Category Archives: Book Tour

Unveiling One of the Great Composers of the 20th Century

 EXCERPT

Foreword

In David Ewen’s seminal book from 1982 about American composers, he begins his entry 
about Alan Hovhaness:

“One of the most prolific composers of the 20th century, with some three hundred compositions 
in all media and most in large structures to his credit. Hovhaness has arrived at an 
individuality of style by synthesizing the music of the Western world with that of the East.”

In reading Hanako Hovhaness’s wonderful book about her husband and their life together, 
I am reminded of Hovhaness the man, husband, and philosophical thinker. Each of those personas 
were reflected in his music. He was always true to his art and created a very large body 
of work that, no matter how they are influenced from Japan to India and Armenia, has a clear 
and poetic compositional voice.

He started writing music in the 1930s but was more broadly noticed as a student at Tanglewood 
in 1942. From all reports, it was not a good time for Hovhaness, but he established 
himself as an independently thinking composer even then. He certainly embraced particularly 
trendy forms such as aleatory, but as he wrote: “To me, atonality is against nature. There 
is a center to everything that exists. The planets have a sun, the moon the earth. The reason I 
like oriental music is that everything has a firm center. All music with a center is tonal. Music, 
without a center is fine for a minute or two, but it soon sounds all the same. Things which 
are very complicated tend to disappear and get lost. Simplicity is difficult, not easy. Beauty is 
simple. All unnecessary elements are remover-only essence remains.”

I first played Hovhaness’s music as a high school trumpet student performing his Prayer of 
St. Gregory. I was struck by playing a living composer who wrote music that was very beautiful 
and yet playable by students of every level. Interestingly, even today his music is better 
known by younger students than professionals.

In my article for Gramophone magazine in 2019 about important, lesser-known American 
composers, I wrote this about Hovhaness:

“I met Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000) when I was 16, recording his work for trumpet and 
band, Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places. His music is played often, but usually by student 
groups. It is very melodic, usually not too difficult to perform, and each piece selectively is 
evocative of the music of Armenia, India, Hawaii, Japan, Korea or America. Alan was always 
a very spiritual person, drawing on nature for inspiration. He also prided himself on his use 
of counterpoint and was disappointed his works were not studied in counterpoint classes.”

He was highly prolific, having written approximately seventy symphonies. Like Haydn, the ones with titles are the ones most often programmed. His second symphony, Mysterious 
Mountain, is an evocative work, combining traditional white note (on the piano) melodies 
and harmonies with an underlying accompaniment often sounding not only harmonically unrelated 
but gesturing apart from the main material. The work has numerous solos for woodwinds 
and brass. It also contains an extraordinary double fugue in the second movement, 
and it ends with an exquisite full-bodied chorale for the entire orchestra. It was premiered by 
Stokowski during his opening concert as music director of the Houston Symphony in 1955. 
Reiner recorded it with Chicago in 1958, which helped make Hovhaness’s reputation. In the 
last fifteen years, while it has had many performances, I could only find a handful by professional 
orchestras, other than my own. In fact, when I recorded it for PBS television with the 
All-Star Orchestra in 2016, many members of the orchestra, loving the work, asked why they 
had never heard the piece before. These were players from America’s most important orchestras. 
Most composers of his time did not accept Hovhaness into their circle because of his 
simpler style. There were exceptions such as Howard Hanson and Lou Harrison. I remember 
David Diamond always speaking highly of him, especially during our time together in Seattle.

There have been several important conductors who have supported Hovhaness, including 
Stokowski, Kostelanetz, and Reiner. Both Dennis Russel Davies and I have continued to perform 
his works, and others such as Ozawa, Ehrling, and Rostropovich have performed his music.

On the 23rd of April 2001, a Hovhaness memorial concert was held in Seattle’s Benaroya 
Hall and subsequently repeated in New York. For the first time the concert hall waived its 
rental fee. I read out a letter from composer Lou Harrison that declared Hovhaness “one of 
the great melodists of the 20th century” and “a master to us all.” I paid the following tribute 
when speaking to the Seattle Times: “He was trying to add beauty and sensitivity to the world. 
He cared deeply about goodness and about nature, and he has had a tremendous impact. I’ve 
known Alan since 1963, throughout it all, even in the times when his music wasn’t so fashionable, 
he stuck to his thinking and to his distinctive style, which had a passion and a great 
reserve. He stood out. Alan was amazing, he was one of the great composers of our time.”

In 2011, I lead a weeklong celebration of the 100th anniversary of Alan’s birth with the 
Seattle Symphony. I’ve recorded eight CDs of his music and continue to preform works each 
season and with great public success. His music has lived on and will continue to because of 
its beauty and passion.

– Gerard Schwarz, Music Director: All-Star Orchestra; Frost  
Symphony Orchestra; Palm Beach Symphony; Eastern Music 
Festival; Conductor Laureate: Seattle Symphony; Conductor 
Emeritus: Mostly Mozart Festival Distinguished Professor of 
Conducting at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami