| Alan Hovhaness |
Article Index for Alan |
Shopping Hovhaness |
Website Links For Alan |
Information AboutAlan Hovhaness |
|
Alan Hovhaness ( March 8 , 1911 – June 21 , 2000 ) was an American Composer of Armenia n and Scot tish descent. His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation. '' is seen as a Jewish composer), his output assimilates the music of many cultures. What may be most American about all of it is the way it turns its materials into a kind of exoticism. The atmosphere is hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic." EARLY LIFE He was born as Alan Vaness Chakmakjian in Somerville, Massachusetts to Haroutioun Hovanes Chakmakjian (an Armenian chemistry professor at Tufts College who had been born in Adana , Turkey ) and Madeleine Scott (an American woman of Scottish and English descent who had graduated from Wellesley College ). At the age of five, the family moved from Somerville to Arlington, Massachusetts . Upon his mother's death (October 3, 1930), he began to use the surname "Hovaness" in honor of his paternal grandfather, and officially changed it to "Hovhaness" around 1940 . The name change reflected increased pride in his Armenian heritage, something that had earlier been discouraged by his mother. Alan was interested in Music from a very early age (writing his first composition at the age of four) and decided to devote himself to composition at the age of 14. He composed two operas during his teenage years, which were performed at Arlington High School, and the composer Roger Sessions took an interest in his music during this time. Following his graduation from high school in 1929, he studied with Leo Rich Lewis at Tufts and then the New England Conservatory Of Music , under Frederick Converse . He traveled to Finland to meet the composer Jean Sibelius in 1934 , remaining in correspondence for the next twenty years. COMPOSITIONAL CAREER "Armenian Period" Hovhaness became interested in Armenian culture and music in 1940, as the Organist for the St. James Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown, Massachusetts , remaining in this position for approximately ten years. In 1942 he won a scholarship at Tanglewood to study in Bohuslav Martinů 's Master Class . However, Martinů had a serious fall in the early summer which made it impossible for him to teach. Instead, the composer's seminar which Hovhaness attended was led by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein . While a recording of Hovhaness's first symphony was being played, Copland talked loudly all the way through it, and when the recording finished, Bernstein remarked "I can't stand this cheap ghetto music." Hovhaness was angered and distraught by his experience at Tanglewood, and quit early despite being on scholarship. The next year he devoted himself to Armenian subject matter, in particular using Mode s distinctive to Armenian music, and continued for several years, achieving some renown and the support of other musicians, including John Cage and Martha Graham , all while continuing as church organist. In one of many applications for a Guggenheim fellowship (1941), Hovhaness presented his credo: :"I propose to create an heroic, monumental style of composition simple enough to inspire all people, completely free from fads, artificial mannerisms and false sophistications, direct, forceful, sincere, always original but never unnatural. Music must be freed from decadence and stagnation. There has been too much emphasis on small things while the great truths have been overlooked. The superficial must be dispensed with. Music must become virile to express big things. It is not my purpose to supply a few pseudo intellectual musicians and critics with more food for brilliant argumentation, but rather to inspire all mankind with new heroism and spiritual nobility. This may appear to be sentimental and impossible to some, but it must be remembered that Palestrina, Handel, and Beethoven would not consider it either sentimental or impossible. In fact, the worthiest creative art has been motivated consciously or unconsciously by the desire for the regeneration of mankind." Lou Harrison reviewed a 1945 concert of Hovhaness' music which included his 1944 concerto for piano and strings, entitled ''Lousadzak'': :"There is almost nothing occurring most of the time but unison melodies and very lengthy drone basses, which is all very Armenian. It is also very modern indeed in its elegant simplicity and adamant modal integrity, being, in effect, as tight and strong in its way as a twelve-tone work of the Austrian type. There is no harmony either, and the brilliance and excitement of parts of the piano concerto were due entirely to vigor of idea. It really takes a sound musicality to invent a succession of stimulating ideas within the bounds of an unaltered mode and without shifting the home-tone." However, as before, there were also critics: :The serialists were all there. And so were the Americanists, both Aaron Copland's group and Virgil's. And here was something that had come out of Boston that none of us had ever heard of and was completely different from either. There was nearly a riot in the foyer intermission - everybody shouting. A real whoop-dee-doo. ::(Miller and Lieberman 1998) Conservatory years In 1948 he joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory , teaching there until 1951. His students there included the jazz musicians Sam Rivers and Gigi Gryce . Relocation to New York In 1951 , Hovhaness moved to New York City , where he took up composing full-time. Also that year (beginning August 1), he worked at the Voice Of America , as Director of Music, composer, and musical consultant for the Near East and Trans-Caucasian section, eventually losing this job (along with much of the other staff) when Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Harry S. Truman as U.S. president in 1952 . Beginning at this time, Hovhaness branched out from Armenian music, adopting styles and material from a wide variety of sources. In 1954 he wrote the score for the Broadway play '' The Flowering Peach '' by Clifford Odets , then two scores for NBC documentaries on India and Southeast Asia. Also during the 1950s, he composed for productions at The Living Theatre . "Mysterious Mountain" His biggest breakthrough to date came in released recordings of a number of his works. Beginning in 1956, at the urging of Howard Hanson , he began teaching summers at the Eastman School Of Music . Trips to Asia From 1959 through 1963, Hovhaness conducted a series of research trips to India, Hawaii, Japan, and South Korea, investigating the ancient traditional musics of these nations and eventually integrating elements of these into his own compositions. His study of Carnatic Music in Madras , India (1959-60) was sponsored by a Fulbright fellowship. He studied Japanese Gagaku music (learning the wind instruments '' Hichiriki '', '' Ryūteki '', and '' Shō '') in the spring of 1962 with Masatoshi Shamoto in Hawaii, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant allowed him to conduct further gagaku studies with Masataro Togi in Japan (1962-63). World view Perhaps also prophetic in worldly matters, Hovhaness stated in a 1971 interview in ''Ararat'' magazine: :"We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this...The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way...It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use" (Michaelyan 1971). Later life Hovhaness was inducted into the National Institute Of Arts And Letters (1951), and received honorary D.Mus. degrees from the University Of Rochester (1958), Bates College (1959), and the Boston Conservatory (1987). He moved to Seattle in the early 1970s, where he lived for the rest of his life. He is survived by his wife, the Coloratura soprano Hinako Fujihara Hovhaness, who administers the Hovhaness-Fujihara music publishing company; as well as a daughter, the Harpsichord ist Jean Nandi (born Jean Christina Hovaness). SIGNIFICANT COMPOSITIONS
FILMS Films about Alan Hovhaness
Films with scores by Alan Hovhaness
NOTABLE STUDENTS OF ALAN HOVHANESS
REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS Listening |
|
|