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The Naxos American Classics series has championed the cause of American music. Over the years, it has presented several CDs of the music of Alan Hovhaness (1911 -- 2000) including three CDs of his music for winds. This recently-released CD includes a variety of Hovhaness' compositions for winds and percussion ranging from his earliest compositions for wind band in 1948 through works composed in 1984 and 1985. The Central Washington University Wind Ensemble, largely composed of undergraduate musicians, is featured in this CD. It is valuable to hear enthusiastic student performers. Hovhaness composed a great deal of music aimed at such ensembles. Keith Brion, Larry Gookin, and Mark Goodenberger conduct the various works on this recording, which dates from 2014 at Central Washington University.
Hovhaness was a prolific composer with a readily identifiable style. His music has a strongly mystical feel and still is broadly accessible. It tends to move slowly and to make great use of modal writing and counterpoint. A great deal of the music is programmatic. Hovhaness often composed music capturing has Armenian ancestry and as he progressed also studied Eastern music. He also was influenced by Renaissance wind band writing. Although he composed many symphonies, Hovhaness excelled as a miniaturist, and all the works on this recording are short.
This CD includes works for varied combinations of instruments. It includes works for large wind band, including the early 1948 "Suite for Band" and the "Tapor No. 1" from 1948 and the 1969 "Hymn to Yerevan". These works tend to be slow and stately and feature the use of brass and chorale.
Other works feature imaginative combinations of instruments. The "Mountain under the Sea" is an alluring short piece for a lyrical alto saxophone solo together with percussion and harp. Written the following year, the "Vision on a Starry Night" is scored for flute, which carries the sinuous melodic line, harp and percussion. A work of uncertain date, the "Meditation on Ardalus" is for solo flute and features the instrument throughout its register. Clara Mannino, a graduate of Central Washington University, brings out the character of this music.
The Japanese influence on Hovhaness comes to the fore in the 1962 "Overture to the Burning House" scored for flute and percussion. Another side of Hovhaness, his love of folk music, is shown in the Three Improvisations on Folk Tunes, which are scored for band and which use Indian, Bengali, and Pakistani themes. Hovhaness composed this music in 1952 while serving as resident composer for the Voice of America.
A haunting work, "The Ruins of Ani, Lament for Ani, City of 1000 Churches" (1972) is scored for the unusual combination of eight clarinets. The ancient Armenian city of Ani also is the inspiration of Hovhaness's symphony no 23 "Ani" for wind band featured in an earlier Naxos release.
The "October Mountain" (1942,1951) has been recorded before and apparently is well-known as a work for percussion sextet, including drums, marimba, xylophone, and glockenspiel. This work is in four short movements with a duration of under nine minutes.
Keith Brion's liner notes offer succinct musical descriptions of each work. The works on this CD, some of which are recorded for the first time, will delight those who love this composer's music. Naxos continues to do a service in recording works from Hovhaness' large output and in making his music accessible to new listeners.
Total Time: 58:01
Robin Friedman
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