Piano Music of Alan Hovhaness

Alan Hovhaness (Composer), Wayne Johnson (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Wayne Johnson
• Composer: Alan Hovhaness
• Audio CD (June 15, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Crystal Records
• ASIN: B000003J7D
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #210,882 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Macedonian Mountain Dances (2), for piano, Op. 144: No 1

2. Macedonian Mountain Dances (2), for piano, Op. 144: Mountain Dance, No. 2, Op. 144b

3. Blue Job Mountain, sonata for piano, Op. 340: Movement 1

4. Blue Job Mountain, sonata for piano, Op. 340: Movement 2

5. Blue Job Mountain, sonata for piano, Op. 340: Movement 3

6. Mystic Flute, for piano, Op. 22

7. Dance Ghazal for piano, Op. 362

8. Love Song Vanishing into Sounds of Crickets, for piano, Op. 327

9. Ananda, sonata for piano, Op. 303: Movement 1

10. Ananda, sonata for piano, Op. 303: Movement 2

11. Ananda, sonata for piano, Op. 303: Movement 3

12. Ananda, sonata for piano, Op. 303: Movement 4

13. Fantasy for piano, Op.16

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hovhaness for Piano, August 8, 2011

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Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Piano Music of Alan Hovhaness (Audio CD)

Alan Hovhaness (1911 -- 2000) was a prolic American composer best-known for composing nearly 70 symphonies. His music manages to be exotic, modernistic and readily accessible. Although perhaps not highly regarded by critics during his lifetime, Hovhaness' music has grown in stature since his death. I am familiar with some of Hovhaness' orchestral works but had never heard his music for solo piano. I wanted to get to know it, both to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Hovhaness' birth as well as to see whether I could learn to play any of the music myself. Released in 1993 on the Crystal label, this recording by Seattle-based pianist Wayne Johnson offers a good cross-section of Hovhaness' piano music. Hovhaness said of Johnson: "I think he understands everything in my music, both techniques and spiritual domains. His interpretations are most close to mine." Johnson also wrote the informative liner notes for the CD.


Hovhaness composed extended works for the piano as well as short pieces with the latter tending to be more effective. With its use of modal scales, exotic harmonies, and Eastern and Armenian influences, the music bears the composer's stamp. Much of it is highly effective and intruiging piano writing in which Hovhaness frequently uses the piano to imitate Eastern instruments and styles.

The shorter works in Johnson's program include the Macedonian Mountain Dance and the Mountain Dance No. 2 both of which show an Armenian influence. They are also highly lively with the opening dance beginning with a boogie-woogie like theme in the left hand. The strongly rhythmic piece moves from the lower register to clustered chords in the upper register. It is a clangorous work which deserves to be heard. Its companion piece contrasts a scalar, modal melody in the right hand with large chords and octaves in the left. These two companion pieces make for effective piano writing.

Composed in 1937, Mystic Flute,op 22, was performed by Rachmaninoff as an encore during his concerts. It is short and melancholy with a theme in the right hand consisting of single notes (as opposed to repeated notes -- which Hovhaness also uses extensively) over a repeated phrase in the left hand. This short early piece may be Hovhaness' best-known work for the piano. It is paired on this recording with the Dance Ghazal, Op. 37a, a Persian love song in which strumming guitar-like chords accompany an idiomatic, modal melody.

In 1979, Hovhaness composed a short love song to his wife as a Valentine's Day present. Titled "Love Song Vanishing into Sounds of Crickets", op. 327, this work begins with slow, simple chords followed by a rising, melody over triplets. The work ultimately fades away into quiet. This is a lovely, poignantly lyrical piece.

In addition to these short works, Johnson performs three more extended pieces. The most appealing of these is the three-movement Blue Mountain Job sonata, op. 340, composed in 1986 and named after a beloved Hovhaness mountain in New Hampshire. This is a moving work with a short opening andante, a lengthy middle movement Fantasy, marked by long arpeggios at the beginning and the conclusion which surround extensive improvisatory passages, and a rapid-fire "Jhala" (a two-voiced Indian-influenced form that Hovhaness uses often) with patterns of repeated notes and modal scales in conclusion.

The four movement Sonata Ananda, op 303, composed in 1977, shows the influence of Indian spirituality in its title and throughout. It consists of three simple and beautiful short movements which surround a wandering and less impressive lengthy second movement, titled "Vision of Volcano Mountains." The three short movements include much lyricism and dancing. The little "allegro assai" third movement combines dance with a concluding fugue. The opening andante and the final movement "Vision of a Starry Night" are beautifully peaceful and lyrical in their mysticism.

The final work on this program is a twenty minute Fantasy, opus 16, composed in 1952. This work shows the influence of both modernism and Eastern music. It is in ten short sections called "Dans" in which Hovhaness uses the piano to capture the sound of instruments such as porcelan bowls, psalters, harps, and percussion. The music adopts modernistic techniques of the day. Much of the work is performed inside the keyboard as the strings of the piano are to be struck by marimba mallets, a plectrum, or the hand, to produce a variety of effects. The sections of the work played in this manner are sometimes combined and sometimes alternated with music played by one or by both hands on the keyboard. Much of the music is Indian in idiom. I found this work less appealing than the remainder of the music on the CD.

I enjoyed sampling Hovhaness' considerable output of music for the piano on this CD and look forward to hearing more. This CD will appeal to listeners who love Hovhaness or who are interested in 20th Century American music for the piano.

Total Time: 66:32

Robin Friedman