Tetragrammaton

Christos Hatzis
Tetragrammaton
Soprano and Digital Audio
Facsimile Performance Set
PROMETHEAN EDITIONS
WELLINGTON

Christos Hatzis
Tetragrammaton
Soprano and Digital Audio
Facsimile Performance Set
Score version May 2006
Tetragrammaton is a setting of selected texts from the book of Job for
soprano and digital audio playback. It was commissioned by
Anne-Marie Donovan with a grant from the Ontario Arts Council.
The piece was premiered by Kimberley Enns-Hildebrand (Soprano), at Waterloo
Community Arts Centre (The Button Factory), Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
on 17 November 1995.
This edition is a facsimile of the original score provided by the composer.
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Programme notes
The composer writes:
In everyday parlance, the English expression “four-letter word” has cheap
and vulgar connotations, but in Greek, Tetragrammaton (Greek for “fourletter
word”) is the Hellenistic term for the Hebrew name of God. The name
itself, YAHWEH, has six letters, but in old Hebrew only the consonants,
YHWH, were written down, hence the Greek name. The text of the piece is
a compilation from the Book of Job of the Old Testament, specifically from
“God’s answer to Job” (verses 38:4-18). The conclusion of the first stanza of
the selected text (“when the
morning stars sang together, as the wind announced upon the waters the
glory of the coming of man”) is not a literal translation from the Bible, but
is borrowed from Edgar Cayce, the 20th century American mystic, who has
offered this poetic rendering while in trance on a number of occasions; the
evocative and powerful character of this rendering made it impossible to
resist its inclusion here.
Before embarking on the composition of the piece and after reading
the original text several times, I read Carl G. Jung’s “Answer to Job”, a
remarkable work which Jung wrote towards the end of his life. Although
I agree with Jung that the Book of Job is a turning point in the Hebrew
concept of the Godhead and a founding stone for the subsequent advent
of Christianity, I do disagree with his description of God’s answer to Job as
pyrotechnics aimed mainly at impressing fear in Job and preventing him
from questioning the Divine. To me the verses
of the whole Book of Job and of that section in particular are
sublime and of timeless beauty: they are just as inspiring and relevant
today as when they were written. In setting these verses to music, I had
no preconceived ideas about how the music should sound or evolve; I
let the words take me wherever they wanted to go. I tried to create a
“magical” context in which they could tell their own story without too much
interference on my part.
Tetragrammaton took me an unusually long time to compose; I worked on
it on and off from May 1994 until February 1995. The years 1994 and 1995
were a “testing” period for me, a midlife crisis if you like, which affected my
work and my thinking
about music, and Tetragrammaton along with some other works of the
same period bear witness to my changing values, musical and otherwise. The
common thread that permeats these works is the investigation of a situation
where creativity is divorced from ego. In this process of soul searching, the
Book of Job became a grand metaphor for a newly defined creativity. This
book, like the parable of the Prodigal Son, is about a fundamental change
in consciousness whereby an individual does not become creative through
the solitary activity of “playing God”, but by the far more rewarding one of
“playing (or co-creating) with God”.

Text (Tetragrammaton)
Where were you when I laid
the foundations of the world
when the morning stars sang together
as the wind announced upon the waters
the glory of the coming of man?
Who watched over the birth of the sea
when it burst forth in flood from the womb,
when I wrapped it in a blanket of cloud
and cradled it in fog?
Have you ever called up the dawn
to bring the horizon in relief
as clay under a seal,
until all things stand out
like the folds of a cloak?
Have you descended to the springs of the sea
or walked in the unfathomable deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
Have you ever seen the doorkeepers
of the place of darkness?
Have you comprehended
the vast expanse of the world?

3
3
Where
3
3
wereyou
3
3
Where
wereyou
3
Where
were you
Where
3
were
you
Where
3
Where
Copyright © 1995, Christos Hatzis (SOCAN)
All rights reserved

Where wereyou
Where
Where were you when I
were you
3
Where
were you when
Where were you when I
3
3
3
laid thefound -
3
dat - ions of the
3
3
3
6
5
world
when the morn - ing
stars the morn - ing
3
3
3
3
3
3

stars morn-ing stars
when the morn - ing
stars
3
3
3 3
3 3
morn - ing
when the
stars the morn - ing
stars
sang
to-ge - ther
sang
to-ge - ther
when the morn - ing
stars the morn - ing

stars
sang
to-ge - ther
sang to-ge - ther
sang to-ge - ther
sang to-ge - ther
as
the
3
wind an-nouncedup - on the
wa-ters
the
glo - ry of the
3
com - ing of
man.
3

Who
watched
Sing this section as if the triplet half notes were the actual beats. The broken slurs show the content of
virtual measures in such a rhythmic configuration.
3
o -
3
ver the birth
3
of
the
sea
3
3
3
6
6
3
3
when it
burst
in
flood
from the
womb,
when I
6
wrapped
it
in a
blan - ket
of

cloud
when I
wrapped it
in
a
blan - ket
of
cloud
and
crad - led it
3
3
and
crad - - - led it
3
3
and
crad - led it
3
3
in
3
3

fog?
the
3
3
dawn
Have
3
you
3
to
ev - er
3
3
bring up the hor -
called
3
3
up
3
3
i-zon in re-
lief
3
as
3
3
clay
un-der a
6
3
3
clay un-der a
6
3
seal un -
6
3
til
3
seal,
all things
6
as
3
stand out

3
all
things
stand out like the
3
folds of
a
3
cloak?
Have you des -
cend - ed
Have you des -
cend - ed
to the
springs
of
the
sea
or walked the un -
fath - om - a - ble
deep?
Have the
gates
of

death been re -
vealed
vealed
to you?
to you?
Have
Have you
the
gates
of
death beenre-
e-verseenthedoor keep - ers Have you
3
3
e-verseenthe door keep-ers of the
place of
dark - ness
dark - ness
dark - ness?
Haveyou com - pre -
hend-ed
the

vast ex -
panse
of
the
world?