ALAN HOVHANESS on CRYSTAL: Classical CD Reviews-Jan 2000 Music on the Web(UK)

Hovhaness is among the most prolific of composers - in company with restless creators like Milhaud, Martinu and Villa-Lobos. His catalogue runs to hundreds of opus numbered works. Regretfully we must note that he destroyed stacks of early works during the 1940s. One can imagine the state of his catalogue if he had simply archived this 'juvenilia' in a University rather than burning it.

Quantity is one thing - impressive as far as it goes - but what about the quality of the music? This has come in for some opprobrium from critics affronted at coming across music of the 1950s-1980s in such a frankly lyric vein. It is, they maintain, too unvaried, static and too easy to listen to.

Certainly a Hovhaness symphony is easily enough recognisable but then so are the Nielsen and Martinu symphonies. This does not take away from their individual beauty, sturdy drama and slow-speaking eminence. Hovhaness has quarried Armenian, Middle Eastern, Japanese and Malaysian music yet not once does the music lapse into cheap post-card emotions or simplistic pictorialism. Hovhaness is no brother to Ketelbey but has more in common (if we must find parallels) with Percy Grainger, Vaughan Williams, Charles Griffes, John Foulds and the group who may well have found their origin in his music, the minimalists like Reich and Glass.

The pluralistic classical music market for ever in search of lyricism, exaltation and the strangeness of the undiscovered realm need look no further than Hovhaness's music for enduring reward and that precious sense of otherness.

Most of the following discs are from original analogue tapes. These first emerged on Poseidon LPs (difficult to get hold of in the UK) and many were issued in the UK on Unicorn (one of the most exciting labels of the 1970s LP sunset era). Peter Christ's Crystal label has reissued most of those tapes on CD gradually releasing the discs over a period starting shortly after the launch of the CD.

These discs are a true thesaurus - a treasure house comparable, in years to come, with the Britten Decca heritage, Medtner's Gramophone Society discs, Bartók on Hungaroton, Stravinsky on Sony-CBS and Hindemith on DG. A notable absentee is the Symphony No. 23 Ani Poseidon (POS 1015 played by the Shoreline and Highline bands). To date this has not made it to Crystal CD.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Symphony No. 11 All Men Are Brothers (1970) 32:26 * Armenian Rhapsody No. 1 (1944) 4:54 Prayer of Saint Gregory (1946) 4:47 Tzaikerk (1945) 10:32 ** * RPO/Alan Hovhaness ** Crystal Chamber Orchestra/Ernest Gold rec * London 6 July 1970; 31 Aug/1 Sept 1975 (composer present) CRYSTAL RECORDS CD801 [53:02]
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Alan Hovhaness's full name is Alan Hovhaness Chakmakjian. The 'Chakmakjian' has been discarded, at least for artistic purposes. The name is Armenian in origin although he was born in Somerville, Massachusetts on 8 March 1911 of Scottish and Armenian parents.

Hovhaness was way ahead of the mystic fashions of the 1960s and 1970s: hippiedom, TM, Indian mysticism (The Beatles visiting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi). The ethnic sound has become very popular these days so it is difficult to know why Hovhaness has not made more progress. You need only look at the rising reputation of Avet Terteryan (ASV and BMG Melodiya), whose regionally accented music is so distinctive, to wonder what has happened.

Hovhaness's Symphony No. 11 is, in the composer's words: 'an attempt to expressive a positive faith in universal cosmic love as the only possible ultimate goal for man and nature. Let all unite on our tiny planet, our floating village, our little space ship as we journey across mysterious endlessness.' As an aspiration who could argue with this? As for reality, well, let that not tarnish the vision. While much of Hovhaness's philosophical message sounds similar to Scriabin's grand visions the music is very different.

The Symphony was premiered in New Orleans conducted by Frederick Fennell on 21 March 1961 then completely rewritten and the new version given its world premiere with Werner Torkanowsky (whose name I always remember for a magical radio performance of Ned Rorem's Lions) with the New Orleans PO on 31 March 1970.

The first movement has an initial Brahmsian string density (perhaps exacerbated by the age of the recording?) moving into an interlude of harp passes and bell-tolling exoticism. Then not, for the last time, we move into a Vaughan Williamsy sound-bed of strings over which the brass cry out in austerity. The second movement is an oriental dance with, again, strange RVW-style sounds and Rózsa-like barbarian music. The folk dances suggested here might easily have come from Somerset! The finale consummates in a hymn in praise of the universe. This melody is grounded by deliciously discordant strokes on the vibraphone. This is alternated with a string anthem with accents again fully worthy of RVW. 'And the voice of the Lord Buddha was heard like the sound of a great gong hung in the skies, saying that though one met a thousand men on his way they would all be one's brothers.' We return to the harp passes and bell tolling exoticism. The brass call across eternity and usher the work to a dignified and impressive close.

Armenian Rhapsody No. 1 is melodic music with a coursing pulse. The flavours of the Middle East are strong and instantly recognisable - close to Holst's Beni Mora. The twists and turns of the writing ground you firmly in the exotic. All three Armenian Rhapsodies are here to be experienced across three Crystal discs. The Prayer of St Gregory (from his 1944 opera Etchmiadzin) is a quietly sinuous trumpet psalm over a bed of strings - an Oriental extension of the Tallis Fantasia. Occasionally I thought also of the string essays of Gerald Finzi.

Tzaikerk is the second longest essay on the disc and is flutteringly done by Gretel Shanley (flute) with the serene, viola-toned violin of Eudice Shapiro underpinning and partnering the constant flighty activity of the flute. Gradually the flute calms into single held notes while the violin sings out in dignified reflection.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Symphony No. 9 Saint Vartan* (1949-50) 43:51 *Artik Concerto for Horn and Strings*** (1948) 17:55 National PO of London/Alan Hovhaness, Meir Rimon (horn) Israel PO/David Amos Recorded London 1974; Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv, 1982 CRYSTAL RECORDS CD802** [61:54]
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Even at the grocer's level of sheer numbers, the 27 symphonies of Miaskovsky and the 32 of Havergal Brian are dwarfed by the 67+ symphonies of Alan Hovhaness. The Miaskovsky and Brian symphonies on CD seems quite manageable in this context with the completion of both cycles almost within our grasp. As a pursuer and listener of all three cycles on disc and on broadcast tape I still need to hear the Hovhaness symphonies 3, 10, 14, 27-28, 30, 32-35, 37, 41-42, 44-45, 49, 51-56 and 59 onwards in any form. Of the symphonies quite a few are available on CD. Crystal is the source of most of these.

The Scottish-Armenian-US composer started his symphonic journey in 1933 with a symphony in three movements. This was performed by the New England Conservatory of Music but the work was destroyed by the composer in the mid-1940s. The same fate was shared by six other symphonies, five string quartets, operas and many piano pieces. The surviving symphony from that era is the one now known as no. 1 The Exile Op. 17, completed in 1936, and premiered under the baton of Leslie Heward by the BBC in 1939. No. 1 is available on Delos.

The imposingly intriguing Saint Vartan symphony from the end of the potent and turbulent 1940s is dedicated to the Mytilene artist, Hermon Digiovanno, who became a spiritual guide to Hovhaness. It comprises 24 patins (or tiles) each lasting less than five minutes; some very substantially less. This is mosaic-like music. Sadly the individual patins are not separately tracked on this disc. There are only two tracks in total in this recording.

The first episode inevitably reminds the listener of the Fauré Pavane speeded up. The following processional is a canon for three trumpets with percussion and explosive interventions from the gong. Then come three arias for strings and solo brass instruments. They and their counterparts in the second part speak a still small and peaceful voice amongst the storm. The horn has a lilt and dip familiar from the film music of Miklos Rózsa (El Cid). Then comes a Bar (dance) with thunderous timpani and Tabor a religious processional. The succeeding canon features tip-toe violins emulating an insect army creeping across a darkling plain. In the next sequence the vibraphone (in a tribute perhaps to Roy Harris) lofts the string passage on high. In the Bar the swirling violins suggest a wind of swords and the Estampie is a vigorous dance (on some strange village sward) and hectic buzzing insects. To relieve the orchestral tone there follows a Lament for trombone and piano in which the composer plays the piano. The troubled piano part reminded me of de Falla's Love The Magician. The sequences which conclude part 1 include a double canon for percussion, trumpet and strings, a dance featuring awesome roles (and rolls) for timps and gong; all in an atmosphere of exotic Medieval antiquity. Part 2's opening Yerk (a celebration of erotic love) is scored for alto sax, timps and vibraphone. There is an Estampie and a canon for timps, vibraphone and strings. The high dance for violins is suffused with noble life. The concluding Estampie reeks of the Medievalism which I (regardless of the era in which they lived) associate with Susato and Vejvanowsky.

Vartan might be seen as one of the life-springs of minimalism (e.g. in Reich's much undervalued Variations for orchestra). The symphony was premiered on 11 March 1951 at Carnegie Hall with the NYPSO conducted by the composer. As a work it demands the attention of everyone who believes in the chaotically life-enhancing variety of 20^th century symphonism. Along the way it delivers a spiritual impact reserved for very few works.

The shorter but still substantial Artik concerto is in 8 short movements including a pizzicato of religious melody, a Ballata and Laudi and a motet for Tallis-like strings. A pattern is apparent: alternating in almost every one of the eight segments strings, solo horn and then strings again. The work is largely reflective and serious but the horn part is not beyond expressing an affable joy. Part of this work was inspired by seeing Mt Conway, in the USA, during a bus journey.

These recordings are from analogue tapes re-recorded digitally. I heard no hiss at my usual listening level.

The four-fold leaflet is in English only. The leaflet offer good detailed notes and biographical info on the composer and the artists. There is a good photo of Amos and Rimon. The two photos of Hovhaness include a superb candid of Hovhaness conducting on the back of the notesheet. A strangely outlined photo of the composer is used for the cover.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Symphony No. 24 Majnun (1973) Martyn Hill (tenor) John Wilbraham (trumpet) Sidney Sax (violin) John Alldis Choir National PO of London/Alan Hovhaness Recorded London, 1974 CRYSTAL RECORDS CD803 48:00
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Hovhaness often seems as much an outsider as Pettersson, Havergal Brian or Vermeulen. His exotic name has subsisted on the edges of the record catalogue for many years. In fact 'Hovhaness' is simply the Armenian form of 'Johannes' or 'John'.

As for his music, the received wisdom is reflected in the following quote: "One cannot help suspecting that Hovhaness's music is too easy to write and too easy to listen to." This was Wilfrid Mellers's verdict in 'Music in a New Found Land' (London: 1975). This symphony gives the lie to that finding.

The story of 'Majnun and Layla' is the Persian equivalent of the 'Romeo and Juliet' story. Hovhaness's symphony on this legend is amongst the most attractive of his works available on disc: much more accessible than the much vaunted Mystic Mountain symphony.

The first track segment is a canvas of string pizzicato over which solo violin sings sweetly and none too orientally. If anything the reference points are British pastoral with the lark ascending and swooping. At other times the composer creates the plushest mattress of strings over which a trumpet incantation takes us drifting from one Quiet (and desolately lonely) City to another. Letters in the Sand sounds like quintessential Algerian Music (do you recall the French film Le Mari du Coiffeuse) heard accidentally as you leisurely traverse the shortwave bandwidth. At other times a speeding pizzicato speaks of the dry and relentless desert wind. Celestial Beloved suggests a drowsy numbness of eyes half-hooded and of twilit rooms. Martyn Hill is in typically mournful voice but he does inject pastel chromes into his tone. The choir are predictably on-song. Both have a single text to sing: so short it can seem repetitive. The music often suggests a middle-eastern Swan of Tuonela calling out across a lake of strings but instead of a cor anglais it is a trumpet that floats in sallow mystery across the cool waters. The Symphony can be thought of as an Armenian Sheherazade or a modernistic Antar Symphony. It opens the door into strange realms. In days when mystery and beauty is in short supply this symphony deserves a much better fate than it has 'enjoyed'.

There are two criticisms of this disc. The first is that the tracking is niggardly. There are only two tracks comprising two very substantial segments. The sections within each segment are played without pause or tracking . The playing time is short although the interest of the music leaves you feeling quite satisfied.

I am now looking forward to exploring the piano music available on both Crystal and Koch.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Symphony No. 21 Etchmiadzin (1970?) [17:14] *Armenian Rhapsody No. 3* (1944) [5:34] *Mountains and Rivers Without End* (1969?) [24:26] *Fra Angelico* (1968) [16:01] RPO/Alan Hovhaness Recorded London, 1971 CRYSTAL RECORDS CD804 [63:41]
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Etchmiadzin is the name of the religious capital of the Armenian church. The Etchmiadzin Symphony is in three movements of typically lyrical and engaging music. It is scored for bell, gong, two trumpets, timps, percussion and strings. There is a quite striking pavane and the third movement limns a theme which follows the outline Mount Ararat achieving a sense of static grandeur. The finale is said to have been inspired by the priests of Etchmiadzin who rang the city bells despite the danger of brutal invasion and inspired their troops to victory. Unusually for Hovhaness the symphony ends with gunshots hammering out - a vision of violence.

By contrast the Armenian Rhapsody No. 3 (1944) is for, predominantly restful, strings. One of the tunes employed was sung to the young Alan by his father.

Mountains and Rivers Without End is a chamber symphony in all but name and certainly is not part of the composer's numbered canon. It is rich with ear-entangling interest: dancing angels suggested by high singing violins and pizzicati, slip-sliding horn, flute and cor anglais, rolling trombone roulades, bells, the oriental ornithological serenade of the flute and high woodwind, a maze of Messiaenic complexity, a paradisiac cloud of birdsong and impressionistic harp and horn parts. Notable moments include at 10.20 the depths-haunted harp and flute sinking, a lively childlike tinkling dance (14.10) and the soothing flute (14.29). All ends in pealing ecstasy. The work was suggested by a Korean scroll painting and was surely influenced by his time (during the 1960s) being taught by the Gagaku musician Masatoro Togi. The music is linked to the opera The Leper King.

Fra Angelico is not for chamber ensemble. Instead it deploys the full orchestra in his usual tenderly airy texture. Three violins in their high harmonics takes us into celestial regions and link in with the aleatory trends of the 1960s. A Bergian beauty hangs romantically like a light voile cloak over the music. Swirling harps suggest oceanic depths and at 6.40 the dance of angels. The strings chaff and coruscate while the dissolute elemental trombones ring out chaotically.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Requiem and Resurrection(1967) 15:00 Symphony No. 19 Vishnu ** (1966) 29:20 * North Jersey Wind Symphony/Alan Hovhaness Sevan Philharmonic Orchestra/Alan Hovhaness CRYSTAL RECORDS CD805** [44:20]
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The two works on this disc are linked. The Requiem and Resurrection was written in protest at the badly cut premiere of the Vishnu Symphony and intending to catch the same mood and philosophy. The R&R recording is successful hinting at Griffes Pleasure Dome a startlingly premonitory work. There seems to have been some technical problem in that the level of his changes noticeably after the first few seconds. Trombones snarl and brawl their way through this oriental processional.

The Symphony presents the yielding face of the avant-garde, in its 30 minutes traversing evocations of the distant furnace of the stars, quiet slow shrieks, alarm bells, gongs and trombones in writhing anguish. This is not that far removed from Ligeti. Oriental piping, drugged dreams and lumbering processionals that might have blundered out of the Cthulhu fantasies of H.P. Lovecraft - all are to be found in this richly decked symphony. The work is often darkly Mahlerian but through a refractory Oriental prism. The forces of chaos move at velocity, trombones brag and bray and the composer's trademark glissando ululations are much in evidence. Panufnik-like antiphonal trumpet fanfares (22.20) and oriental string dances (16.00) also cross the horizon in a work that distinctively traverses the same territory as Robert Simpson and late Tippett.

Rather short playing time tells somewhat against this disc which otherwise offers some of the most challenging Hovhaness.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Lady of Light * (1968) [43:15] Avak The Healer** (1946) [21:05]

* Patricia Clark (soprano) * Leslie Fyson (baritone) * Ambrosian Singers * Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Alan Hovhaness ** Marni Nixon (soprano) ** Thomas Stevens (trumpet) Crystal Chamber Orchestra/Ernest Gold

Recorded London 1971 (Lady of Light); Los Angeles 1975 (Avak) CRYSTAL RECORDS CD806 [64:24]

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Listening to this disc I wonder how much Tavener and the mystico-religious melodics (Rautavaara, Pärt, Silvestrov, Macmillan) owe to the Armenian master.

Hovhaness seems never to have been a mainstream composer (despite enjoying no shortage of commissions and being composer-in-residence with the Seattle SO); not even during the late 1960s and early 1970s when a drug-spurred psychedelic mysticism became woven into popular culture: San Francisco, The Beatles, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Tibetan pilgrimages. From an earlier era we also recall Cyril Scott and his mystical essays, Scriabin, Sorabji and even Britten's Prince of the Pagodas and Gamelan Anklung.

The muscular, large-scale cantata, Lady of Light has a winning strangeness that is bound to make it new friends if only people will give it one hearing. The music is, like all Hovhaness, singable and Eastern all at the same time. This is not Russian orientalism, nor French nor anyone else's but taps a sense of authentic otherness on which few can draw.

Along the way, throughout this piece, the music seems to be floating upwards amid bells and sinuous woodwind figures. Pat Clark is in full splendour: articulating the softest erotic undulations. The section describing dancing to the sun is a brother to Holst's Hymn of Jesus. Listen to the chaos of swaying voices at 39.50. Winding and striding strings provide a backdrop to mournful bells. Listen also to the quiet cataract of violins at 30.10. Great pizzicati from deep in the orchestra suggest the possessed legs and feet of the doomed dancer who possesses and intoxicates all who see her. She is like some Pied Piper dancer in the light - a young maiden who lead them into an ecstasy of dance; a drugged vision where the infatuates fly through the power of dance. Finally the woman dancer is killed and the war-priest and his army are destroyed. Leslie Fyson is pretty clear and preferable to the rather mournful Martyn Hill in Majnun.

Avak has Hovhaness's hieratically singing trumpet floating over a bed of Vaughan Williams-style (Tallis) strings with cross-currents evocative of Rózsa's summer nights in Hungary. As for the purity of Marni Nixon's voice swaying and dancing in the heat haze it deserves far more celebrity than it has ever been accorded. This is a disc for voice aficionados as well as those keen to hear Hovhaness tackling the human voice.

There is a good colour picture of the composer on back of the insert booklet which also includes all the words as well as typically helpful detail.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Symphony No. 25 Odysseus (1973) [35:47] Symphony No. 6 Celestial Gate (1959) [19:39] *Prayer of Saint Gregory* (from opera Etchmiadzin) (1946) [4:22] Polyphonia Orchestra/Alan Hovhaness CRYSTAL RECORDS CD807 [60:02]
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Hovhaness famously torched a stack of Sibelian compositions in the 1940s and spent a year in India on a Fulbright scholarship. He then had a Rockefeller grant for music research in Japan and India. A treasure chest of exotic influences stood him in good stead a fact in evidence in these two symphonies.

The 25^th Symphony is a large-scale work running to more than 35 minutes and here tracked in two parts. The Homeric subject Odysseus and the lanky concert overture Fra Angelico have points in common including the trademark violins in slip-sliding ascent. Restoration sovereignty dances in the trumpet parts at 8.00 in part I. There are ant-swarms, woodwind soliloquies, grand courtly dances (10.40), sharply tambourine-accented dance. Brusque string shudders and stabs (9.03 - Part II) counterpoint with drums in some of the most dramatic (and alongside Mountains And Rivers Without End some of the most avant-garde) music he has penned. Equilibrium returns in the dewy and exhaustedly Baxian web-weave of the last five minutes. Recently I heard a tape of Theodor Berger's Homerisch Sinfonie and was struck by the similarly silken net of strings that launch the Berger work.

The world premiere of Odysseus was given by the same orchestra conducted by the composer at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on 10 April 1974.

Celestial Gate is the name of a painting by Hovhaness's spiritual guide, the artist, Hermon di Giovanno. In this work the composer has produced one of his most approachable works in compact form running just short of 20 minutes. The strings are a powerful presence at first in sustained adagio-like lyricism and then in ghoul-bedevilled activity. Barber's Adagio for Strings could easily have been a model and Basil Poledouris might well have been influenced by this work in his Conan film scores. The score is nicely varied and episodes tend to move very quickly from mood to mood making this (and the Majnun symphony) a good vehicle for introducing people to Hovhaness.

It is noteworthy that in both the symphonies recorded here the orchestra comprises single instruments from woodwind and brass with the depth of canvas provided by multiple strings.

The Prayer of Saint Gregory meanders rhapsodically. Its cantorial trumpet weaves in liquid tones around and over a starry bed of strings. The debt to Tuonela is an oblique one but debt it remains; more direct is the tribute to Vaughan Williams' Tallis.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Magnificat* (1958) [29:22] Saturn** (1971) [24:27] * Audrey Nossaman (sop); Elizabeth Johnson (con); Thomas East (ten); Richard Dales (bar); University of Louisville Choir, Louisville Orchestra/Robert Whitney. / Kate Hurney (sop); Lawrence Sobol (cl); Martin Berkovsky (piano) CRYSTAL RECORDS CD808** [53:57]
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Hovhaness's spiritual teacher was the painter Hermon DiGiovanno. DiGiovanno lead him to explore the cultures of Armenia, Greece, Egypt and India. This coincided with his decision to incinerate his many works in 1943 and to establish an amateur string orchestra in New York to play his and others' music. His music of that time included the oriental aleatory or Spirit Murmur; its slipping and sliding violins widely imitated in the early 1960s.

This disc presents one major (though comparatively short) choral/orchestral work and one chamber work. Both have the voice as their placid focus.

The Magnificat was premiered at Wichita Falls, Texas on 26 January 1959. Its inaugural celestial fanfare is one of Hovhaness's kindest themes, intoned delicately by trombone, trumpet and horn. Beauty too kindles all of the choral singing which may well have inspired John Rutter (Requiem and Gloria). Hovhaness may have taken inspiration from Howells, Fauré, Hadley and Finzi though the final result is different from each. The baritone is rather under-powered but the other singers rise reasonably (and better) to the challenge. The recording quality on the Misericordia track (7) causes a transient blast of distortion on the sustained high notes of the soprano but nothing serious. This work is not strongly oriental and, as the notes suggest, conveys some of what we may take as the blessed and vital spirit of the early Christian church. All is gentle until the rustling hornet flight of the strings at Esurientes Implevit Bonis (9) and strangeness descends again in the cackling whispers of Sicut Locutus est (11). The final Gloria Patri runs forward with a Christmassy trumpet solo of sweet repose after which the choir follow in similarly exalted style.

Saturn is in 12 miniature movements. It is a study (or I take it to be) in the loneliness of space and its far remote dark worlds. Saturn Celestial Globe (16) introduces some humanity (is it intended as a reference to human life or some Apollonian alien culture?) in a dance for clarinet entwining the soprano voice while the piano keeps up a constant filigree. This mood continues into O Lost Note. I can imagine this music also being sung by the composer's wife Hinako Fujihara. The sounds of perpetual cataracts are evoked in Giant Globe and On Wings of a Soundless Note.

As in all of this series the full texts are here together with positively helpful notes giving background on the composer and the works.

The Magnificat was licensed from Louisville so I wonder if there is any chance they can pick up a licence for symphony No. 15 Silver Pilgrimage originally recorded on Louisville LP LS662 and couple it with the Poseidon recording of the Ani symphony. If that happened it would naturally occupy the gap left in the Crystal catalogue number sequence: CD 809. I understand that this is unlikely as there has been talk about the Louisville series systematically emerging on CD reissue.

As with many (all?) of these discs the original tapes are analogue. There is supposed to be some hiss. The technicians at Crystal sagaciously resisted the temptation to remove it, knowing full well that this usually robs the bloom of the original. Hiss is best filtered by the mind of the listener rather than the subtle hand of the audio-techie.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) And God Created Great Whales for orchestra with taped whale song (1970) [12:51] Concerto No. 8 for Orchestra (1953) [21:56] Elibris (Dawn God of Urardu) [10:08] Alleluia and Fugue (1942) [10:24] Anahid - Fantasy for chamber orchestra (1944) [14:14]

Christine Messiter (flute) in Elibris Philharmonia Orchestra/David Amos

Recorded 18-19 July 1988, St Barnabas Church, Mitcham, England CRYSTAL RECORDS CD810 [69:53]

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Unlike the recordings featured on many other discs in the series this one is not composer-conducted. It also happens to have the longest playing time. Amos is pictured in conducting action on the back cover insert. The notes are on a three way fold.

We start with one of Hovhaness's most celebrated works: And God Created Great Whales (1970). This mixes the taped sounds of the 'song' of various species of whale (there is a scholarly introduction from Peter Christ indicating the source of the various recordings and the species of whales) with a mystical score calling up the wash and depth of an imagined Eastern sea. There are some conceptual parallels here with the taped birdsong in Einojuhani Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus. This is a powerful amalgam and made extremely moving in the counterpoint between the whale song and Hovhaness's inspired music. |It also includes, towards the end, one of Hovhaness's most inspired melodies.

The orchestral Concerto No. 8 of 1953 is a thoroughly entertaining (if undemanding) five-movement suite, inspired, in part, by a flight over Greenland. The string writing in Alleluia and Fugue (1942) betrays the early influences of Vaughan Williams as well as Roy Harris's best wide space/open-air manner. Elibris and Anahid (both 1944), by contrast, derive from the mid-Asian heritage, and make telling use of a solo flute, here beautifully played by Christine Messiter.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Symphony No. 31 [21.57] Symphony No. 47 Christmas Symphony [22.10] Starry Night [5.48] Celestial Canticle [12.57] Joy at the Dawn of Spring [4:10] Hinako Fujihara (soprano) Northwest Sinfonia/Gerard Schwarz and the composer CRYSTAL RECORDS CD811 [67:26]
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While all the other discs are from analogue sources this and CD508 are from digital originals. Both symphonies are conducted by Schwarz who also recorded several excellent Hovhaness discs for Delos. The 31^st is in seven separately tracked movements: I: an exercise in oriental legato; II: a quick-witted song over string pizzicato III a minor key picture of Algerian music with a glum pizzicato; IV a big band string fugue; V a quick allegro vivace; VI Mahler, Grieg and (astonishingly familiar) Herrmann characterise the andante con molto espressione and the finale is a serenade in tranquillity. The 49^th symphony takes a leaf from Sibelius's workbook. The string writing has an eye on the Finnish master's sixth symphony. Other voices include carols, a sense of Mid-Western wide open spaces, Capriol (Warlock) strings. Goossens' big band would have revelled in this.

The sleeve note assures us that the sound of the vocal works is exactly as the composer intended. The tightly ethereal and vulnerable fallibility of the voice of the composer's wife speaks of humanity's aspiration towards perfect expression. The works are soulful and much beset with melisma. Vaughan Williams' Three Vocalises (1958) for clarinet and piano are a cross-reference as much as the high tessitura of Sibelius's Luonnotar. O joy at dawn from the opera The Leper King is thickly accented and ends in quivering ebon depths. I suspect that Hovhaness's operas are extremely impressive works. Who will be the first to record The Leper King, Etchmiadzin or Pericles.

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911-) Celestial Fantasy (1944) Armenian Rhapsody No. 2 (1945) PAUL CRESTON (1906-85) Chant of 1942 (1944) Suite for String Orchestra (1978) NORMAN DELLO JOIO (1913-) Air for Strings (1967) JULIUS CHAJES (1910-) Israeli Melodies (?) VINCENT PERSICHETTI (1915-) Introit for Strings (1965)

rec July 1982 Tel Aviv CRYSTAL RECORDS CD508 [58:23]

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This CD is not part of the Crystal Hovhaness '800' series but nicely complements it. HOVHANESS'S Celestial Fantasy is subdued and inward with over-the-shoulder glances at Warlock's Capriol but with the accustomed oriental sway and twist. The Second Armenian Rhapsody (which closes this disc) is similar to the other two rhapsodies with its long-lined swaying tunes, pizzicato and wilder court dances. Not consistently compelling but well-rounded and always tuneful. The disc partners David Amos conducting a generous Hovhaness collection (almost 70 minutes) with the Philharmonia on CD810 and Amos conducting the Artik Concerto on CD802.

PAUL CRESTON's romantic and tuneful music has, surprisingly, made little headway despite its obvious strengths. Several of his symphonies have made it onto CD (and Naxos will add to that small store in 2000). No doubt there would have been a complete symphonic cycle from Gerard Schwarz if only Delos had not run out of stamina (and cash).

Creston's Chant of 1942 is overcast, emotional and heavy with tragedy redolent of the deathly times in which it was written. The liner notes relate the music to the despondency of the times and the horrors of Greece, Poland and Lidice (compare Martinu's and Alan Bush's works referring to Lidice). The final section of the Chant is like some muffled clock, desperate and at the same time threatened and empyreumatic. Surely this work takes some inspiration from Shostakovitch's Leningrad Symphony as well.

What a surprise to discover the melting lilt of Creston's Suite For Strings (1978). The whole thing lasts less than 16 minutes and is in four movements, by turn, jaunty-lilting; scattily carefree; hauntingly serenading; and the final fugal Cumulus throws and spins the tunes of the three previous movements together in a careful and concentrated display.

NORMAN DELLO JOIO's Air for Strings (1967) is a tender serenade of crystal brevity. CHAJES Israeli Melodies are a simple and dignified set of string songs. Nothing grates. The down-side is that there is a certain blandness about the music which is cast off only in the opening intensity of Song of the Night. PERSICHETTI'S Introit is not simple. It inhabits the desolate places of Warlock's Curlew and the misty streams of Bernard van Dieren's imagination.

The fine notes by Anne Ford-Horne are in English only as are all the Crystal discs reviewed in this sequence.

Recommended for anyone wishing to add a tuneful collection of string works to their collection. Committed Crestonians (and we do exist) and Hovhaness acolytes will also need this polished and well-balanced album.

Price 16.95 US dollars plus 2 US dollars per shipping within USA. Orders from outside the USA please contact Crystal direct for quote. Credit card orders (Visa or MC) are accepted.

Crystal Records, 28818 NE Hancock Rd, Camas, WA 98607, phone 360-834-7022, fax 360-834-9680
email: order@crystalrecords.com
web: www.crystalrecords.com