Music and Time Annotation << Back On New Greek Music of the 20th Century: J. Christou’s Oratorio Tongues of Fire (for the Day of Pentecost) G. Ploumbides The paper is about Jani Christou (1929–1970), one of the most prominent artists of musical avant-garde in Greece. The author studies Gospel based Oratorio "Tongues of fire" and analyzes the composer’s approach to recreate the emotional world of ancient people of the early Christianity. Also G. Ploumbides shows that the scientific literature on anthropology and psychology (C. Levy-Strauss, M. Eliade, C. G. Jung) on one hand and the history of religion on the other (E. Renan) guided the composer’s research. Key words: Greek avant-garde, J. Christou, Tongues of Fire. E-mail: musseo@otenet.gr