DE 3157

ALAN HOVHANESS (1911–2000)

Mysterious Mountain (Symphony No. 2) (17:00)1. I. Andante con moto (5:58)2. II. Double Fugue (5:31)3. III.Andante espressivo (5:19)

4. Prayer of St. Gregory (4:45)Charles Butler, trumpet solo

5. Prelude and Quadruple Fugue (7:25)

6. And God Created Great Whales (12:14)

7. Alleluia and Fugue (9:13)

8. Celestial Fantasy (8:15)

Seattle SymphonyGerard Schwarz, conductor

Total Playing Time: 59:30

7 & W 1994 Delos Productions, Inc., P.O. Box 343, Sonoma, California 95476-9998(707) 996-3844 • (800) 364-0645 • contactus@delosmusic.comMade in USA • www.delosmusic.com

Executive Producer: Amelia S. HaygoodRecording Producer: Walter GrayRecording Engineer: Al SwansonAssistant Engineer: Matthew LutthansEditors: Ramiro Belgardt, Stephen BasiliProduction Assistant: Phyllis Bernard

Recorded: September 24 & 26, 1993 / Seattle Opera House

Recorded in 20-bit format on the Nagra-D20-bit / 16-bit conversion via Prism AD-1 Digital Editing: Sony DAE 3000Monitor Loudspeakers: Nesterovic Type 5Microphones: Sanken CU41; Neumann KM130, KM 140

Humpback Whale Recording:Thanks to HUBBS-SEA WORLD Research InstituteJon Francine, Bioacoustics Lab ManagerJoe Matesic: RecordistRecorded off the North Shore of KauaiApril 16, 1993Frank Powell, Executive Director of HUBBS

Cover Photos:Mountain: © James MacDonaldWhale: © 1993 James Gritz/GLOBAL PICTURES

Design: Tri Arts, Inc.Graphics: Steven Dudeck

Special Thanks:Bill Hogan - Sprocket DigitalMike Denicke - Studer

At the recording session with (left to right) Delos President andfounder Amelia Haygood, conductor Gerard Schwarz andcomposer Alan Hovhaness.

There are places in the imagination where journeysunfold, where serenity and truth reside. In theseplaces, the spirit responds to softly beckoning in-

tuitions, which in turn become pathways to summits ofpeace and profundity. And along the pathways, exqui-site details vibrate with color, ephemeral and frag-mented, the mindscape fertile and enigmatic. AlanHovhaness is just such a traveler, a seeker of that whichis spiritual and true, and his vehicle is music.

And Hovhaness’ 2nd Symphony,Mysterious Mountain(1955), is just such a place, imaginary. It is of no impor-tance that the title was added later and that it does notdescribe a particular place. One can still journey there,and by a path of one’s own choosing. Of an early per-formance of the symphony, critic Claudia Cassidy wrotein the Chicago Tribune: “It seems to remind everyone ofsomething...and it reminds me of the Alhambra. I don’texpect you to take the same journey, but there it is for

me in its rich textures, its formalized designs, its serenityof scrolls and arabesques, its sudden sounds—harpsounds—of water spilling with a glint of the metallicinto a hidden pool.”

Even if the particular journey is open to interpretation,the composer’s intention is clear: to create an aural im-pression steeped in his own spiritual philosophy.Namely, that “Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, ofman’s attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolicmeeting places between the mundane and spiritualworlds. To some, the Mysterious Mountain may be thephantom peak, unmeasured, thought to be higher thanEverest, as seen from great distances by fliers in Tibet. Tosome, it may be the solitary mountain, the tower ofstrength over a countryside—Fujiyama, Ararat, Monad-nock, Shasta or Grand Teton.”

That imaginary place where the “mundane and spiritualworlds” meet is the logical quest of an artist such asHovhaness. Early in his eclectic education he developeda passion for the mysticism of sound, which was first fedby exposure to Armenian and Indian cultures, and laterby those of Japan and China. When combined with hisformal studies at the New England Conservatory, the re-

notes on the program

To me, atonality is against nature. There is acenter to everything that exists. The planetshave the sun, the moon, the earth.

Alan Hovhaness

sult is a compositional synthesis of both Occidental andOriental styles, fashioned in such a way as to beuniquely accessible to listeners of all musical tastes. Thisis perhaps why the list of his champions is so long andso diverse: Leopold Stokowski, Howard Hanson, AndréKostelanetz, Milton Katims, the C.F. Peters Corporation,the Fulbright, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and FrommFoundations, Clifford Odets and Martha Graham.

The symphony as a genre, of course, was the product ofOccidental imagination. But it is in the Baroque contextof symphony as a multi-movement work for instru-ments, not in the classical context of symphony as a for-mal structure, that Hovhaness manipulates sonorities toachieve his expressive goals. Textures are often contra-puntal or chorale-like and, although sonorities are richlyromantic, modal treatments harken back to Renaissancechoral music. Of Mysterious Mountain, Hovhaness writes:“The first and last movements are hymn-like and lyrical,using irregular metrical forms. The first subject of thesecond movement, a double fugue, is developed in aslow vocal style. The rapid second subject is played bythe strings, with its own counter-subject and with strictfour-voice canonic episodes and triple counterpointepisodes...In the last movement a chant in 7/4 is playedsoftly by muted horns and trombones. A giant wave in a13-beat meter rises to a climax and recedes...A middle

melody is sung by the oboes and clarinets in a quintuplebeat. Muted violins return with the earlier chant, whichis gradually given to the full orchestra.”

It was conductor Leopold Stokowski who introducedthe public to Hovhaness’ first of the now more than 60symphonies, Symphony No. 1, Exile (1942). The collabo-ration met with such success that the conductor latercommissioned a second symphony, Mysterious Moun-tain, for his opening concert with the Houston Sym-phony. Of that performance, Hubert Roussel wrote inthe Houston Post: “Hovhaness produces a texture ofthe utmost beauty, gentleness, distinction and expres-sive potential. The real mystery of Mysterious Mountainis that it should be so simply, sweetly, innocently lovelyin an age that has tried so terribly hard to avoid thoseimpressions in music.”

Much the same could be said of Prayer of Saint Gre-gory, a simple, homophonic string chorale supporting aplaintive trumpet solo. Reminiscent of Charles Ives’Unanswered Question, but without the insistence or dis-cord, the strings rise gradually as if to reach the heavens.Known as the Illuminator, Saint Gregory brought Chris-tianity to Armenia around the year 301. The work wasoriginally conceived as an intermezzo for the opera Etch-miadzin (1946).

If one were to trace influences on Hovhaness’ composi-tional style, none would be more evident than the con-trapuntal techniques of the Baroque. Prelude andQuadruple Fugue (1936;1954) is a case in point. Chal-lenged by composer Roy Harris to write a double fugue,Hovhaness doubled the challenge. The prelude is a shortand lyrical introduction to a masterful treatment of fourseparate fugue subjects, all of which combine to createan effusive and extravagant conclusion. When ques-tioned about his interest in counterpoint, Hovhaness re-sponded: “Fugue form I use strictly; I apply it to themodes. I like to develop these principles because I feelthey are universal. I have always been a great admirer ofBach and Handel.” (It is interesting to note that J.S.Bach’s Art of the Fugue ends with a quadruple fugue.) Inits first incarnation, the work was scored for strings(1936), but later Hovhaness rescored it for full orchestraand dedicated it to Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra (1954-55). The com-poser’s form analysis of the fugue is as follows:

1st subject: legato, in fugal expositionEpisode and canonic stretto2nd subject: staccato, in fugal expositionCombinations of Subjects 1 and 2 in double counter-point

3rd subject: faster dotted rhythm, in fugal expositionCombinations of Subjects 1, 2 and 3 in triple counter-point

4th subject; presto, in fugal expositionCombinations of all four subjects in quadruple coun-terpoint

Free coda

And God Created Great Whales (1970) is uniqueamong the compositions on this disc. It is, infact, less “composed,” even at times aleatoric.

Players are instructed to “continue repetition, rapidlyand not together in free non-rhythm chaos” for a givenperiod of time; and later, “very wild and powerful!”From the din, a pentatonic melody emerges, preparingthe way for four recorded songs of the great humpbackwhale. (For musical purposes, the third song has beenslowed down to lower the pitch, but the low pitch of thefourth remains at actual speed.) The result is a haunt-ingly portentous depiction of earth as it emerges from itsprimordial chaos. The composer writes: “Free rhythm-less vibrational passages, each string player playing in-dependently, suggests waves in a vast ocean sky.Undersea mountains rise and fall in horns, trombonesand tuba. Music of whales also rises and falls like moun-tain ranges. Song of whale emerges like a giant mythical

sea bird. Man does not exist, has not yet been born in thesolemn oneness of Nature.”

If portions of Mysterious Mountain evoke Renaissancechoral writing, the “Alleluia” of Alleluia and Fugue(1941) does so even more. Both modal and imitative,the piece seems to intone the syllables of the title, thecomposer giving testimony to his faith. And here thelistener travels some of those same mysterious paths ashe does in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Themeof Thomas Tallis. The lushness of the violins and cellos,divided into 6 parts and 2 parts, respectively, sets intomotion a multitude of vibrations, as if to rival the leg-endary harmonies of the Universe. “Fugue” is a strict,Baroque-style fugue in five voices with a steadycounter subject. The fifth voice is derived by dividingthe cellos into two parts, and double basses are usedprimarily as reinforcement. About two-thirds of theway through, the forward motion comes suddenly to ahalt and a brief, quiet episode, based on the countersubject, prepares the way for the final stretto. Interest-ingly, the final statement of the subject comes not in thebass, but in the high first violins.

Just as content takes precedence over strict form in Hov-haness’ symphonies, both content and form seemequally important in Celestial Fantasy (1935; orch.1944). This is particularly noteworthy because the wordfantasy usually denotes less formal control. But CelestialFantasy is in fact a highly organized, 4-voice fugue, withmany of the trappings of a Baroque fugue: inversion,augmentation and simultaneous combinations of thetwo techniques. Marked “noble and heroic,” the score isdedicated to Armenian saint and mystic poet NersesShnorhali, head of the Armenian Church around 1100.

With the possible exception of And God Created GreatWhales, the descriptive titles and dedications of these fa-vorite Hovhaness works are rather more like guide postsalong a road, than actually programmatic in intent. Butimaginary journeys can lead to real places, too, placeswhere nature and man become one, places of spiritualhealing and peace. So it seems for Hovhaness the com-poser, and so it is for the receptive listener.

Neil Stannard