Hovhaness: Mountain Fantasies for Piano (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Blue Job Mountain Sonata; Prospect Hill Sonata; Mt. Katahdain Sonata; Pastoral No. 1; Hymn for Mt. Chocorua; 12 Armenian Folk Songs; Farewell to the Mountains. Haskell Small, piano. MSR Classics MS 1796

Although Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) may not be widely regarded by music fans as one of the great American composers, his music stands as some of the breathtakingly beautiful music to have been composed by an American in the twentieth century, and deserves to be more widely performed and appreciated. Gerard Schwarz led the Seattle Symphony in a number of fine recordings of his orchestral music for the Delos label that were later rereleased by Naxos. The majority of these were recorded by legendary engineer John Eargle in demonstration-quality sound. Schwarz later recorded some Hovhaness for the Telarc label, on a disc that our John Puccio reviewed here, and there is a famous recording by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of that same Mysterious Mountain Symphonythat John reviewed here. This latest release from MSR Classics also centers around mountains, but this time the music is for solo piano, here performed by the American composer and pianist Haskell Small (b. 1948).

 

In his fascinating liner note essay, Robert Aubry Davis (SiriusXM listeners should find that name familiar) notes how important mountains are to the culture of Armenia (Hovhaness’s father was Armenian, and after college, Hovhaness served for a time as the organist at an Armenian church). As a boy, then young Hovhaness spent many hours hiking the hills near his uncle’s farm in western Massachusetts. Davis points out that “musical references to mountains run from his earliest to his very last compositions.” This is an important thread in the composer’s work, but Davis then goes on to reveal something quite extraordinary about Hovhaness, an aspect of his life that was previously unknown to me; something that ties Hovhaness to a composer I would never have supposed. “The other thread, which brings us to this recording, is the importance of the piano in his life and work… according to Hovhaness himself, after a punishing life disappointment, he credited another pianist who also is almost exclusively known for his non-piano compositions) with nearly saving his life. Composer Roger Sessions had taken an interest in Hovhaness from those high school days. However, Sessions apparently gave a brutal assessment of Hovhaness’s compositions at the New England Conservatory. The reports vary, but apparently over some weeks, in reaction to this, Hovhaness burned between 500 and 1000 of his own compositions. He sought both a musical ally and hero after this. As he later shared with me, Hovhaness had felt a profound musical kinship with the foreboding Finn, Jean Sibelius, noting that in the slow movement of the Fourth Symphony he found a kind of spiritual evocation of his own sense of despair. So he decided to make a pilgrimage.”

 

Davis goes on to relate that Hovhaness and his young wife then went to visit Sibelius at his home if Finland, where Sibelius sat the young American down in front of his grand piano and asked him to play some of his compositions for piano. “Sibelius was defensive of his piano works: ‘I know that they have a secure future; I know it despite the fact that they have completely fallen into oblivion,’ he said. In our time, only Glenn Gould (outside of some Finnish pianists) has been a secure champion of the pieces. But apparently, Sibelius was not only impressed with how wonderfully Hovhaness played them sight unseen for the first time, but how the American went on to express what an inspiration the elder Finn’s compositions were to his own. They became friends to Sibelius’s death; Sibelius in fact became godfather to Hovhaness’s  only daughter, who was named Jean Christina after Jean Christian Sibelius himself.” 

Those who may have been exposed to the piano music of Sibelius by recordings such as the  delightfully rewarding – and highly recommendable – collection by Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes would probably be hard-pressed to find much similarity between the piano music of the two composers other than that neither was given to writing flashy keyboard pyrotechnic displays. In contrast, the music featured on this collection is clearly not about virtuosic technique; instead, especially in the first three sonatas, the music has an almost hymnlike quality to it, an incantatory feeling, almost as if Hovhaness were writing music of ritual praise to mountain spirits. Underlying that ritualistic sense there is a clear folk influence, a human aspect, a desire to dance. Although the title of Pastoral No. 1 might seem to imply something light and breezy, but instead the piece opens with some darker shades of sound produced from inside the piano. The music is not harsh, or threatening, but brooding, pensive – Hovhaness reflecting intensely upon a scene in nature and finding a quiet, glowing beauty to share with the listener. A remarkable piece.

 

The Hymn for Mt. Chocurua opens in stately hymn style, but soon switches to an energetic folk/dance rhythm bursting with energy, then closes with a hymn that seems to have picked up some of the energy from the preceding dance interlude. The 12 Armenian Folk Songs are lively, brief (most under a minute, the longest clocking in. at 2:47), and basically a dozen minutes of light fun. The concluding Farewell to the Mountains continues in. much then same musical vein – it could well be the thirteenth folk song. Davis recollects that Hovhaness considered mountains to be “the symbolic meeting place between the mundane and spiritual worlds.” In this recording, which includes elements of folk dance, hymn tunes, echoes of nature, and mystical incantations, the listener is certainly lifted above the mundane. Most classical music fans have plenty of piano music by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, etc. in their collections – how about a fascinating CD of Hovhaness? Try it – you might like it.