Hovhaness Symphony no 2

 Day 122

Alan Hovhaness

Symphony no 2 Mysterious Mountain

London Symphony Orchestra

John Williams

Alan Hovhaness is  another composer who I was aware of but have no recollection of hearing anything of. I think I first came across his name because of his piece and God created great whales which featured recordings of real whale sounds - that had a certain notoriety in the late 1960s. Also his record label advertised almost every month, it seemed in the pages of Gramophone, which I have been reading continuously since I was about 16.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this music - if anything I anticipated some ‘new age’ sounds in the spirit of Tavener or Argo Pärt (though those composers came a generation later). So I was surprised at how English the whole thing sounded.  Listened to cold I think that you would guess that much of it was by Vaughan Williams - indeed the string chords which open the peice and return several times seem an almost straight lift from the Tallis Fantasia. The allegro string writing in the second movement - almost entirely on white notes - would not be out of place in one of those characteristic string orchestra pieces that early to mid 20th century English composers seem to have a real affinity for, though I don’t think that any of them would have been happy with such a narrow harmonic pallet.

I think that the best description of the piece is ‘inoffensive’ - it was quite pleasant to listen to but didn’t seem to have much to really make you sit up a listen. I got the sense that the composer was able to operate on auto pilot and turn out this sort of thing by the yard.  This is one of 67 numbered symphonies by the composer , whose opus numbers go up to 434. I don’t think that there is any possibility that I will make listening to the whole cycle a priority.