lamed vav vav

for five unaccompanied voices (2015), 1’

Traditional Hebrew Text

The letters Lamed (30) and Vav (6) add up to the number 36. According to Talmudic legend, at all times in history there are always 36 hidden righteous people—the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim Nistarim—whose existence ensures that the world will not be destroyed. If any of these 36 were to die before being replaced, the world would instantly come to an end. It so happens that 36-tone equal temperament is a very useful, though largely secret, tuning system that in additional to including all of the pitches of standard 12-tone equal temperament contains an additional 24, among which are a sequence of pitches that very closely approximate the 7th overtone above each of those 12. The remaining 12 are a 7th undertone below each of the original 12—the same distance in reverse. This interval, the pure harmonic seventh, is a consonance that has mostly disappeared from Western music since it cannot be rendered in 12tET. Using it for my music here seemed an appropriate sonic metaphor for those hidden righteous people and the various intervallic manipulations throughout were intended to mirror the processes used to derive this name and the 71 others.