Hamathen
(From the ground)

I left Cyprus when I was still a child, in 1962, taking with me a happy land , bright, boundless and clear.

I returned in the summer of 1975, for only a few days , with Aspasia Papathanasiou's Theatre Group " Desmoi ", to present Sophocles' "Electra", including my music, to the refugee camps a year after the catastrophe of 1974.

The earth of Cyprus that I had taken with me when I left was, in 1975, an earth ruined, violated and torn between dreams and confused nightmares.

In 1989 I met the poet Roy Papangelou and was introduced to his poetic trilogy on the theme of Cyprus and the disaster. The trilogy began to ' knead ' itself inside me , its verses fusing with my dreams and nightmares of the distant homeland and emerging in rhythm and sounds. Thus began the composition of the work entitled "Hamathen" - "From the ground".

In September 1994 "Hamathen" was presented in Nicosia and Kourion, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of England and leading Greek soloists.

The work received an ovation from the audience, and the press described it as a "moving piece",and "the most important musical piece that has been written on the theme of Cyprus ".

However, the composition of « Hamathen » was not destined to stop there . I felt that , without relinquishing the original emotion that brought about its creation , the work could , and should be further developed , both in terns of music and significance. I felt I needed to surpass , without ignoring , the painful emotions that had marked my first brief return to Cyprus , and the bitter picture of the nightmare of the still recent catastrophe etched on its people and its earth.

I thus returned to the poetry of Papangelou ' s trilogy. I incorporated other parts of his poem, such as those of the moon that that wanders over Cyprus observing and noting down not only what it sees now but all that stands there unaltered through the centuries.

Through these new places I ' heard ' other sounds calling me. Sounds that went with the first Cyprus of my childhood years, the carefree, boundless country full of light.

The Festival in Dali, Mass on Good Friday at the little church of Saint Spyrodon, the Moonlight Sonata in the scented stillness of a summer night, all those magical sounds from my childhood years, coming back to life as instruments of a "mystic troupe", at times nostalgic, then suddenly, cruel once more. The dream and the nightmare, bitterness and hope, yesterday and today, awful ghosts, but also the whispers of angels forever singing of the earth of Cyprus.

" Land, anchored in the sea-froth and the bitter tracts of time "....

" Hamathen ", in its final form , for Sympony Orchestra , Female vocal ensemble and two soloists was completed in September 2003.

Christos Pittas
London 2003