Sepulcher of Life was written during November and December of 2003, and is based on the encomia sung in Greek Orthodox churches during Good Friday. The work, a meditation on corporeal existence and that which follows it, moves from mysterious beginnings to an exultant conclusion. Each movement is dedicated to an individual who played a seminal role in the composer's spiritual development.
The first movement, Sarcophagus, is based on two motivic ideas. The stark architecture and sound of this movement sets a solemn tone appropriate for the subject matter, which was influenced by Hatzis' encounter with the Great Pyramid. Long lines, unyielding counterpoint and a sense of volume implied by the presence of low brass and strings are the main ingredients.
Encomium develops the four-note motif that starts the work and finally ends with six verses of the funeral encomium. The six verses are meant to be sung by the audience in addition to the choir on stage.
Myrrh Bearer features two different types of music: a Baroque-like variation of the Greek Orthodox encomium on one hand and dark Gypsy-like music featuring a virtuosic solo violin part for the concertmaster. The solo alto part of Myrrh Bearer was created specifically for Cairo-born alto Maryem Tollar. Towards the end of the movement all these disparate elements are thrown together in one large and quite complex collage, almost like a funeral wake, eventually ending in grief-stricken resignation by the singer while at the same time the orchestra rises to a luminous closing chord.
Sepulcher of Life, the last movement of the work is based on texts that Hatzis created specifically for this particular movement. It is a series of permutations on the meaning of the words "life", "death", "love" and "Christ" that have been sung repeatedly in the previous movements. Melody, harmony and orchestration lean heavily towards popular music idioms, anywhere from Disney to Broadway. At the end of the movement, we return briefly to the empty sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid, with the opening four-note motif transforming into a message of hope and promise.
Commissioned by four different Canadian philharmonic choirs, Sepulcher of Life was written during November and December of 2003. Since the text for the commission was not determined by the commissioners, I had decided that I would compose a work based on the wonderful and moving encomia sung in Greek Orthodox churches during Good Friday. I had sketched ideas for the work a few months earlier but following a trip to Egypt in October of that year and my firsthand encounter with the Great Pyramid in Gizeh, I discarded all the sketches and started again.
While in Gizeh, I recalled the story of the Great Pyramid as related on various occasions by Edgar Cayce, the remarkable American prophet who has been and continues to be a great influence in my own thinking and life. According to Cayce, the Great Pyramid was built much earlier than is generally accepted today, and it was built as a Temple of Initiation, a testing place for those who would aspire to the higher degrees of an international "White Brotherhood" (members of which were the magi of the Christian gospels) and as a means of identifying the "Great Initiate" by means of such a test. According to this fascinating account, the path to the upper chamber is a time map encoding the various phases of experience that humanity had to undergo from the dawn of history all the way to our present time, the latter represented by the empty sarcophagus in the King's Chamber. And yes, according to this account, the Great Initiate did come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who did take the initiation tests just before his ministry began in Judea.
This esoteric tradition connecting Egypt in a rather novel and unorthodox way to Jesus and the sight of this imposing structure that has survived the scorching sun and various human civilizations for several millennia completely overwhelmed me. Soon after my return to Toronto, I started work on this project and I knew from the outset that my experience in Egypt would find its way into the music at various levels, from the surface sound to the work's deeper spirit.
