Breathtakingly beautiful. Through his music, Alan Hovhaness is able to put the souls of many people ,mine included, into a peaceful state. A state of grace.
Some of my favorite pieces by the marvelous Armenian American composer Alan Hovhanness: -Celestial Gate - a tour de force; a trip -Mysterious Mountain - first and last 5 minutes are some of the most magnificent chords I have ever heard. Mysticism personified. -Hymn to Glacier Peak - Soaringly beautiful -Symphony #8 - my current favorite of his. so well done. -Loon Lake - a magnificent nature journey. (this piece.) -St. Gregory - holy -Alleluia and Fugue -Arevakal -Khrimian Hairig -Cello Concerto -The Spirit of the Trees -Christmas Symphony -City of Light -Psalm and Fugue -Artik
Heard this on a local classical radio program and was immediately hooked. Thank god for classical radio keeping this stuff going . It’s a real gift to discover Hovhaness. He wrote this the year I was born which resonated with me
In the 1980's our local PBS station played his "Prayer of St. Gregory". I had never heard of Hovhaness, but loved it immediately. This piece probably would have had the same effect.
The beauty of his work is that it is as a stream of consciousness without the restraints of the intellect with its inhibitions which can sometimes be an obstacle to the movement of the spirit.. yet without his intellect in music he would not be informed to allow that movement of the spirit
True! If I was a music teacher at high, the first thing id do on day one is to play a lot of Alan Hovhaness to the pupils, never mind the schedule. Its with Alan that id start their entire musical education.
No, you didn't say that . Please re-read your original comment . But Now you did really put Hovhaness' work into the right perspective . Just well crafted. Cheers !
Sergi Martinez Ramirez Actually, my statements are consistent with each other, even if they differ in their specific language. The first just expressed my like of the piece with greater enthusiasm than the second. I still think that this piece of music is one of the best I have ever heard, and perhaps one of the best I will ever hear. I can tell from your comments that you do not think this piece is all that great compared with your composer/works of choice, but I actually prefer it over almost all other works I've heard; it's just more appealing to my ears than most anything else I've heard. To each his own, eh? You needn't have disagreed with my original post. If you think Hovhaness is just a "landscapist" (and art term, anyway, if I'm not mistaken), then why are you listening to it? Surely you have a composer you prefer over him, if you think he's just a "landscapist". Just saying. :)
+Sergi Martinez Ramirez Sergi, why the nastiness? He likes this symphony very much (as just about everyone does who hears it). Yes, Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart wrote great music too but music by Hovhaness is far less played in concert halls and on radio stations, but it has an impressive beauty of its own. Part of that, I think, is because it lies outside the usual domain of classical music with different and somewhat exotic instruments often used etc. But Hovhaness was a master fugue writer too and understands melodies.
I’ve been an admirer of his music for several decades and met him in Minneapolis in the 1970s. Even Sibelius, who met Hovhaness in the late 1940s, thought he was an emerging talent.
True! If I was a music teacher at high, the first thing id do is play a lot of Alan Hovhaness to the pupils, never mind the schedule. Its with Alan id start their entire musical education.
Despite the earlier intemperate comments, this is wonderfully peaceful. Strongly reminiscent of Vaughan Williams (the modal form), with a soupçon of Copland (towards the end). I came across Hovhaness' Great Whales and St Vartan many years ago (late 1970s). There is a lot more of his music available these days. This is one of the most easily approachable of the many excellent tracks on RU-vid. The debate about whether all his music sounds the same appears to be based on one's ability to distinguish the subtleties. Mostly I like it, but, as they say in the classics, YMMV.
~16:40 - a wonderful interlude of Chandrakauns raag by a flute. it sounds like Padmabhusan Hariprasad Chaurasia slipped into the studio, borrowed a steel flute and contributed an otherworldly addition to an outstanding symphony by Maestro Hovhaness. muchas gracias y saludos desde Tokio.
From 18:15 to 18:52 there is a direct quote from the second movement of Hovhaness' Symphony No.1 "Exile". I'm really intrigued on why did he decided to make such a quote.
the snobbish rap on Alan Hovhanss is that his music sounds much the same...but if I could right the beauty and stateliness like him I would be complete. Besides the detractors are dead wrong !
+Brian Barnett Anyone who says that his music sounds much the same is not familiar with much of his music. When one writes as much music as he did, there cannot help but be works that sound similar. But he has written many works that sound different from many others. For example, compare Symphony #2 Mysterious Mountain with Symphony 19 Vishnu and you will be shocked at how different they are. Or compare Prayer of St. Gregory with Fra Angelico.
All of Mozart's music has a certain Mozartian spirit, which is the same spirit, the "sameness" people would say. And this is true for most great composers. Beethoven's music all sounds Beethoven-ish, etc.
I do like this work, and I hate to be a dissenting voice among the appreciative comments, but, although it is simply beautiful, the emphasis must be placed on its' simplicity. I'm impatient with music such as this that seems to me dramatically, harmonically, even structurally, deficient. I enjoy all of Hovhaness' works to some degree; I acknowledge him as a great composer, but some of his works, later ones in especial, I think were composed in "auto pilot" mode, as might be expected with one so prolific. Villa-Lobos and Milhaud, among others, come to mind in this regard.
+ronald b woodall There is a whole movement and group of composers called minimalists who share some of the points you mention. Hovhaness is sometimes categorized as a minimalist, so is the contemporary composer Philip Glass; both have some seemingly simple and repetitive structures (the more you listen to them and study them, the less simple they become. It's like Bach He sounds simple too but he isn't, nor is Mozart.). But the truth is, that Hovhaness wrote an enormous amount of music (over 400 works) and that it has lots more variety than generally imagined. Contrast this work, for instance, with his "Vishnu" Symphony #19 (used in Cosmos) or his Mt. St. Helens Symphony #50 both have driving, percussive forces and sound elemental, as if he has harnessed primal forces. Again in contrast, listen to those few recordings of his vast output of choral music (like his "Magnificat") (as of yet, only a few of these pieces for voice have been recorded). They are quite different, except in perhaps Hovhaness's mastery of the fugue and counterpoint. Or listen to his music for guitar and harp (masterful). Or, his chamber music (beautiful recordings by the Shanghai Quartet are available here). It's all very different but the Hovhaness sound comes through; Hovhaness, like most great composers, does have a distinctive sound that is almost always instantly recognizable. I think it is unfair to say he was on "auto pilot" later in life, just as it would be to say the same of say, Joseph Haydn or Leonard Bernstein. He also wrote some very good music for a wide range of instruments including trumpet, cello, clarinet, harp, guitar, flute; oboe; and, his writing for percussion is very effective and lively. Also, he used lots of unusual instruments (gongs; bells; wood blocks etc.) that are not often found in classical music. I find him fascinating and anything but structurally deficient or boring (on auto pilot). I believe he will be seen as America's greatest composer and one of the greatest of the 20th century.
+Ronnie Moore Categorizing this work (and some others of) Hovhaness as simple or on "auto pilot" is, I admit, unfairly subjective, as the complexity of a composition can only be known by the composer who wrote it and thought through the process. I have no formal musical education, and certainly no experience as a composer; I was merely saying how the music "seemed" to me on first hearing. I agree that his body of work does contain great variety and contrast in conception and purpose, and I share your enthusiasm for his music, perhaps to a lesser degree, as I think a few other composers could also be nominated for "America's greatest", even then the title might have to be shared. (I never actually thought of Hovhaness as a "minimalist"; his stature far exceeds that dubious appellation.)
+ronald b woodall Hovhaness' music, while a lot of it may sound simple is, in fact, very technically sophisticated. He wrote some of the very best counterpoint since Bach. And the harmonies use a wide variety of scales other than the major and minor scales that were the mainstay of classical music from the middle of the 17th until the 20th century, including eastern scales from a number of different countries.
