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Audiophile Audition
Feb 17 2012
ALAN HOVHANESS Works: Armenian Rhapsodies 1-3;
Song of the Sea; Sop. Sax Concerto; Exile Sym. - BMOP/sound
Not Hovhaness at his best, but it's interesting to hear earlier works
by this incredibly prolific composer.
ALAN HOVHANESS: Armenian Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 45; Song of the Sea;
Armenian Rhapsody No. 2, Op. 51; Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and
Strings, Op. 344; Armenian Rhapsody No. 3, Op. 189; Symphony No. 1,
Op. 17 No. 2 `Exile' - John McDonald, piano / Kenneth Radnofsky,
soprano sax / Boston Modern Orch. Project / Gil Rose - BMOP/sound 1020
[Distr. by Albany], 67:39 ***½:
When a composer has written well over 500 works, one can assume that
there will be some unevenness in his production. Despite the fact that
a number of Alan Hovhaness's pieces have entered the standard
repertoire and that recording projects turn up interesting,
little-heard music by the composer on a regular basis, Hovhaness's
production is indeed uneven. Remarkably, those 500 works are just the
tip of the musical iceberg. Hovhaness destroyed many, perhaps hundreds
or even a thousand, of his earliest compositions when he turned his
attention increasingly to Eastern music, including that of India and
Armenia, for which he had a natural sympathy since his father was
Armenian. (Hovhaness was born Alan Scott Vaness Chakmakjian but
changed his name probably to mask his heritage, just as Walter Piston
and Paul Creston changed their Italian surnames at a time in America
when an ethnic name wasn't a ticket to career success.) Along with his
penchant for Eastern music and its sound world came an increasing
mysticism and inwardness through which Hovhaness hoped to `inspire all
mankind with a new heroism and spiritual nobility.'
Given the destruction of so much of his earliest work, it's remarkable
that Song of the Sea, a tone poem for piano and strings from 1933,
survived. Maybe Hovhaness had a sentimental attachment to the piece
since he was the soloist in the first performance in Boston that year.
It has few of the individual touches that we associate with the
composer, so unlike the other works on this disc, it has mostly
curiosity value. Not that the remainder of the compositions represent
Hovhaness at his most refined, however. The First Romanian Rhapsody,
with its punchy rhythms and percussion writing, is a winning little
piece though the other two Rhapsodies have less to offer.
It's fascinating to hear Hovhaness's First Symphony, one of
sixty-seven from his pen - fascinating especially since it was written
not too many years after Song of the Sea and yet has some of the
hallmarks of Hovhaness's mature style: the skittering string figures
backed by near-static modal declamations from the brass. It doesn't
have the sheer memorability of the Second Symphony, Mysterious
Mountain, but at least Hovhaness was on the right track in his Exile
Symphony. The work pays tribute to the victims of the Armenian
Massacre under the Ottoman Turks during World War I. It rises from a
somber opening movement to an epic and triumphant finale. Premiered by
Stokowski in 1943, it was the first of a number of premieres given by
Stokowski, climaxing with Mysterious Mountain, which the conductor
debuted with his Houston Symphony Orchestra in 1955.
The Concerto for Soprano Saxophone is a relatively late work (1980) in
which Hovhaness `harkens back to his earliest musical idiom - that from
the 1930s.' It's dominated by one of Hovhaness's earliest enthusiasms,
for contrapuntal writing, which he employs in a mostly light and
light-textured work that's conventionally tuneful in the manner of
Song of the Sea. The slow movement, built on dance rhythms, is
especially light-hearted; one critic I've read likens the up-tempo
middle section to English music hall fare. The finale, entitled `Let
the Living and Celestial Sing,' returns to Hovhaness's more exalted,
mystical style. It's an odd amalgam of different influences; even the
choice of the soprano saxophone, more associated with the dance hall
than the concert hall, is an odd choice. The sax sounds right for the
slow movement, but in the modal music of the finale, it sounds
strangely out of place, as if Hovhaness is trying, not very
successfully, to turn it into some Middle Eastern folk instrument,
maybe a cross between the mellow duduk and the strident zuma. Or maybe
that's not his intention at all. At any rate, for me this is far from
Hovhaness's best.
I'd have to say that none of this music represents the essential
Hovhaness, as interesting as it is to hear some of his earliest
surviving tributes to his Armenian roots. The playing by the dedicated
members of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and saxophonist Kenneth
Radnofsky can't be faulted, however. They receive pretty good
recordings in two different locales, though the recordings could have
benefited from a bit more depth and transparency. Still, for Hovhaness
enthusiasts and for those curious about the earlier works in his
canon, this is an enterprise worth exploring.
- Lee Passarella
http://audaud.com/2012/02/alan-hovhaness-works-armenian-rhapsodies-1-3-song-of-the-sea-sop-sax-concerto-exile-sym-bmopsound/
Feb 17 2012
ALAN HOVHANESS Works: Armenian Rhapsodies 1-3;
Song of the Sea; Sop. Sax Concerto; Exile Sym. - BMOP/sound
Not Hovhaness at his best, but it's interesting to hear earlier works
by this incredibly prolific composer.
ALAN HOVHANESS: Armenian Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 45; Song of the Sea;
Armenian Rhapsody No. 2, Op. 51; Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and
Strings, Op. 344; Armenian Rhapsody No. 3, Op. 189; Symphony No. 1,
Op. 17 No. 2 `Exile' - John McDonald, piano / Kenneth Radnofsky,
soprano sax / Boston Modern Orch. Project / Gil Rose - BMOP/sound 1020
[Distr. by Albany], 67:39 ***½:
When a composer has written well over 500 works, one can assume that
there will be some unevenness in his production. Despite the fact that
a number of Alan Hovhaness's pieces have entered the standard
repertoire and that recording projects turn up interesting,
little-heard music by the composer on a regular basis, Hovhaness's
production is indeed uneven. Remarkably, those 500 works are just the
tip of the musical iceberg. Hovhaness destroyed many, perhaps hundreds
or even a thousand, of his earliest compositions when he turned his
attention increasingly to Eastern music, including that of India and
Armenia, for which he had a natural sympathy since his father was
Armenian. (Hovhaness was born Alan Scott Vaness Chakmakjian but
changed his name probably to mask his heritage, just as Walter Piston
and Paul Creston changed their Italian surnames at a time in America
when an ethnic name wasn't a ticket to career success.) Along with his
penchant for Eastern music and its sound world came an increasing
mysticism and inwardness through which Hovhaness hoped to `inspire all
mankind with a new heroism and spiritual nobility.'
Given the destruction of so much of his earliest work, it's remarkable
that Song of the Sea, a tone poem for piano and strings from 1933,
survived. Maybe Hovhaness had a sentimental attachment to the piece
since he was the soloist in the first performance in Boston that year.
It has few of the individual touches that we associate with the
composer, so unlike the other works on this disc, it has mostly
curiosity value. Not that the remainder of the compositions represent
Hovhaness at his most refined, however. The First Romanian Rhapsody,
with its punchy rhythms and percussion writing, is a winning little
piece though the other two Rhapsodies have less to offer.
It's fascinating to hear Hovhaness's First Symphony, one of
sixty-seven from his pen - fascinating especially since it was written
not too many years after Song of the Sea and yet has some of the
hallmarks of Hovhaness's mature style: the skittering string figures
backed by near-static modal declamations from the brass. It doesn't
have the sheer memorability of the Second Symphony, Mysterious
Mountain, but at least Hovhaness was on the right track in his Exile
Symphony. The work pays tribute to the victims of the Armenian
Massacre under the Ottoman Turks during World War I. It rises from a
somber opening movement to an epic and triumphant finale. Premiered by
Stokowski in 1943, it was the first of a number of premieres given by
Stokowski, climaxing with Mysterious Mountain, which the conductor
debuted with his Houston Symphony Orchestra in 1955.
The Concerto for Soprano Saxophone is a relatively late work (1980) in
which Hovhaness `harkens back to his earliest musical idiom - that from
the 1930s.' It's dominated by one of Hovhaness's earliest enthusiasms,
for contrapuntal writing, which he employs in a mostly light and
light-textured work that's conventionally tuneful in the manner of
Song of the Sea. The slow movement, built on dance rhythms, is
especially light-hearted; one critic I've read likens the up-tempo
middle section to English music hall fare. The finale, entitled `Let
the Living and Celestial Sing,' returns to Hovhaness's more exalted,
mystical style. It's an odd amalgam of different influences; even the
choice of the soprano saxophone, more associated with the dance hall
than the concert hall, is an odd choice. The sax sounds right for the
slow movement, but in the modal music of the finale, it sounds
strangely out of place, as if Hovhaness is trying, not very
successfully, to turn it into some Middle Eastern folk instrument,
maybe a cross between the mellow duduk and the strident zuma. Or maybe
that's not his intention at all. At any rate, for me this is far from
Hovhaness's best.
I'd have to say that none of this music represents the essential
Hovhaness, as interesting as it is to hear some of his earliest
surviving tributes to his Armenian roots. The playing by the dedicated
members of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and saxophonist Kenneth
Radnofsky can't be faulted, however. They receive pretty good
recordings in two different locales, though the recordings could have
benefited from a bit more depth and transparency. Still, for Hovhaness
enthusiasts and for those curious about the earlier works in his
canon, this is an enterprise worth exploring.
- Lee Passarella
http://audaud.com/2012/02/alan-hovhaness-works-armenian-rhapsodies-1-3-song-of-the-sea-sop-sax-concerto-exile-sym-bmopsound/