Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)
Concerto No. 2 for violin and strings, Op. 89a (1951-57)
Yeraz (The Dream), Op. 56, No. 2 (1945)
Khirgiz Suite, Op. 73, No. 1 (1951)
Les Baux, Op. 261(1973)*
Violin Sonata, Op. 11(1937)*
3 Visions of St. Mesrob, Op. 198 (1962)
Varak, Op. 47a (1944)
Oror (Lullaby), Op. 1 (1922/6) (arr. D.P. Perna)*
Zina Schiff (violin), Valerie Stark (piano)
Salzburg Chamber Soloists/Avlana Eisenberg
rec. 2016, Salzburg, Austria, 2022 Rosindale, USA
*first recording
Naxos 8.559957 [71]
Naxos have been dedicated in releasing music by Alan Hovhaness and choosing the music can have been no easy task. His synthesis of Eastern and Western musical elements, channelled through his Armenian heritage has drawn admirers and detractors. Like Milhaud, Hovhaness wrote hundreds of works, and not all are of the finest quality. From Opus 1 in 1926 to Opus 434 in 1995 there are works for every imaginable combination of instruments and some for previously unimagined combinations. There is a Sonata for Hichiriki & Sho, and a work for Oud and orchestra. His most famous work is probably the moving ecological cri de coeur And God Created Great Whales (1970) (review) for recorded whale singing and orchestra. Of his sixty-seven symphonies, the second subtitled Mysterious Mountain (1955) was once extremely popular, and the fiftieth named Mount St Helens (1982) (review) which commemorated that mountain’s 1980 eruption gained some notoriety due to its graphic depiction of the eruption.
He is long overdue a serious study as there are many contradictions in sources for his music. For instance, on this website, Eric Kunz talks of 467 opus numbers (Hovhaness on CD), while the official website lists 434. However, the opus numbers often contain multiple works; Opus 87, for example, houses four separate motets, while Opus 98 houses a Partita and three concertos. Even the naming of works is a challenge as the Concerto No. 2 for violin and strings, op. 89a (1951-57) recorded here is not the Second Violin Concerto as that name is reserved for Opus 431 from 1993 (there does not seem to be a Violin Concerto no 1). The work here is numbered two in a cycle of concertos of which Arevakal Opus 88, a concerto for orchestra without soloist, is number one. Confusing the concerto list further is a concerto for cello from 1927 which was published in 1937 as Opus 27 but is now classified as Opus 17 No 1, Opus 17 No 2 being the Symphony No.1.
This violin concerto was completed in 1957 incorporating as its first movement a work called Sivas from 1951. Surprisingly, this is its third recorded outing having appeared before on a 1957 MGM vinyl with Anahid Ajemian as soloist and a 1995 CD with Annie Jodry as soloist on the French label Marcal Productions.
The concerto eschews a traditional format and is shaped in seven short movements. Surprisingly for such a form, it does sound like a concerto and not a suite. The opening Pastoral from 1951 could not be by anyone but Hovhaness. A drone is sounded and plucked patterns of indeterminate timings, what Hovhaness often called in the scores “spirit sounds”, accompany the soloist who contributes a fast flowing and seamless melody. Movements two to five alternate slow and fast material. The fast, dance-like movements give him the opportunity to explore music from his dual Armenian and Scottish heritage and propel the work along. The slow movements, two and four entitled Aria,are, however, the key to the concerto and prepare us for movement six which is, at nearly six minutes, the spiritual soul of the concerto. This Recitative and Lullaby, has the violin’s unmetered flourishes answered by lushly harmonised and richly scored chords. This is the type of music which the composer did so well, and which conversely probably damaged his reputation as he did it so often – perhaps too often. Music flowed from him often in a torrent which he often did not restrain. I wrote the biography of the choreographer Sir Robert Cohan who worked with Hovhaness in the 1950s and who told me that his studio was chaotically covered in pages and pages of manuscripts in seemingly random piles. He would often sit at the piano and improvise until his fingers bled. Here, Hovhaness held his excesses in check and the material, which has the feeling of a lament, is beautifully structured by the composer and musically shaped by Ms Schiff and the Salzburg Chamber Soloists. The movement segues into the final Hymn which sees the concerto end beatifically and serenely, as enigmatically as it began.
This really is an exceptionally fine and satisfying work which hangs together as a cogent whole. The soloist sounds like the first among equals, sometimes rising out of the orchestra and at others very much part of the textures. The Salzburg Chamber Soloists are effectively conducted by Ms Schiff’s daughter Avlana Eisenberg, who gets to the emotional heart of the work.
The pause between the concerto and the next work Yeraz (The Dream) is too short and somewhat spoils the effect of both. Scored for solo violin, it opens with a slow, impassioned thaumaturgical invocation to which are added double stops. As it grows it ascends before ending with a lively folk-like dance. Ms Schiff approaches it with the dignity one would give a Bach partita.
The Khirgiz Suite for violin and piano uses fragments of traditional Tatar folk tunes which are subjected to very effective though staggeringly simple variation. The first Theme and Variations begins sounding like a forerunner of Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel with its simple triplets in the piano over which the violin elaborates on the melody. The simplicity of the method belies the effect. The lively middle movement A Khirgiz Tala in the unusual time of 15/8 is quite delicious. The final movement with its hollow fourths and fifths in the piano and spiccato melody, beautifully spiky here, remind me of horses galloping over the expanse of the steppes.
Les Baux, here receiving its first recording, is a nocturnal work that conjures up a Debussian dream world. The violin is rhapsodic here, rising from the depths and soaring to the heights while the piano supports with low pedal tones and elaborate melisma. It is an entrancing work that for me is over too quickly.
I am surprised that the 1937 Violin Sonata is still unpublished as it is once again a remarkably effective piece. Here the 26-year-old composer demonstrates his understanding of traditional compositional techniques while adding in music that hints at his later Eastern influences. Here is a young composer who knows what he wants to say and how to say it. There is no extraneous material and it is simple and direct. The opening is clear and direct with clearly differentiated subjects that are simply developed. The following movements seem to explore his heritage. The slow movement has touches of Armenian music about it while the second seems to hint at Scottish folk dance but of a very genteel kind. Hovhaness was clearly taken with the work and reused material from it in Avak the Healer (1946) where it clearly inspires the soprano line in the second movement Dawn, and in the St. Vartan Symphony (1950) where the main theme of the finale appears in a much more vigorous form in movement six, (in recordings about nine minutes in).
The Three Visions of St. Mesrob is named after Mesrop Mashtots, a fifth-century Armenian theologian and composer. This is quite different in sound to the sonata. The two dark, brooding outer movements where the violin’s chant like melodies are accompanied by unexpected bird-like patterns and clusters in the piano are evocative of Messiaen. I think anyone hearing the opening piano chords would not associate them with Hovhaness, but they are highly effective in drawing the listener into the work. In an interview in The Strad, Ms Schiff compared playing the central movement Celestial Bird to Vaughan Williams’ the Lark Ascending which is not something I had thought of myself but just maybe… I was however struck by its similarity to the passage beginning at letter 12 (about eight minutes in in most recordings) in Hovhaness’ landmark work Lousadzakof 1944.
Next comes Varak which takes its name from a sacred mountain range in Armenia. The work is in two distinct parts. In the first marked noble and majestic, the violin provides more of the composer’s trademark melismatic melodies against a chorale like accompaniment. There is much play between major and minor disagreements. For some reason I found myself thinking of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The shorter second section, marked Allegro, is a quick folk dance with a running interplay between the two players. I found the sound a little boxy in this track, something I did not notice in the others.
The disc ends with a beautiful, and idiomatic, arrangement by Dana Pau Perna for violin, strings, and harp of Oror, Hovhaness’ earliest acknowledged work, originally for violin and piano. Oror, which means lullaby in Armenian, is where the composer felt he had come to a stage where he was comfortable with incorporating sounds from his Armenian heritage alongside Western tradition. It is an impressive work for a composer in his late teens, and it is given an affecting reading here.
All the performers are to be commended on this ear-opening disc, particularly violinist Zina Schiff, who led on the project. Her ability to shape the simplest of material and bring to the surface underlying emotional and spiritual intention is inspiring.
The two works with ensemble were recorded in 2016, with the others being recorded in 2022 and there is a difference in the recorded sound. The ensemble tracks are noticeably more spacious than the chamber works. That said, Ms Schiff and Ms Stark make an excellent team.
Paul RW Jackson
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