Two days ago would have been the 100th Birthday of Alan Hovhaness and there is no better way to celebrate a composer’s life than through his/her music.
My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called ‘spirit resonance’ in melody and sound.
Alan Hovhanes
Born in Somerville, Massachusetts to an Armenian father and Scottish-American mother, Alan Vaness Chakmakjian seemed destined to be a composer. He was drawn to music and at the age of four he began to compose using his own type of notation, but was quickly discouraged by his parents. Then at age he was exposed to the music of Schubert, started taking piano lessons and started to compose based just on what he was learning in his lessons. While in high school he would write three operas.
When he was a young child, his mother, concerned with discrimination against the Armenian community had them move to Arlington. Yet even with this move she would still discourage Alan from learning about his father's culture. His parents would encourage him to try other things including: painting, writing and Astronomy. Through long walks he would gain an interest in mountains. This interest in Astronomy and infatuation with mountains would influence his music later in life. Many of his works would have titles or subtitles about celestial bodies (Saturn, Celestial Fantasy) or Mountains (Ararat, Mt St Helens, Nanga Parbat)
He began his collegiate studies at Tufts where his father was a chemistry professor. His first formal training in composing occurred at the New England Conservatory of Music with composer Frederick Converse.
An early mentor upon graduation was Sibelius, whom the newly married Hovhaness would visit in 1935. In discussing Sibelius' Fourth Symphony Hovhaness stated, "I thought that piece, its great unison melodies, so lonely and original, said everything there was to say...and not only about music." The earliest reviewers of his music referred to him as an 'American Sibelius' but while he assimilated some of Sibelius' style he added something of his own...
While still a student at NECM he was introduced to Armenian and Kurdish music and culture as well as Indian music.
The entirety of Hovhaness' musical output can be broken into five stylistic periods. The first period generally includes music written during his student years through 1942. In this period he wrote mainly chamber music due to the fact that there was virtually no chance that his orchestral music would see the inside of a concert hall. Included in this period are: Mystic Flute (solo piano), String Quartet No. 1 and the Symphony No. 1 'Exile Symphony.'
The Symphony #1 "Exile Symphony" Op 17, #2 (1937) received its premier in England by the BBC orchestra. The symphony is an homage to the Armenians who suffered genocide and forced exile from Turkey during the early 20th Century. The three movements are titled Lament, Conflict and Triumph. This piece, like many to come would be programmatic, seeking to tell a story, paint a picture or provide a mood. Very little of his considerable musical output would be absolute music.
Movement 1 Lament: This movement, as its subtitle would indicate is lyrical. The solo clarinet accompanied by a very sparse orchestration at the beginning really sets the mood: one of desperation and loneliness. Suddenly, tutti brass fanfares are heard and continue to occur sporadically through the movement. These fanfares have been called bursts of anger or defiance. The lament progresses from woodwind instrument to woodwind instrument and finally to a french horn when it is interrupted by wild figuration by the strings, before the movement ends as it began, solo clarinet over a sparse orchestration.
Movement 3 Victory: This movement begins just like the first, solo clarinet punctuated by brass fanfares which quickly gives way to the main ideas of the movement. A quick string figure begins which is interrupted again and again by snippets of a grand hymn tune, which later becomes the subject for one of Hovhaness' favorite musical forms: the fugue. This hymn tune is extracted from an earlier work he wrote for Chorus and Organ, O God our Help in Ages Past (1928.) The "Victory" of this movement is not a triumphant return to their homes, but the one that shows that by their continued existence they have achieved a victory over those who would commit genocide against them.
In 1970 Hovhaness wrote a completely new central movement and removed the descriptive titles thereby removing the political aspect of the work. Without which the subtitle is useless. The videos I have chosen is a live recording of Leopold Stokowski conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Hovhaness would compose another symphony commemorating the Armenian Exile in 1949: Symphony No. 9, Op 80 ‘St. Vartan.’
The original second movement:
This 1st symphony would bring him some champions including Leopold Stokowski who would give American premieres of 3 more symphonies, but many more detractors. These detractors included Copland and Bernstein who ridiculed the symphony (it was not American enough for them.) After this, he destroyed somewhere around 500 individual works. This incident occurred at Tanglewood in 1942, thereby ending the first stylistic period.
The ridicule and ultimate destruction of such a large volume of music led to two realizations: 1. he would write music that was accessible to the lay listener and not for the musical intelligencia; and 2. he would incorporate aspects of the rich Armenian culture in his music. Thus starts his second period, commonly referred to as his Armenian period.
In 1940 he became organist at St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, Massachusetts. There he was exposed to traditional Armenian liturgical music and that of Komitas Vartabed.
His music during this period would be characterized by Armenian names or subtitles, giant incantation-like melodies, the use of Armenian Modes, fixed or moveable tonal centers, minimal harmony and pedal drones (playing open fifths.) Works during this period include: the Concerto for Piano and Strings (Lousadzak), the ballet 'Ardent Song', Prayer of St. Gregory and Symphony No. 9 'St. Vartan'.
Concerto for Piano and Strings, Op 48 (Lousadzak)
In 1944, he composed the Concerto for Piano and Strings, Op 48 'Lousadzak' (or Coming of Light.) This piece is characterized by long melodies, drones and what Hovhaness would call 'spirit murmur' a technique in which instrumentalists repeat a single musical phrase over & over again independently of each other. This technique would eventually erroneously be attributed to the Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski who incorporated it into his music 17 years later. The piece is in one single movement (unfortunately the video is not.)
The concerto garnered him his first positive reviews from fellow composers Lou Harrison and John Cage. Lou Harrison even wrote a review of the concert for the Herald Tribune in which he praised it. From then on both he and Cage would champion Hovhaness’ music. Of course, the musical intelligencia (serialists and Americanists) continued to dislike his music while the public began to clamor for more.
He added teaching to his resume in 1948 at the Boston Music Conservatory where he taught Composition and conducted the student orchestra. He is well known to have let his composition students develop their own style of music without pressuring them to go in one direction or another.
During the 1950ís his reputation really took off. Commissions which had before been sporadic would now be steady and upon realizing that he could now support himself and his family he moved to New York (1951). His Armenian period would effectively come to a close with this move.
His third musical period would see him expand his musical pallet to including a return of Renaissance polyphony and fugal writing, Indian Ragas, broadened his use of hamony through the use of full chords, chromaticism and dodecaphony (12-tone row). In addition, now he had full romantic sized orchestras at his disposal and he returned to using tutti sections in his orchestral music. Music written during this period includes but isn’t limited to: Symphony No. 2, Op 132 'Mysterious Mountain', Concerto (No. 10) for Two Pianos op 123 and the Magnificat Op 157. I'm sure I left some off this list since he wrote over 120 pieces during the decade. This is remarkable when you take into account that he spent several years abroad studying. He spent 3 years in Greece after securing two Guggenheim Foundation fellowships in the first half of the decade and then spent a year in India as a Fulbright Scholar during the second half. In India he studied Karnatic music with native South Indian Musicians.
I really wanted to look at the Concerto for two pianos which actually received its premier in 2004. That concert is available on You Tube and I'd recommend going and listening to the three movements. Instead, lets look what is one of his most famous pieces: the Symphony No. 2, Op 132 'Mysterious Mountain.'
Although this symphony is numbered '2' it is not the second one he wrote, there are six others between the Exile Symphony and Mysterious Mountain. This is the most European sounding of his symphonies and had enjoyed the most success until the Symphony #50. It was premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony in 1955. A 1958 commercial recording of the work by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony is considered to be the greatest recording of the piece. According to Hovhaness, the subtitle does not represent any particular mountain but rather the ‘whole idea of mountains.’
Here is Alan Hovhness’ own description on the work...
Mountains are symbols, Iike pyramids, of man's attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolic meeting pIaces between the mundane and spiritual worId. To some, the Mysterious Mountain may be the phantom peak, unmeasured, thought to be higher than Everest, as seen from great distances by fliers in Tibet. To some, it may be the solitary mountain, the tower of strength over a countryside - Fujiyama, Ararat, Monadnock, Shasta, or Grand Teton.
The first and last movements [of this work] are hymn-like and lyrical, using irregular metrical forms. The first subject of the second movement, a double fugue, is developed in a slow vocal style. The rapid second subject, played by the strings, with its own counter-subject and with strict four-voice canonic episodes and triple counterpoint episodes. . .In the last movement a chant in 7/4 is played softly by muted horns and trombones. A giant wave in a 13-beat meter rises to a climax and recedes. . . A middle melody is sung by the oboes and clarinets in quintuple beat. Muted violins return the earlier chant, which is gradually given to the full orchestra.
The circle begins again
His next musical period started after he received a Rockefeller Grant which enabled him to study traditional ancient ceremonial and court music in Korea and Japan with native musicians. His music returns to a style similar to that of his Armenian period, harmony is static, melodies in canons at the unison are supported by drones and repetition and elaboration replace development of musical material. Music written during this period include: Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints, Floating World-Ukiyo, the ballets Circe and Myth of a Voyage and the Symphony No. 19 'Vishnu', and ‘And God Created Great Whales Op 229.’
The Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints op 211 is a concerto for Xylophone and orchestra. Once again in one movement the piece begins in free time with the soloist playing a series of cadenzas over violins and violas playing soft added note chords. While this is happening the lower strings are playing other phrases in the 'spirit murmur' style and in between each of the cadenzas the woodwinds play their own 'spirit murmur' glissandos. The slow middle section which would normally be the second movement (part 1 at 5:59) has shimmering tune in the string section until the xylophone plays another cadenza in free time. The next section (part 1 at 7:55) has the xylophone play a solo in 32nd notes accompanied by the percussion imitating Taiko drums until this time the orchestra plays a cadenza in free time. A dancelike section occurs (Part2 beginning) which a tune begins with the oboe and moves to the clarinet before being played by the soloist. This section continues until the entire orchestra plays in the spirit murmur style in free time (part 2 at 2:32) while crescendoing to another cadenza at 3:36 which begins the final fast section. This section contains a theme that is repeated and elaborated on while the percussion plays like Taiko drums until the piece ends abruptly.
His next and final period would begin around the time he moved on a permanent basis to Seattle. Up until that time he was commuting between Switzerland (for the mountainous views) and New York. In this final period his music would reach its zenith, it would move toward a more westernized neo-romantic style but still retain the rhapsodic melodies that permeated his works to this point. The most notable change was his embrace of full chromaticism including whole-tone and diminished chords. This is his most prolific period composing the majority of his works during this period including 47 symphonies. Music written during this period include: Symphony No 50, op 360 “Mount St. Helens”, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Op 282,
In 1981 the music publishing company CF Peters (Hovhaness’ publishing company for 17 years) commissioned a work to commemorate the eruption of Mt St Helens. The result is the Symphony #50 op 360 “Mount St. Helens.” There is an account that two orchestras wanted to premier the piece and in order to decide Hovhaness tossed a coin.
The first movement is an andante without descriptive title in the form of a prelude and fugue. This movement however is said to describe the grandeur of the mountain prior to its eruption on May 18, 1980.
The second movement ‘Spirit Lake’ paints a picture of the lake near the mountain before it was virtually destroyed in the eruption. It begins with tuned percussion playing bell like figurations to describe musically the lake itself. This gives way to melodic material that represents the surrounding forested areas. At the end, the beginning material returns representing the pristine lake, ‘forever lost’ after the eruption.
The Third Movement is a musical representation of the day of the eruption and is subtitled ‘Volcano.’ The day starts at dawn which is represented by a tranquil hymn like tune. This tranquility is shattered by the drums and brass representing the sudden violence and destruction of the explosion/eruption and following lava. Eventually a quick fugue gives way to a triumphant version of the dawn hymn which “becomes a hymn of praise to the youthful power and grandeur of the Cascades…” and the symphony ends.
He would continue to write music for the next 26 years only stopping when his health made impossible to continue.
I found an interview that Alan Hovhaness gave to a local news channel in Seattle on You tube and was going to delete everything that I wrote and just let him speak in his own words. I decided against it since I wrote and rewrote this numerous times. I still think you should hear them so I’ll put them in the comments.