieromonk Gregory Bounes Alyates. Mode pl. IV».

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