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by Alan Hovhaness 
No piece more beautifully romantic than "Mysterious Mountain"
It is rare that I feel brave enough, or moved enough, to write a review in a field about which I know but little, but this composition compelled me to share my feelings about it with others. I listen to a good deal of classical music, without any real knowledge of it, but enough so that I know what to expect from Baroque music, from the Romantics, from the Slavs, from the post WWI artists. After those periods, I must admit, music seemed to have little to offer (I realize that I am a bit conservative when it comes to symphonic music: the more modern compositions simply do not appeal to me). I began to feel what Mallarmé must have felt when he said "I have read all the books.": it was unlikely that there would be any truly new sounds in any piece I heard, however the elements might be rearranged by the different members of these different schools. That changed on the night that I happened to hear "Mysterious Mountain" on the radio. As I listened, I knew nothing about it, its origin or composer, except that it was one of the most beautiful symphonic pieces I had heard in a very long time. To say that I was moved is an understatement: I was overwhelmed by its beauty; I was puzzled by its odd harmonies; my mind's eye first summoned up images from a medieval tapestry, because of the music's "contrapuntal or chorale-like" textures, as the liner notes state. These images alternated with others, inspired by the birdlike notes of a xylophone, of a meadow full of wildflowers, in which a lone Western meadowlark sings. These conflicting images have never resolved themselves, and in my mind they move from one to the other, each time I listen to it: a sense of enclosed spaces gives way to open prairies, and back again, as different harmonies take precedence. This piece alone would guarantee that I give this disc five stars: it never fails to move me every time that I listen to it. And to say that the other pieces are not as compelling is to take nothing away from them. Hovhaness is challenging without being pretentious or snobby; his symphonic paintings can be understood and loved without knowing musical theory or even musical tradition: indeed, it sounds to me as if John Williams borrowed, for his score for Star Wars, some of the bars from Mysterious Mountain. It would appear that Hovhaness' vision of nature would indicate that there was once an Eden, and it has found a home in these symphonies. I can add little to the notes on "And God Created Great Whales": certainly the symphony does conjure up a period of chaos and pre-human creation, a paradise occupied only by whales and their kin, with their own brand of wisdom and intelligence. This music makes me believe that our species did not fall from grace: we were the fall. I admire Hovhaness and his romantic effort to close, with music, the gap between humanity and nature, and I am certain that his spirit is now wandering among mysterious mountains indeed, and that his music accompanies him always: would that we could attend that secret miracle, and hear what new musics he is composing on the other side of the veil! |
