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II. Angel of Light, Largo
reh. 16 - reh. 18 |
Skills & Techniques: Rhythms, Slurring Flexibility, Soft Playing
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Horn 1 (F)
Due to restrictions, sheet music for this excerpt is not provided.
Seattle Symphony Orchestra (2004)
Composer & Composition Information
Alan Hovhannes (1911-2000)
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Hovhaness was an important 20th Century American composer whose music anticipated many future musical trends and aesthetic values. Rejecting the vogues of Americana, serialism and atonality, he pioneered contemporary development of archaic models and was amongst the earliest to integrate Western musical idioms with Eastern ones, making him a pioneer of East-West 'fusion' decades before the term 'World Music' had been coined. The visionary and mystical nature of his work, often intoxicating in its directness and simplicity, rank him as the musical progenitor to the later, so-called New Age-ists and Spiritual Minimalists.
His parents did not particularly encourage his preoccupation with music but were educated and cultured. Hovhaness began composing during childhood and continued prolifically until old age, despite destroying whole periods of work with which he became dissatisfied. In the 1930s, he studied composition at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music. At this time, he also became fascinated by Eastern music after attending a performance of visiting Indian dancer Uday Shankar. In the 1940s he took serious interest in his paternal Armenian heritage as a means for creative renewal, and studied the works of Armenian composer Gomitas Vartabed and Armenian liturgical music. In the 1950s this influence receded somewhat, and in the early 1960s his trips to India, Japan and Korea added different but equally strong exotic hues to his music. From the 1970s onwards his style became less overtly Eastern. The text & image are reprinted from windrep.org where more information about the composer can be found. |
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Symphony No. 22 "City of Light"
This work was commissioned by the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, in the year of Birmingham/Alabama's, centennial. A former conductor of that orchestra was the father of Hovhaness's wife at the time. The city of the title is, the composer explained, not Birmingham: "I was thinking of a milion lights, an imaginary city ..."
The shimmering first movement is majestic, and serene, while the following "Angel of Light" recalls a childhood experience. The third movement scherzo utilises a dance melody from the composer's childhood opera Lotus blossom. The finale is a 'hymn of praise".
The text is written by & reprinted from Wise Music Classical where more information about the composition can be found.
The shimmering first movement is majestic, and serene, while the following "Angel of Light" recalls a childhood experience. The third movement scherzo utilises a dance melody from the composer's childhood opera Lotus blossom. The finale is a 'hymn of praise".
The text is written by & reprinted from Wise Music Classical where more information about the composition can be found.
Notable Performances/Recordings:
Seattle Symphony Orchestra (2004)
Seattle Symphony Orchestra (2004)