I like the music of Alan Hovhaness. Maybe being half Armenian, I somehow relate to the rather "oriental" melodies that Hovhaness incorporates into his works. Or, perhaps the composer's minimalistic approach is like a balm after the listening intensity of say, Mahler's 6th symphony. Well, I don't really know why, I guess, this fascination for Hovhaness though his music does speak from his deeply spiritual and honest heart....I respect that immensely.
This Heliodor lp, from an MGM original, features a piano and violin concerto. It is extremely fine and a fitting introduction to this most fascinating, yet open of composers. Certainly having the excellent composer Carlos Surinach on the podium is a huge bonus. Boy, oh boy, one of the great shames is that Surinach's small but vital recorded legacy is all but locked in the vaults! The soloists, sisters Maro and Anahid Ajemian, prove to be the very best advocates for this music since both not only sympathesize with Hovhaness' art (they were strong advocates for the composer), and they were very much artists that made a specialty of music of their century.
Coming back to Alan Hovhaness. Born a few miles down the road from where I live, a man who gravitated to the east searching for answers and exploring the origins of culture, first towards his father's homeland in Turkey and then farther towards orient and birthplace of his Japanese wife. No doubt, Hovhaness was a brilliant man, an intellect of the highest order who sought to speak his message of brotherhood and decency through seemingly uncomplicated and accessible music. I think a key to understanding Hovhaness is through his own words, here in an interview from 1971 in Ararat magazine, a publication of the Aremain General Benevolent Union:
"We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this ... The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way ... It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use."
Wow.
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