Customer Reviews

Alan Hovhaness: Violin|Viola and Keyboard Works

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This is a wonderful collection of chamber pieces by the phenomenal Alan Hovhaness. America should make more of this man's achievements. Music poured out of him during his lifetime. Unlike so many 20C composers, beauty and harmony were his watchwords.
This particular cd is a wonderful opportunity for listeners to hear his all-too-rarely recorded chamber works. Performances and recording are nothing short of excellent.
Fong and Ashby have picked through Hovhaness' vast complete works and compiled a complete collection of his works for viola and piano. Hovhaness is said by some critics to have lost the plot compositionally in the last few decades of his life, but there's no sign of that here - there's also no sense of performer as completist anorak either, every piece here deserves its place on its own merits, every piece is bright and refreshing. In addition to the viola and piano works which will be unfamiliar to most people, there is the solo viola piece Chahagir which has been recorded before, so listeners can compare.
For me this is pure musical pleasure in a convenient package. Unhesisatingly, I would urge anyone who knows Hovhaness' music to snap it up straight away.
Anyone looking for a tonal, melodic, fresh, opimistic hour immersed in meaningful and beautiful music should do likewise.
I love this disc and I'm sure you will too.

With dozens of Hovhaness CDs on the market, it's unusual to find an offering where none of the pieces, as far as I know, are available on other recordings. Each piece was a delight to discover and reveals the spiritual side of the Hovhaness that I have come to love. The mysterious sounds of Armenian themes abound and I was quickly drawn into a haunted sound world. The music is evocative of ancient times, imaginative and addictive. The notes by Arved Ashby, the keyboardist, are excellent and tie together history and musical analysis, further adding to one's enjoyment of this brilliant recording.

Offering 60 minutes of lingering beauty, this is the jewel of my expanding Hovhaness collection. If you have already discovered Hovhaness, then this is a must have; if not, then this is the place to start.

Well-played works previously unknown to me. Bought the CD for a friend who tried to order it from a local store, but couldn't get the CD through their distributors. Old story. Glad Amazon was there for us.