Alan Hovhaness Minifestival

Today from 2:00 to 10:00 p.m. we present a mini-festival of the music of Alan Hovhaness who presently resides in Lucerne, Switzerland. Hovhaness was born sixty years ago on March 8, 1911, in Somerville, Massachusetts, the son of an Armenian chemistry professor, Haroutiun Hovhaness Chakmakjian, and a Scottish mother, Madeline Scott Chakmakjian. It was his mother who first thought his name sounded too foreign for the environs of Boston, and hence the change to Hovhaness.

Although he was raised in a thoroughly American background and even resis-
ted, as a child, whatever attempts his father made to help him identify with his cultural legacy, Mr. Hovhaness eventually came to it himself as his

love of old music, art and architec-
ture developed antiqarian tastes.
His studies of ancient Armenian were
given impetus when he became organ-
ist of Boston's Armenian church and
was exposed to the occasionally
ageless modes and monody of tradi-
tional Armenian liturgical music.
Then he began to learn a bit of the
Armenian language, finding within it
a repository of words which seemed
in a symbolic-poetic fashion to
represent the spirit of the music and
the culture which he most admires.
Thus the derivation of many of his
titles.

But the road to the music
of his which we know today began
in an unlikely environment. Hovhaness'

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NOVEMBER 1971

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HOVHANESS:
KOMITAS:
ARMENIA:

academic musical training led him to
the music of Sibelius which he very
much admired, and as a young man,
he travelled to Finland to meet his
idol. It was not until the early 1940's
that Hovhaness' stylistic metamorpho-
sis transpired, and, as the story goes,
he destroyed more than 1,000 compo-
sitions deemed unworthy, and retained
thereafter only those in his new trans-
cultural style, described as follows by
Virgil Thomson:

"He writes in the early Christian, the medieval and modern Armenian techniques, possibly even a little in the pre-Christian manner of that ancient and cultivated people. He observes the ancient rules and imitates with modern violins a sizeable selection of near-Eastern stringed instruments. Each piece is like a long roll of hand-made wallpaper. Its motionless quality is a little hypnotic. There is a resemblance here, too, to the early ceremonial pieces of Erik Satie. The high quality of this music, the purity of its inspiration, is evidenced by the extreme beauty of its melodic material (which is original material, not collected folklore) and in the perfect sweetness of taste that it leaves in the mouth. There is no vulgarity in it, nothing meretricious, silly, easy, or of low intent."

Not since the middle 1950's,
when MGM Classical Records issued
a substantial body of music by
Hovhaness, has there been an out-
pouring of commercial records of
his music to match that of recent

months. The Poseidon Society
(6843 Peacock Road, Sarasota,
Florida 33581) has just issued six
long-playing records featuring the
composer conducting the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra of London
and performing his songs with the
noted basso Ara Berberian. There
is also a recording of Hovhaness
playing his early *Fantasy for Piano*,
Op 16 and the complete piano
music of the great Armenian com-
poser Komitas Vertabed (1869-1935).
Listeners familiar with Hovhaness'
*Mysterious Mountain*, made famous
by Fritz Reiner's RCA Victor re-
cording with the Chicago Symphony,
will be equally moved by the
*Symphony No. 11 "All Men Are
Brothers"*, *Lady of Light*, a cantata
for soprano, baritone, chorus and
orchestra with a text by the composer,
and *Requiem and Resurrection*, for
brass and percussion, all beautifully
recorded for Poseidon.

Additionally, I'll be playing
selections from past Hovhaness
recordings, talking with pianist Maro
Ajemian, who was instrumental (no
pun intended) in introducing Hovhaness'
early efforts, talking with Jean
Hovhaness Nandi, daughter of the
composer, who now is a harpsi-
chordist living in Berkeley, and
playing music by Komitas Vertabed.
Also, you will hear a generous portion
of Armenian folk music, a sketch of the
history of this little-known and much-
maligned people, and an Armenian
folk tale or two.

Garabed (Charles) Amirkhanian

KPFA FOLIO

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