Customer Reviews

Solos, Duos, Trios

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A truly stupendous collection of lesser known pieces by Alan Hovhaness performed mainly by viola player Christina Fong and various collaborators.
You get over two hours of music recorded in the higher quality and resolution given by DVD.
Hovhaness is perhaps best known as a symphonist, and composer for larger ensembles, but these solos, duos and trios are truly musical poetry.
It is extraordinary that some of these pieces have slipped by until now. Some are completely unknown (to me anyhow), others are better known (Poseidon Sonata for solo piano, for example) but not, as far as I know, previously recorded.
The works are presented in chronological order and date from the 1930s to the 1990s, so cover many of the various stages of Hovhaness' composing styles. There are some who think Hovhaness lost his magic touch in later years, but a listen to the final piece here, 1992's sonata for solo viola, surely puts paid to that idea. If you are already a fan of Hovhaness you should need no persuading. If you enjoy excellent contemporary chamber music, recorded with great immediacy, do NOT miss this limited edition disc.
I bought this disc direct from Ogreogress and it crossed the Atlantic to me very speedily.
One reservation I have is that little use is made of the additional features offered by the DVD format - the track titles do not appear on screen for example, and there are no pictures of the performers or other extras on the disc at all. It played without difficulty on my mass market cheap DVD player, no on my computer DVD rom player, so you should have no difficulty getting this disc to play.