What these three symphonies have in common, of course, is their scoring for symphonic wind ensemble—in other words, an orchestra without strings. I know that the “Ani” Symphony has been recorded at least once before (by the composer, with the Highline and Shoreline College Bands). That disc is still in print. Also, this is not Keith Brion’s first Hovhaness recording; he conducted Symphonies Nos. 4, 20, and 53 for Naxos, along with some fillers, and that disc was reviewed, somewhat positively, in the July/August 2007 issue by Walter Simmons.

“Ani” is a 34-minute work dating from 1972. It is named for the ancient capital of Armenia, “the city of 1,001 cathedrals.” Naxos’s booklet includes a brief and evocative poem by the composer himself eulogizing this now ruined city. In the first movement, the wind ensemble creates impressive organ-like sonorities suggestive of a weighty cathedral. The sound of bells, both great and small, adds color. Later, there is a stoic solo for saxophone, and fluttering flutes suggest birds, interrupted by snarling brass glissandi. Then the chorale theme returns, with fugal development. One is struck by the appropriately rock-solid intonation of Trinity’s woodwinds and brass. Ani’s towers may have fallen, but the structures of Hovhaness’s music stand erect and unassailable in this performance. The second movement, described as a “humoresque” in Naxos’s notes, evokes the sound of a gamelan. Again, birdsong is an interlude. The lengthy final movement recalls much of the preceding material, introduces new material, and slowly builds to a heroic, tintinnabulating catharsis.

The other two symphonies each last just over 14 minutes. “Nanga Parvat” is another of the composer’s literally “mountainous” works—the title refers to a peak in Kashmir. Marked con ferocità and beginning with an extended passage for drums, the first movement seems to depict awe-inspiring and nearly impassable terrains. The second is a march as only Hovhaness could write one: ticklish in rhythm, and a little wild in its evocation of pomp from the Asian hinterlands. The last movement is marked “Sunset” and it brings the symphony to an atmospheric but unsentimental end.

“Ararat” alludes to another mountain, of course—one central to the culture of the composer’s Armenian heritage. The three movements are untitled. Hovhaness distinguishes between these two mountains by composing similarly uncompromising music in very different styles. “Ararat” more....

Review By Icon,October 2010

While he doesn’t get enough credit, Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000) was a major forerunner of combining the Western classical tradition with folk strains from Europe (especially Armenia) and Asia. Perhaps that’s because when the classical world was getting all “modern” (read: atonal, difficult, “noisy”) in the '50s, Hovhaness insisted on composing music a reasonably intelligent Joe Bagodoughnuts might find “pretty.” The symphonies here, while portions are indeed very pretty, also convey the natural severity of earthquakes and avalanches (specifically of the Kashmiri mountains) and the not-so-natural destruction of Ani, an Armenian city. These three symphonies are an audio equivalent of an IMAX nature documentary—awe inspiringly lovely and harrowing both.

Hovhaness describes the 26,000-foot Kashmir mountain Nanga Parvat (‘Without Trees’) as “serene, majestic, aloof, terrible in storm, forever frozen in treeless snow”. He was thinking about Nanga Parvat when he composed the 14-minute Symphony 7 (1959) for the American Wind Symphony. I is all pounding timpani and bass drums, with occasional comments by woodwinds and brass. II is meant to “suggest wild improvised marches in raucous woodwinds and false brass unisons”. III (‘Sunset’) consists of a beautiful, mournful melody played first by solo English horn, then by the various brass sections. The ending is oddly anticlimactic.

Symphony 14 (1960), also commissioned by the American Wind Symphony, is subtitled Ararat. Hovhaness calls it a “symphony of rough-hewn sounds” and says it depicts the “wild fierceness of volcanic earthquakes and avalanche-shaken mountains, rough stones, caves, rocks sculptured by tornados”. The first sounds are accented, sustained note clusters, uttered first by the clarinet section, then by horns, rumbling timpani, flutes, bassoons, oboes, guttural trombones, and so on (Hovhaness calls them “dragon-fly sounds”). Finally, unison clarinets begin a folk-like melody, accompanied by oboe clusters and a bassoon countermelody. Trumpets take up the melody, with some harmonically supportive bass accompaniment, even as the section clusters continue.

II is darker, with a somber melody and more of the dragon-fly sounds. III, strangely brief at three minutes, closes the work with only pounding drums and a powerful, sustained, soaring melody by trumpets—mostly unison, sometimes splintering into dissonant clusters.

The 34-minute Symphony 23 (1972) tells of Ani, “a ruined city, the capital of ancient Armenia”. It has an opening section with a melancholy melody and harmonious accompaniment, a beautiful clarinet trio, and a lovely saxophone solo. A middle section has pointillistic woodwinds leading to swooping, glissando-ing trombones. The harmoniousness returns. II gives a lively melody to what sounds like alto clarinet, xylophone, and chimes. Next a saxophone takes up the melody, accompanied by timpani, before passing it to a flute, then piccolo. And so it goes. III takes up the warm tones and harmonies of I. These go on, hypnotically and in a state of utter calm, for nearly seven minutes before the mood becomes somewhat more animated.

Kudos to Keith Brion for dusting off what may be a forgotten part of the wind band repertory. If these works offer few technical challenges, they demand perfection of intonation and timbral blend, and the fine Trinity College musicians (of Greenwich, England) deliver exactly that. Many aural pleasures are to be heard in this unusual music.more....

Review By Franck Mallet,Classica,September 2010


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Review By Michael Cookson,MusicWeb International,August 2010

Hovhaness’s prodigious output runs to some 500 or so published scores each often proclaiming a distinct, immediately recognisable and individual personality. The music is not inspired by organised religion in any conventional sense but is evidently guided by a profound spirituality and a deeply philosophical approach to the world. Frequently colourful and exotic the music is recurrently served by an intense sense of the spiritual beauty of nature and by sound-worlds created by large and broad-ranging orchestral forces.
 
Hovhaness gave many of his scores descriptive titles of a colourful and often memorable quality: Storm on Mount Wildcat; Symphony No.2 Mysterious Mountain; And God Created Great Whales; Symphony No. 22, City of Light and the Symphony No. 50 Mount St Helens. When requesting this Naxos disc I hadn’t noticed that the music was written for wind orchestra. This came as rather a surprise as I expected three symphonies of a similar instrumentation to that I had grown used to.
 
The first work on the disc the Symphony No. 7, ‘Nanga Parvat’, Op. 178 was composed in 1959 for wind orchestra with percussion and harp. The title Nanga Parvat, meaning ‘Naked Mountain’, is the name of the ninth highest mountain in the world. A dangerous and gigantic Himalayan peak Nanga Parvat is sometimes known as ‘Killer Mountain’.
 
Composed in 1960 the Symphony No. 14, ‘Ararat’, Op. 194 (1960) is scored for wind and percussion. The score is titled after the volcanic Mount Ararat in Turkey. According to the Book of Genesis in the Bible after the flood Noah’s Ark came to rest in the Ararat range. The disc closes with the Symphony No. 23, ‘Ani’, Op. 249 from 1972 calls for large wind orchestra and percussion. Situated in Turkey ‘Ani’ is the name of a once great and now ruined medieval Armenian city.
 
Keith Brion, the conductor of this release, has been involved in recording an acclaimed series of wind band music for John Philip Sousa for Naxos. It seems that Brion first made the acquaintance of Hovhaness back in 1964 and has made recordings with Hovhaness present. Based at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich the Trinity College of Music Wind Orchestra under Brion prove themselves marvellously suited to this remarkable music. These are strong and dedicated performances that feel fresh and engaging with much lovely playing.
 
This music for wind with percussion accompaniment may be an acquired taste for some. I certainly miss the additional colour provided by Hovhaness’s distinctive and often glorious string sounds. A splendidly performed disc that I suggest will appeal mainly to the more adventurous listener.

The Seventh Symphony dates from 1959. The purity of its rhythmic percussion tattoos and the hieratic nature of its brass calls give one an idea of the processional intensity of its dramaturgy. The loquacity of his wind writing implies a raft of interior monologues. The writing becomes more concentrated in the central movement where Hovhaness ensures themes are less fragmentary and by the finale things have turned positively Olympian. The percussion is now subservient to the brass calls, themselves more legato and ushering in a sunset glow, and a cooling, reflective consonance.

The following year he wrote Ararat, Symphony No.14. It makes much of ‘dragon fly’ sonorities, bright trumpets and glittering percussion once again but adds a further percussive layer via bell chimes and a buzzy series of terraced sonorities—dramatic, florid, and ground shaking in the central movement. The percussion starts up immediately in the finale but is gradually worn down by the sheer pugilistic insistence of the conquering brass.

The final symphony of the three is written on a much broader canvas than these two quarter of an hour works. But it too is a powerful construction, its chattering winds and terse declamation capturing the ear with great trenchancy. Drunken lowering lower brass add a leering patina as well, as do the aero engine and gamelan evocations. The finale is a wonderful example of nobility and processional tread with repeated figures passed from brass to wind adding a layer of sonic depth. We feel as if some vast castle is being evoked, as the brass calls resound from battlement to crenellation; Gormenghast in music.

Keith Brion has a long track-record with Hovhaness and he directs his forces with great vitality and precision. This splendid disc has been excellently engineered and admirers of the composer need not hesitate.

There may be some truth to the familiar criticism that Hovhaness wrote the same symphony 67 times. However, the variety of musical means and expressive gestures on display in these three middle-period works (written between 1959 and 1972) weakens the assertion. Both the Nanga Parvat and Ararat symphonies evoke fiercely beautiful Near Eastern and Asian terrain with a kind of ritualistic grandeur typical of other mountain-themed works by this composer, such as his famous Symphony No 2, Mysterious Mountain. All the fingerprints of Hovhaness’ mature style—modal scales, static melodies, complex metrical patterns, exotically colorful scoring—are present and accounted for…the performances are exceedingly well shaped and wrapped in clean recorded sound…

Brion’s interpretive performances are sharply focused, etched with clarity. The sound is terrific, the wind band brightly sonorous or murkily brooding as appropriate to the music at hand. In short, this is first-rate Hovhaness. It will give the newcomer to his music a good introduction; it will be a most welcome addition to the collection of Hovhaness admirers. He was one whose death in 2000 I personally mourned. But the music lives on, sounding as new and original as it did back when I first put that Heliodor LP on my father’s clunky old turntable.