The Byzantine music has its origins in a musical system well prior to Christianity. This greek musical system  has dominated since the highest antiquity in all the south of Europe around Mediterranean sea, and central Europe.
The Orthodox Christianity has increased this kind of music at the top of its opportunities interpretative gifts (and they rhythm) and for two millennia the history of the Hellenic music found itself linked to the great production poetic about the origins of the church in the construction of its Byzantine liturgy.
The history of the Byzantine music and its composers is little known in the West. Our stories of music go, the more often, very quickly in the direction of middle-age latin (all together under the generic name of Gregorian) and finally are beginning to become a little more verbose for the period of Renaissance and Baroque music, to flourish in the Classical period, romantic or contemporary...
The Byzantine music  knows a history quite different. Her last official reform is the one of the Three Masters : Chrysanthos, Hourmouzios and Grigorios of which we have already talked about in our blog. This reform lies in the 1800s, while Western Europe is in full romanticism.
The reform of the Three Masters is not a transformation of the earlier musical system. It is more a return to the deap source of manuscripts and a big effort to theoretical accuracy (theoretical explanation of musical system) accompanied by a large educational effort to help the begginners in the difficult learning  of this music poly-modal and finally an effort to develop a more analytical writing which allows for better keep the treasures of expressions of the oral tradition.
There is therefore a continuing source and a constant of nesting written tradition and the oral tradition aimed at a transmission optimal "know how" of the psaltique : a music at the time of "oral tradition and clever".
The last major work of renewal of this music was accomplished in the 20 th century by Simon Karas, a work in both genius and huge by its size.
He knew and both mastered all the directory of the Byzantine music when he was still young. However, the master of the Byzantine music was always in a research verging on qualms, not wanting to teach anything wrong in its method of teaching. He waited for very many years before agreeing to publish and encor still continued and he always to make corrections, clarifications. Simon Karas has loved and served this music with a zeal and an intelligence that we leave in a sense of admiration rare! Simon Karas has loved and served this music with a zeal and an intelligence that we leave in a sense of admiration rare!   Yet, he did not invent anything. There is not among Karas of novelty that would detract from the major source of the art of psaltique as it has been practiced since the origins or even as it has developed in the period meta-Byzantine, after the fall of Constantinople.He allowed simply to better understand that on the trunk of the Octoèque Byzantine flourished poly-modality (branches of modes) making a greater wealth of coloration in melos (vocals) Byzantine. Karas has highlighted all the wealth of the musical expression Byzantine through knowledge Union' decoration rich and specifies that he has recueillie en écoutant et in comparing the interpretations of the greatest psaltes (including those of the Great Church of Christ).
To this end, Simon Karas has re-introduced some signs of the sémiographie Byzantine which were abandoned at the time of Three Masters because of the passage of the manuscript to editing. His goal was to attract the attention of young people on this expertise that was threatened, all teachers in his time had not the same requirement or view height.  
We can find all the ornamentation taught by Simon Karas in listening to the Great Psaltes of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, a appears in one another in another. Of course there is a great freedom in the execution of energy but there are also many (most likely many) of poorly run, the worse course being ignored.
The method of Karas is really trainer-it is undoubtedly the most formative-but it requires to enter into a similar attitude to his own: nothing is left to the roughly, everything is analyzed with a constant concern of rectitude and artistic truth. Karas was a master very demanding, a personality without doubt a bit severe but with a spirit of servant of God.
His voice is a reflection of his personality. When I discovered I had some 20 years. It is a man-who is dead now-who worked in the Shop FNAC in Paris and which I saw burrow into the music albums sacred in search of Byzantine music recordings. It was called Gabriel. He said: "that thou tapping these two disks". Gabriel was not only formed in the sales force, he knew what he was speaking. He subsequently given the personal details of Simon Karas and of Lycourgos Angelopoulos. He knew them personally, he would regularly listen. The two disks that he has proposed to me, you understand,   was one of Karas and the other of Lycourgos Angelopoulos who became my master subsequently.  
I was very surprised by this voice subtle, a lightness and agility of a extraordinary, a precision in the execution of musical intervals incredible: The excerpt from the song  "Rodhon to Amarandon " that we have placed with Lycourgos Angelopoulos in the disk accompanying the book The Voice of Byzantium evidenced.  
Certainly, Karas did not have the voice ample and warm of psaltes as Tsanitsas, or even the subtlety full of sweetness of Emmanouelidis, he did not have that grain of father Firfiris, full of a "joyful sadness" contemplative. But he executed this music with a voice devoid of unnecessary effects with a perfection extreme.  
Another pan the work of Simon Karas look at the traditional songs. He began reinterpreting these songs with the Byzantine sémiographie when he had just 15 years. The work he has done in this area is also considerable. It was a forerunner. Today, it is not uncommon to see musicians in Greece reinterpreting of popular songs, but Karas has worked for all of Greece, systematically.
It is difficult to publish all the work of Karas, much of sheetmusics remain pending publication because of lack of financial resources. The books of months have been published recently, a monumental task.
I want to thank Madam Karas for the photo she gave me recently to your intention and for the work that continues in the school of Karas on the small hill of Stréphi in Athens. I also want to thank Lycourgos Angelopoulos for the tireless he performs at the service of the Byzantine music as a result of Simon Karas and the Byzantine Choir of Greece which gives to hear this music in a quality that delights the soul and door to prayer. For information: the Byzantine Choir of Greece pulled out "the Acathiste Anthem" among Jade recently. It is a magnificent double CD.