One doubts that the world will ever wholly manage to come to
terms with the music of Hovhaness. The sheer volume of his output
– over five hundred works including seven operas and sixty-seven
symphonies, and that excludes his music before 1940 much of
which was destroyed by the composer – rivals the prolixity of
seventeenth century composers such as Bach or Vivaldi. As we
get to know more of his works, it also becomes apparent that
like Bach or Vivaldi, Hovhaness had a tendency to recycle his
music, so that ideas originally conceived for one medium or
context will reappear in another later work; but even so, the
fact that he was so prolific makes it difficult to grasp his
achievement as a whole.
However we can now appreciate that his works seem to fall into
three distinct ‘periods’ – first an early Nordic style influenced
by Sibelius, which he abandoned in the late 1930s when he came
to terms with his Armenian heritage, much of the music of this
period being then destroyed: a second period of twenty years
in which he wrote much of what has now become his best-known
music such as the second symphony Mysterious Mountain
and The prayer of St Gregory, characterised by a fusion
of mysticism and strict contrapuntal discipline: and then a
third experimental period in which he began to explore wider
musical traditions including oriental music. He changed his
name from Alan Vaness Chakmakjian initially to Alan Hovaness
(without the second h), and only then to the name by
which we recognise him today; it is perhaps unfortunate that
(according to Jim Svejda) the name “bears a resemblance to an
exceedingly vulgar Czech word for the by-product of a basic
bodily function.”
The works on this disc are nearly all early works, and centre
around the three Armenian Rhapsodies written in 1944
– the widely different opus numbers are misleading, since apparently
it was only at this period that Hovhaness began to catalogue
his works and the assignation of numbers to the music he had
already written at the time was largely arbitrary, as he explains
in an often amusing interview given in 1981 which is reproduced
in the substantial and informative insert booklet. These rhapsodies
are conscious efforts to reclaim his Armenian roots and are
strongly reminiscent in form of similar works by Enescu and
other nationalist composers, following the model of Liszt, to
create pieces based on national folksongs. The results are lively
and entertaining, but not particularly redolent of what one
might now identify as the ‘Hovhaness sound’. The Second
Rhapsody develops into a series of at first decidedly un-nationalist
fugues – although the Armenian influences eventually come to
dominate the music before it stops rather abruptly. The Third
Rhapsody is particularly beautiful.
The tone poem Song of the sea predates Hovhaness’s
assignation of opus numbers to his catalogue of works, and is
one of the few works from the 1930s to escape his wholesale
destruction of his scores at that time – in the manuscript he
gave his name as ‘Hovaness’. It opens with a thoroughly romantic
piano solo, and it is most certainly not the sort of
music that we now associate with Hovhaness: there are elements
which remind one of Moeran, of all people, with references to
folksong melodies of decidedly Celtic bent. The work was dedicated
to the British-born painter Hugh Hegh, and one could perhaps
speculate that these overtones might have been a deliberate
tribute to him. The title apparently derives from the Book of
Exodus, but since Hovhaness in his interview states positively
that he always assigned his titles after the music
was written - does that contention really apply to works such
as the precisely programmatic Mount St Helen’s Symphony?
- this may or may not be of relevance. It is a really beautiful
piece in its own right, and John McDonald plays the solo part
with just the right delicacy of touch.
The Saxophone Concerto has a much later opus number
than the other works on this disc, and dates from as late as
1980; but the booklet notes refer to it has harking back to
Hovhaness’s earliest musical idiom – and one wonders whether
here he is recycling music from that period. Indeed the very
opening brings hints of Mysterious Mountain with its
sequence of unrelated modal chords before the soprano saxophone
enters surprisingly in its very lowest register. It is odd how
the instrument has developed two such diametrically opposed
styles of playing during the twentieth century, with two such
totally different timbres. Radnofsky has a very rich
and almost jazz-influenced tone; one can imagine this concerto
being played to greater advantage with a more etiolated ‘classical’
style and less ‘body’. In the second movement he brings a ‘bluesy’
swing to the beautiful opening theme that seems very far removed
from what one suspects Hovhaness had in mind; although finely
done in itself, it seems to be at odds with the music, and the
result just does not sound like Hovhaness at all. The finale
brings a very Hovhanessian chorale theme on strings alone, but
once again the playing of Radnofsky could be less vibrato-laden
to the advantage of the music. On the other hand one is grateful
to be able to hear the piece at all.
Many of Hovhaness’s works were recorded during his lifetime,
mainly in recordings conducted by the composer himself where
the playing and recording sometimes left a good deal to be desired.
The Exile Symphony was also recorded by Gerard Schwarz
in the 1990s when he inaugurated a series of Hovhaness recordings
for Delos (DE3168) - now deleted but presumably scheduled for
reissue by Naxos at some stage. It is therefore only here that
this disc comes into direct competition with other recordings.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project has a praiseworthy record
for the production of many worthwhile recordings of works otherwise
unavailable; and in this symphony their performance is at least
the equal of the admirable Schwarz recording. The sound is slightly
more distant at the beginning, but beautifully phrased and played.
The music can take a number of different treatments. The big
orchestral outbursts later have all the power and body that
one could desire. There are decided overtones of Bloch in some
of this music. Rose is consistently slower than Schwarz in the
outer movements - slightly faster in the Grazioso -
and overall his performance is three minutes longer than Schwarz’s,
quite a difference in such a short work. The contrasted recording
acoustics make quite a difference, and Rose’s players phrase
the deceptively simple second movement - added when the composer
revised the score in 1970 - with just the right degree of grace.
Incidentally there is also a recording by Stokowski and the
NBC orchestra available on Guild
which includes the original second movement - a piece of mock-Biblical
epic music which is not a patch on its replacement - but the
abysmal recording quality rules this out totally of consideration.
This quite apart from the ridiculously frenetic speed that Stokowski
adopts in the final movement, over 30% faster than Rose takes
here and 10% faster than Schwarz, allowing the music absolutely
no time at all to expand or make its impact.
One might regret that Rose and his players did not take the
opportunity to let us hear more early Hovhaness – possibly his
beautiful and brief Op.2 Monadnock, given a broadcast
performance a few years back by Ken Young with the BBC Scottish
Symphony Orchestra but never commercially recorded. Nevertheless
Rose’s performance of the symphony, giving the music all the
time it needs to breathe, is really something that it would
have been a shame to miss. Works like the Exile Symphony
give the lie in performances like this to the characterisation
of Hovhaness as simply ‘new age’ music that can appeal only
to those who share the composer’s fascination with mysticism.
If you love the music of Hovhaness – and it really is
very loveable – then this recording is an absolute must. We
get a superb performance of the Exile Symphony, three
gloriously contrasted Armenian Rhapsodies and a valuable
glimpse into Hovhaness’s earliest style in Song of the sea.
If you are pathologically allergic to Hovhaness, then this disc
will not convert you; but then you will be beyond salvation
anyway.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
See also reviews by Rob
Barnett and Dan
Morgan
Kenneth Radnofsky (saxophone) (Concerto)