A mysterious composer and some unexpected fourth of July listening
Is it Sibelius? Is it Rautavaara? No, it's...
Albert Imperato 10:43am GMT 5th July 2010
Summer evening twilight in the Hudson Valley
Can’t recall the last time that I stayed in a car to hear the end of a performance by an orchestra on the radio. But that’s what I did today on this steamy July 4, taking a break from sitting around our house to go down the hill and buy some egg sandwiches and a couple of newspapers.
I was listening to the local classical station as I pulled into a gas station, and I stayed in the car for close to ten minutes waiting to hear it until the end. At first it sounded like Sibelius – perhaps some tone poem I had never heard of – but towards the end it slowed down to a crawl, and the shifting harmonies sounded more like Rautavaara, especially with what sounded like arpeggios from the celesta. So that was my guess as the final chords came to a close: Rautavaara.
Wrong! It was actually the Second Symphony of Alan Hovhaness, conducted by Gerard Schwartz. The piece bears the name “Mysterious Mountain”, and as the announcer from Albany’s well-programmed classical station WMHT explained, the spiritual atmosphere of the work was meant to suggest the composer’s belief that the mountains, like the great Pyramids, were symbols of man’s aspirations to be close to God.
I’ve always had a terrible prejudice against Hovhaness thanks to a cranky buyer from Tower Records who would contort his face in the ugliest way when someone mentioned the composer. “I hate Hovhaness!” he would sneer in miserable fashion – not a pretty sight, and definitely not something that made you want to hear the composer’s music. When I got back to the house this afternoon, I realized that I had a few CDs of his music, including “Mysterious Mountain,” in a performance on Telarc by Gerard Schwarz and the Royal Liverpool Philaharmonic Orchestra (Amazon). Not sure if this is the performance I heard on the radio, but it’s what I’m listening to now as I pen this post.
The first movement had traces of Vaughan Williams in his most lyrical manner. The second movement is a double fugue, with a hymn chorale in the brass rising among fast-scurrying strings – like mountain peaks rising above the clouds. I’m now in the third movement, which is exactly where I was earlier when I stopped in the car to listen. The shifting, modal string sonorities once again conjure up Vaughan Williams (of Thomas Tallis mode), and, with the addition of the celesta, Rautavaara, but this time I know it’s Hovhaness’s music. Wow, did he really write 67 Symphonies? I’ve got a way to go to acquaint myself with them, but for now I’m very glad to have heard “Mysterious Mountain”. If readers have any recommendations for “next listens” of his music, please send them my way.
It’s now early evening and the heat and humidity that have gripped the Hudson Valley all day have settled in. I’m fairly stuck to my chair in the living room without much energy. Not the worst place to be since I still have plenty of Independence Day listening to do, including Copland’s Third Symphony, which I hope will rouse me from my lethargy. With that in mind, I’d like to mention a terrific album that I started the day off with: the Orchestra of New England’s collection of the Orchestral Music of Charles Ives – conducted by James Sinclair on the Koch label.
Along with the four numbered symphonies and the “Holidays” Symphony, this CD perfectly rounds out any basic collection of Ives’ orchestral music. The mix of repertoire is perfect, including the wonderful Country Band March, the four Ragtime Dances, A Set of Pieces and Three Places in New England. It’s an Ives collection for people who don’t think they like Ives as well as people who know that they do. It’s fun, quirky and enormously entertaining, and I think I’ll give it another spin now, as I get ready to light the barbecue and do some grilling in the July Fourth twilight.
Comments
The only Hovhaness I have is the 9th, St. Vartan, and I wouldn't particularly recommend it. Maybe it's time to give the man another chance on the grounds that I, too, have perhaps been prejudiced against him by the opinions of the classical music gurus. Certainly, reviewers in a certain well-know classical music magazine were very sniffy about this composer back in the 70s and 80s.
On the other side of the coin, I've been burnt more than once after being bowled over by a certain work, then going out and buying cds in the hope of finding more of the same in that composer's canon. I just spent the last week going through William Schuman's symphonies only to come to the conclusion that either side of the 3rd - the work that turned me on to him - it's downhill fast. The V.C. is a fine work, the 4th, bits of the 5th and middle of the 9th are OK, but elsewhere there seems to be a whole lot of empty gesturing.
There are gems in the byways of music, but dead-ends too.
You make a very good point, and I too have had similar experiences with some of William Schuman's lesser-known symphonies. You might add Roy Harris to a similar list. Not sure yet about Villa-Lobos and Darius Milhaud, both of whom were prolific (12 symphonies for the former, 15 for the latter). But when it comes to an orchestral music junkie like me, hope always springs eternal!
Discovering a piece of new music to one on a car radio is one of life's pleasures, best if you get the opportunity to hear it to the end and find out what it is, frustrating if business calls you away before this and you have to switch off.
My first exposure to Hovhaness was not propitious either. After a long period of investigating tonal music often of great complexity, the simplicity and euphony of his music seemed rather trivial: my first exploration was of the 9th Symphony as well. Thirty years on, and with minimalism of various types now well established in public taste, I have revised my earlier views. Symphony 2 makes a good start; the 6th and 22nd have a refinement all of their own, and - apart from the eruption - the Mt St Helens Symphony has a certain appealing grace.
Many days and umpteen attempts to log in later .....................................
Many would agree with you, Albert, re. Harris, but I'm not one of them. I think the Harris 'problem' is similar to Bruckner's: his language is so individual and so different from that of any other composer, that there's a tendency to hear only the similarities from one symphony to another. But if you spend enough time on them you realize, or at least I did, that they've all got something different to say. To my ears #7 is at least the equal of the well-known third. I can't put it better than Peter Jona Korn in the second volume of the old Pelican "The Symphony':
"It is sometimes maintained that, in his subsequent symphonies, Harris has done nothing essentially new, that he has in effect merely re-written the Third. As a statement of fact there is a grain of truth in this, as a criticism, there is not: each new symphony represents a further step in his development ........"
Schuman, to me, is a different issue. If great music engages the mind, the ear and the heart, good music two out of those three, Schuman's later symphonies seem overwhelmingly cerebral. At the other end of the scale, critics of Hovhaness would say he is all ear, nothing else. But that's music. One man's meat ......................
I believe I have Harris's 7th on hand and will try it this weekend too. Thanks!
Thanks so much for writing about such a not famous composer! Makes me want to search him on every music store, youtube, you name it!
Thank you