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Alan Hovhaness Slovenská Filharmónia; Rastìslav Štúr [cond.]
OgreOgress publishes its second Hovhaness release. The last one was a disc with Christina Fong on violin and viola and Arved Ashby on keyboard, performing a magic hour of Alan Hovhaness on those instruments. This time around Christina Fong is back on the same instruments, with colleagues on piano, trumpet and sitar, plus a philharmonic orchestra. This is a splendid release for a number of reasons. For one thing, the duration is extended, the worth of a double CD on one audio DVD, plus some material on the CD side of the dual disc. This is my first dual disc, and I’m not quite used to the format. The CD side simply carries some of the material from the audio DVD side, perhaps for the benefit of those not in possession of a DVD player or a computer, rather than just leaving that side empty. I don’t know how the label people reasoned. In addition to the nice duration, the interviews with Hovhaness are very valuable, even inspiring, telling you a lot about the very special man he was, way ahead of his time, or, really: timeless. The music itself is wonderfully interpreted, and I sincerely enjoy the choice of material. I have listened attentively to the interviews, on this release as well as on the recording from 1976 available on Other Minds and their Radiom. Their Hovhaness recording is one of the few recordings that you actually CAN listen to at Other Minds, because they keep using some extremely dysfunctional software to distribute their sounding archives. For one thing, they won’t let you download the stuff, so you have to record the stream, if you want to store the sounds on a CD or in an mp3 file or something. Furthermore, their player doesn’t work in a way that you can figure out. On each radio show page there is a link saying, “listen”. With that link you get transported, not to a stream of that program, but to a little pop-up kind of player where SOME of the programs are available, BUT you always first start a program about George Antheil, no matter which program you wanted to listen to. Then you can scroll to find a few of the programs, but not at all all of them. Enough of that! When I hear these Hovhaness interviews I’m struck by the sense of intellectual freedom that he opens to the listener. He really is a liberator of the mind and a liberator of the senses, through his word as well as his music. He sees obvious things about music/instruments/life – and he says them, loud and clear. Somehow the veil of Maya was lifted in front of Alan Hovhaness, giving him this special gift of clarity. Hovhaness indeed was a man without a place in time; a visionary for all ages, almost shockingly self-evident and natural, with thoughts completely transparent and without obscurities, the way they come across like close relatives to light in these brief interviews on OgreOgress’ audio DVD and the Other Minds conversation with Charles Amirkhanian, lighting up the moment in its lucid everness. I feel refreshed by the thoughts he dresses in words in the interviews. They’re like a breeze when you’re warm; water when you’re thirsty – simply through their unspeculative and simple clarity and naturalness. You don’t experience this influence often. I can feel the same way listening to John Cage and the Dalai lama, but right off I can’t think of any other person that simply by talking and explaining his thoughts can sort of cleanse my own mind. Let me quote from the first interview on OgreOgress’ release, when Hovhaness says: “I’m not satisfied with religions the way they are, in creeds, but there is a religious principle in nature itself, which I feel is the most important thing, […] to find one’s position in the universe; to find one’s place in nature. [That is] one thing we have to do, because Man is merely a conqueror, he’s merely a military, and militant in his attitude, and his idea is to conquer everything. So of course he’ll conquer the world and destroy the world from under his feet, but a more religious attitude to rather merge with everything rather than conquer, might possibly save him […] I think that, to me, the closest to natural religion is the primitive Shinto or shamanistic sort of religions, which were all over the world originally […]” Dylan couldn’t have said it better in Masters of War or License to Kill! In another interview Hovhaness describes how inspiration hit him with such force when he was younger, that he couldn’t bear it, but had to come to terms with it during long walks, when he would exhaust himself physically, making it impossible for him to work his ideas out practically when he came home. Coming of age, he learned how to cope with inspiration and actually work compositional matters out during the walks. Later on he describes a view that came to him more like a vision, still when he was quite young: “…a visionary experience that happened one time; I was on a hill, and suddenly I saw […] a view that I’d never seen before, of another country, and I didn’t know what it meant; I thought how marvelous this country is. Of course, it’s a known fact that Alan Hovhaness merged modes and moods from various Eastern cultures with various Western cultures, very freely, but perhaps it is not widely appreciated how deep this really went. Antony Hopkins, who also speaks in the interview section of OgreOgress’ audio DVD, points out that Hovhaness, who claimed to write music embracing all faiths, perhaps was considered somewhat strange by his contemporaries at the time. Hopkins also observes that Hovhaness’ way of applying unfamiliar instrumental sounds into his compositions further repelled the majority, such as the use of instruments and musics “from the Himalayas, from Southern India, the orchestral music of the Tang dynasty of China, 7th century chants from Armenia, or the 11th century Gagaku music that was played in the ancient courts of Japan. Throw in a deep passion for the opera oratorios of Handel, and you have a mixture that is liable to seem so exotic as to be unacceptable to Western ears. […] Hovhaness is by no means indifferent to 20th century developments. For instance, he uses aleatoric procedures frequently, in which a number of instruments are given repetitive patterns to play in free time so that an effect of random sound emerges.” One of the interviews contained on this phonogram gets real close to that rhythm through the room, that density in space that is Alan Hovhaness, so I allow myself to quote from it for your convenience: “I learned the shō. Of course, that’s one of the most celestial, perhaps the most celestial sound in all music. It’s a mouth organ, and that’s the instrument of harmony in ancient music. It has a whole system of harmony, entirely different from our own, but actually not so unlike some of the harmony in Wagner’s Tristan, so I always think perhaps Wagner was a gagaku composer way back in a former incarnation. […] The sitar I […] played in Boston when I was a very young man. I learned it, and I had friends, artist friends, who didn’t like symphony music, or any classical music. They liked only the Indian music, so we used to invite Indian amateur musicians to come and teach us Indian instruments. The sitar I never played as well as I did the veena [that] I found I could improvise on. The veena is a wonderful instrument. It’s a South Indian instrument. It’s a string instrument, [with] a very beautiful sound, a very vocal quality and very appealing, so I used to compose music […] on the veena; just improvise it, and then I’d write it down. […] North Indian music was the first that I heard. Most of the people who came to study technical subjects in technology or science and so on, were amateur North Indian musicians. They would bring their instruments because they felt homesick and would like to make music in their new environment, but South Indian music was not known in this country during that time, and later I was able to study it. But the veena, however, is used in both North India and South India, so that instrument I was familiar with, and I’m very fond of South Indian music. […] I can’t say I played well, but I played that many instruments now and then, and folk instruments of the Near East such as the saz and the oud, which is a lute. I played those, and composed on them too. I can’t remember off hand all the instruments I fooled around with, but these are the instruments [on which] I required most skill. I’ve always wanted to play the violin, but that was impossible in my childhood, because there wasn’t enough money, I guess, for me to study violin, but I fooled around with that too, on my own. I studied and played two types of shamisen [for the] doll theater; that’s what the music is for, and I studied with a master, a really wonderful teacher, to learn music for the doll theater; that’s the large shamisen. The Naga-utu shamisen I had great fun with, just improvising and playing Japanese songs. […] I forgot to mention organ, for that’s a keyboard instrument, and any keyboard I could play, so I was able to earn my living in all kinds of ways; partly by playing organ in churches […]” Hovhaness gives his views on Western instrumentation, concerning the symphony orchestra and its various offspring, and he also gets into the effects of the temperate tuning of the keyboard instruments that has been common in the West since Bach, in contrast to just intonation (which has been used by many of the modern composers such as La Monte Young - amply demonstrated in his six-hour Well-Tuned Piano! - Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros, to mention a few), and Hovhaness points out that the negative effects of such equal temperament don’t need to affect orchestral writing, at least not concerning string orchestras: “I love all the instruments, and I think that, used properly, they can convey almost any kind of sound you want, and almost any kind of music you want. The orchestra is a beautiful instrument, and […] the string orchestra is probably the greatest instrument […] that Europe – or Western civilization – has so far created. The fact [is] that the keyboard instruments, such as the piano, have dominated orchestral writing too much since the last century [19th century]. Of course, Wagner used the piano all the time to compose, […] but he thought orchestrally. The piano is always out of tune, so it can be acceptably in tune in every key. Therefore, there’s a certain out-of-tune quality in equal temperament, which doesn’t have to exist in the orchestra. The orchestra can adjust to any changing situation and still use absolutely pure intonation, so I think, if we could improve… or rather take away some of the improvements that have been made in keyed wind instruments, […] we could have a more flexible orchestra. The trombone is the last survival of the old civilization. […] The trombones were used as choir in tower music from churches in the Middle Ages and also through Bach’s time and Handel’s time, to a certain extent. I think that is a marvelous instrument. I know one famous conductor said he wanted to have a keyed trombone, but I think that is a kind of disaster, because of the tyranny of the modern piano!” Alan Hovhaness continues on the subjects of the instruments and their different characters: “[…] I love all the instruments, and they mean different things to me. For instance, I use the trumpet like the voice of a priest. It has power and grandeur, and can be an instrument […], for instance, as the cantor in the synagogue is supposed to be the voice of God, the trumpet can be that in the orchestra. Trumpet, trombone, horn sometimes, but especially the trumpet and trombone have a certain kind of power. The horns are very beautiful as a choir. […] I like the oboe very much; the clarinets slightly less, but it’s a very flexible instrument… and of course flutes and so on, and bassoons, but I think, probably, […] the oboe family especially appeals to me. Perhaps, in Japan, I had a certain native skill […] on the ancient oboe; the hichiriki, which was a main melody instrument of gagaku music.” Hovhaness keeps deliberating on the Eastern theme in another clip: “Somehow, Armenian music lead me to India, and I think the first strong influence after I’d already finished my studying was when I heard the music of Uday Shankar, Ravi Shankar’s brother, the dancer who brought along a group of musicians from India. This seemed very wonderful and very exciting, these different sounds and these beautiful instruments, as well as the different ragas that were played; the raga being the kind of modes of India. This opened up a whole new world, and seemed very much related to the different modes of Armenian music, so that really started me. After that I had some painter friends – very fine artists in Boston – who were much more interested in Eastern music than any of the musicians were, so we used to get together and invite various students among Indian people who had come to study science and so on at Harvard University, but who played Indian instruments, and we studied the instruments and the music with them. They were amateurs, but they still gave us a great deal of a chance to learn, and we all […] did a little playing of Indian instruments such as veena and sitar and so on. Alan Hovhaness was incredibly sensitive towards the future and what it might bring. As much as he was way ahead of his time intellectually and artistically (though I feel his timelessness!), he foresaw many things about the future, like, for example the coming together of the planet, which has taken place through travel, the Internet and a growing environmental understanding and concern; the one planet: one organism type of insight – and he observes the distinction between Eastern and Western listening: “[…] I’ve felt impelled towards a kind of universal quality in music. Some ragas or scales that I may have used or […] created may have bothered some people, but I think the world is coming much closer together, so that whatever may have affected people against my music now has changed. Somehow we’re getting to a kind of mixed language, which almost includes things from all over the world. It may be sometimes the long, melodic line, or a piece which is only a melody […] basically, as Indian music is, many times, without […] any harmony; non-harmonic style – which is [an] important part of my music, especially […] my music [from] the Forties. Somebody described me once as playing, on the piano, something over and over again without [changing anything]. This was […] an Armenian audience, or perhaps it was an audience of Greeks or Arabic people, all going crazy about it, and they wandered why […] this music was repeated over and over again. Well, as it happens, there’s no repeat in it at all. It just stays in the mode, but the melody is always changing. Some people don’t hear it as change. They don’t hear the changes; they only hear that there is no harmony, and it’s perhaps based on what they think is one chord, like Wagner did in the beginning of das Rheingold, and so they think that everything is repeated, because [when] the chord doesn’t change, they think it must be repeated over and over again. Oriental people know it’s not being repeated. They listen to it melodically. I think that Western people in this century [20th] are so used to heavy or thick harmonies that they really don’t listen melodically. They’re beginning to, more and more, of course, but at that time especially it just sounded like nothing or like repetition – so that element, and also the strangeness of certain melodic scales that I used – Turkish, Armenian and Indian and Arabic – […] may have confused people at first. They don’t realize the emotional expressiveness of these intervals… so I think it did make me sound like a crazy composer to some people, perhaps, back in the early Forties.” In the interview from 1976, conducted by Charles Amirkhanian – which can be read in its entirety at http://www.hovhaness.com/Interview_Amirkhanian_1.html, transcribed by David Badagnani, if you’d rather read it there than listen to it at Other Minds, Alan Hovhaness talks about his early experiments in the 1940s, relating a discussion with a painter friend of his: "I can't write for piano anything very exciting, as far as I'm concerned; I'm a natural orchestral composer, but..." And he said, "Well, why don't you think about the kanun?", the Armenian/Turkish kanun, which is like a zither, and you play directly on the strings – like the inside of a piano, in other words.” [Watch this clip at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osk2rkWtncg] [This was] a splendid idea; I did ... and then I started improvising in kanun style. And these Invocations to Vahaken were improvisations ... with percussion instruments, which I just composed the piano part and used to play that by itself, in a single line...melodic lines with lots of ornamentation, in the kanun style. And then, I added percussion lines, which would be against that, rhythmically, to make a kind of rhythm counterpoint. So it's a kind of Oriental style music. But... really monophonic music. And so, we did a couple of those on that first record. John Cage played the percussion then, and I played the piano part.” He continues: “[…] Also the piano concerto Lousadzak for piano and strings uses the piano in a similar style: no chords anywhere in it, and always single notes, repeated notes and ornamentations, and that sort of thing. But I also have pieces for percussion, such as Nagooran, which was originally written for Indian instruments when I was in South India, and then I transcribed it for cello and percussion instruments – Western percussion instruments – later, because nobody could play those Indian instruments. I [also] like writing directly for Eastern instruments, and I play some of them myself, and made tapes of some of them. [Are those tapes surviving somewhere?] But actually it's hard to do these things here. But I've kept the style, I've kept all my different experiments and styles going, and I try to improve them from time to time. One may wonder which other westerner could count to his credit having performed on All India Radio with “several veenas” back in 1960? Check a (rudra) veena at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Rna9_a3Mg “I always loved Sibelius, and I know that this came up recently, because there've been some misstatements about it that I threw away my early work because it was like Sibelius. I don't think any of it was like Sibelius, or if it was, then all my music is like Sibelius in this sense: that the Armenians feel that Sibelius sounds very Armenian. And they used to...especially certain of the symphonies of Sibelius sounded Armenian; they sound somewhat Oriental. And En Saga and Swan of Tuonela, for instance. Swan of Tuonela could be played on the hichiriki – it would make an excellent gagaku piece – and I studied and played gagaku in Japan. So I think he was probably a reincarnation of an Oriental musician who was...sort of on the outside of Europe,... and had some European influences in [a] classical way. But...I've always loved his music very much: Tapiola and the Fourth Symphony; the Third Symphony... I've always admired him. So I'm either always like Sibelius or not like him at all. I don't think I'm really like him, but perhaps we have this in common, that there's an Oriental feeling in Sibelius’ music.” Asked to deliberate on his philosophy, Alan Hovhaness continues: “Nature is my great inspiration; I feel nature is, one might say, the outer clothing of God, if one can call the force of nature God. And I always regretted so much when they began cutting down trees in a place where I lived when I was very little. We moved outside of Somerville in Boston out to Arlington, and there were a whole lot of beautiful pine trees right in the back of the house where my parents lived, and they began cutting them down ruthlessly, and just leaving them there. And this impression of cities taking over the beauty of nature and destroying it, was very strong, and has always been. I used to spend all my time climbing trees, and in the forest, or climbing mountains whenever I could get near mountains. And that, to me, was the most important thing. When asked if he’s like to go in any direction that he’d not yet ventured into, Hovhaness answers: “I would like to actually even invent some instruments. But I've never had time to do that, or the opportunity. I need somebody who knows things I don't know ... about science, to do so. But I'd like to invent instruments that could play microtones ... and make them sound real, not just as little accidental things in between other notes. This, to me, would be the only... I did this with electronic music back in the Fifties. But I don't like the sound of it; it sounds like a glorified Hammond organ. Of course, naturally some people have a lot of money to put into this, and I think John Cage was given a thousand dollars for a minute of music. But that is, you know, to... that he could spend that on...with electronic instruments. But that's an awful lot of money, and I find myself not liking the sound of electronic things. I don't like the kind of thing that can kill people if you turn it up too loud. I don't like dangerous weapons of any kind. It’s about time to get into the music of this OgreOgress audio DVD, which proves fascinating and sometimes surprising listening, but perhaps, after reading these Hovhaness interview clips, more comprehensible than if the listener was completely oblivious of the composer. Track 1 – 5. Janabar (Journey) Op. 81 (1950) There is a subtitle to Janabar; Five Hymns of Serenity for Trumpet, Violin, Piano and String Orchestra. Two of the soloists at the premier in Carnegie Hall, 1951, were the renowned sisters Maro and Anahid Ajemian, who were a kind of Valkyries of contemporary avant-garde music in the Forties and Fifties, and who also performed at John Cage’s 25-Year Retrospective Concert at Town Hall, New York, in 1958, which was released on CD by Wergo Schallplatten in 1994. Maro Ajemian was the dedicatee of John Cage’s most famous work, the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, which she premiered even before the work was completed, back in 1946, with the first four parts. She went on to premier the entire set in 1949 in Carnegie Hall. Maro Ajemian made the first recording of the whole work in 1951 for Dial Records, reissued on CD by CRI – Composers Recordings – in 1995. 1. Fantasy [11:54] A muffled, subdued, dry, pretty close piano rattles off without hesitation, but in the friendly light of self-assured humility: a rippling force of nature, of spirit; a texture of matter and mind – relaxed in focused absentmindedness: a poem of cloudscapes over the desert floor. The flowing piano bead is ambienced by dark, rumbling sonorities – and after a cloudy while: sweeping strings reflecting light like a million broken mirrors in Death Valley. You may call this New Age and walk away, but I’d call it No Age and remain. This much beauty and simplicity can make you suspicious, I agree, but I feel refreshed, rested here, and ready to accept some of the things I love. There are 300 billion stars over at our approaching neighbor, the Andromeda. There is room for everyone and for everynone. It’s all texture, patterns, shadowy glimpses – and that which isn’t eternal isn’t very real. Not to worry. 2. Yerk (Song) [8:07] Christina Fong opens convincingly, with a strong bow and piercing sound, bridging vast spaces and bottomless voids, with intellect and obstinacy, carving the melody line out of time and rock bottom. Spring can pour melting water from the mountains down the traces of this violin music. The string orchestra moves like common reeds in the breeze when you crouch with your ornithology binoculars to try to spot the reed warbler or the sedge warbler. Fong’s solo violin returns out of the string reeds to formulate a sign of the times, which, with other signs of the times shapes the spirit of the times – where the answer is blowing in the reed and sedge warbler habitats. 3. Toccata [3:22] A rambling, rumbling, elbowing and staggering, stumbling piano tour de force opens the brief piece, which is a second cousin to Ernesto Diaz-Infante’s Solus. The rubbing of the orchestra’s mighty double basses – I think - precedes the trumpet, which sound Iberian, bullfighting and hacienda like; hot nights and many stars up above, hooves and restless animals. Poetry. The crude rubbing might be all the horses flying across the sky, stirring people’s dreams. 4. Sharagan (Hymn) [8:47] The piano that leads you into this listening is more tender, light, careful not to hit anything – more nursery-like, Tchaikovsky-ballet-suite-like, tripping like midnight secrets between the wooden furniture of a sleeping 1890’s German house. The strings that rise up and sway when the piano rests with a heap of toys, paint smooth figures in the air, forming the words “once upon a time in the Black Forest, a little white toy shop stood”… and as the forlorn dreams and hopes of a little doll ballerina on a shelf are visualized by the tenderness of the solo violin, a forest of pizzicati pluck like a rain shower; children asleep in Germany as their toys ponder their lives: fire and water in the night. 5. Tapor (Processional) [4:47] The trumpet and the string orchestra plays in unison or near unison for a while – or illusionary unison which then breaks apart in some kind of swirling counterpoint, eventually – in all remarkable simplicity, sings it’s string-and-trumpet melody, which could be an elegy for young Werther or for my friend Stockhausen, both of whom set sails and let the wind carry them. And we’re all anticipating that fair wind, in which our sails stand like shields in the rhythm of eternity. This music doesn’t make out to be anything at all: it just is. The night is full of stars. Track 6 – 8. Talin Op. 93 (1951) The pdf-text that is included on the CD side of the dual disc says about this work and others from the period: “The early Hovhaness concerto design was usually a series of short, contrasting movements scored for soloist and strings, without recourse to antagonistic or showy solo writing. The viola concerto Talin is a particularly fine example […]. Its no-nonsense melodic and harmonic expressivity imbues the work with an aura of purity and spiritual fervor that belies its modest dimensions” – and I could sign for that. 6. Chant [6:33] Christina Fong’s viola chants an unselfishness that I haven’t breathed since last I heard the similar voice of Kathleen Ferrier, who rides the tonalities of a viola. The viola is one of my most beloved instruments, together with the cello – and here its deep sincerity and elegant darkwood beauty depicts self-evidence and mystery, dark green in chocolate brown; a full sound that fills your moment with satisfaction and good breathing: a song to repeat, over and over, healthy as a mountain hike; glacier water to invigorate you, wildflowers to sooth your soul. 7. Estampie [1:51] This dances swifter, jollier – like a fairy or a butterfly over the meadow; jerky, carefree – again in the mood of Tchaikovsky, though more Oriental. The viola saws away, finds it way hurriedly, while the strings play an almost percussive pizzicati frenzy. Short and delicate. One of those passing moments; sun through leaves, a gentle breeze through your hair. Summer. The memory of summer. The concept of summer in a flash. 8. Canzona [7:54] The last part of Talin – Canzona – really moves in the style and grace of a long legged sentience across a desolate land, at first in the swoop of the string section of the orchestra, pitching in [sic!] at different levels, the melody finally coming to rest in Christina Fong’s viola, which carries it on ahead in satin and velvet, maroon and deeply blue, as, after a while, the illusion of a still shower of rain is created by the pizzicati of the orchestra’s strings, rendering the potential despair of the viola a restful place in time. The melody articulated by the viola possesses an inner ardor and fervor that moves you sincerely. This section is one of the most beautiful on this phonogram of beautiful music. It is also quite cinematic, building a suspense that inevitably casts moving pictures across the silver screen of your mind. 9. Shambala Op. 228 (1969) [45:00] With this final and – at least by virtue of duration – main work on this audio DVD/CD issue from OgreOgress in Grand Rapids, we have taken a great leap forward in time, from 1950 and 1951 to 1969. In the accompanying text it is explained that Shambala – according to sources in ancient Tibetan - is a mythical kingdom hidden away in the mountains of the Himalayas. It has been obvious from the interviews quoted above that Alan Hovhaness was a skilled scholar of Indian music, and in the early 1950s he upheld the position as Director of Music for the Near and Middle East sections of the Voice of America. He became the first Westerner to have his music performed at the Madras Music Festival in 1959/60, when he was in India on a Fulbright scholarship. A line-and-dot progression starts off Shambala. I don’t really feel that it starts, but rather that you dip into something that is going on always, whether you’re aware of it or not, for as long as you attend to it, somewhat like Rodney Graham’s (almost) endless piece Parsifal, built on Engelbert Humperdink’s Vervandlungsmusik for Wagner’s opera. It is constructed on loops of that music, to be repeated according to prime numbers. The start is decided somewheres in the 1880s or 1890s, and it will take about 30 billion years for the loops to line up the same way again, and thus, at the performance of the hour between noon and 1 PM on 17th February at the Artists’ House in Stockholm, the Great Learning Orchestra played the loops exactly as they were supposed to be lined up during that hour of the 30 billion years. The Canadian artist Rodney Graham had a score written out and sent to the orchestra for that one hour, so timing was crucial at the Great Learning Orchestra’s performance, which was part of the Stockholm New Music Festival of 2008. It is, again, a slightly cinematic music, with great sweeps in panning views over fields and billowing landscapes on a planet moving through the void. After just a little while, the sitar enters in classical style, with that initial burst of tones covering the whole range of the instrument. The strangeness – because there is a strangeness here, though you’re ready for the combination – arises when the violin comes in, because the two instruments seem apart, not actually playing together, but as if they’d been mixed in from completely different places and perhaps ages, forced together in this recording – but it is not ugly, only strange! Behind them a drone on, perhaps, double basses, provides a rumbling anticipation. The strangeness is natural, though. East meets west, but Christina Fong doesn’t try to play the sitar on her violin, and Gaurav Mazumdar makes no attempt to play the violin on his sitar. Perhaps it was this disparate writing, though, that made Ravi Shankar refrain from performing this music. When you hear Yehudi Menuhin appear on the East Meets West recordings, he plays like an Indian musician – and of course we have geniuses on Indian violins, like Laxmi Subramaniam – but he plays strictly Indian classical music. Hovhaness wanted to achieve something else, and he does catch my ear, even though I’m not quite decided on how to handle that. It does interest me! As the sitar recedes and the orchestra again appears in wonderful transparence, I get a feeling of impressionism and Debussy; flickering light through foliage, dragonflies hovering over river bends and sudden reflections of shiny backs of fish just below the surface of the water; a frowzy odor. The sitar recurs, as does the violin, and the pizzicati also return; now in the double basses. I feel like the music tilts mirrors against each other, cross-breeding incompatibles in arrow swarms of light and sound – but I quite enjoy this incompatibility, which often appears in life, in the shape of workmates or relatives beyond your choice, which make up the colorful tapestry of your illusionary existence. Unexpected slabs of metallic percussion and double bass pluckings swell up and thunder down the musical path of Alan Hovhaness. It’s music like sharp hail dancing inside dark thunderheads high up in the atmosphere, waiting to pierce ground dwellers in sharp, cold incisions of the skin as they swarm across the terrain like cockroaches. Christina Fong bores deep into the viola-like depths of the violin, only to rise in magnificent trajectories of star shine and jubilance into higher pitches, on the backdrop of a dark drone that could symbolize Rigpa; the innermost nature of mind. Christian bells toll as the murmur of the orchestra takes you to the black-clothed and bowing crowds at the Wailing Wall, reciting the Torah – all in my musically induced fantasy. Let me end this review with a couple of Hovhaness quotes, which may further highlight him both as a musical and a moral thinker: “To me the hundreds of scales and ragas possible in Eastern musical systems afford both disciplines and stimuli for a great expansion of new melodic creations. I am more interested in creating fresh, spontaneous, singing melodic lines than in the factory-made tonal patterns of industrial civilization or the splotches and spots of sound hurled at random on a canvas of imaginary silence. I am bored with mechanically constructed music and I am also bored with the mechanical revolution against such music. I have found no joy in either and have found freedom only within the sublime disciplines of the East.” “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”
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