jmcmichael

Daily Euphony: Alan Hovhaness - Lousadzak (Keith Jarrett, piano)
from the album Mysterious Mountain, Lousadzak

Alan Hovhaness ranks among the most intrepid of musical explorers in 20th century classical music. He was a widely recorded and lauded American composer in the 1950s and 60s, and since the 1990s continues to enjoy something of a revival on CD. Yet there is little scholarly commentary on Hovhaness despite the wealth of radical individuality in some phases of his six decades of creativity. This is somewhat surprising given that during the 1940s and 50s he was firmly entrenched within that maverick group of American composers (others included Henry Cowell, Jonn Cage and Lou Harrison) who spearheaded one of the great shifts in twentieth century American music, namely that of looking to non-Western cultures for creative renewal in art music. In particular, Hovhaness also spearheaded quasi-aleatoric texture as early as the 1940s.

-The Alan Hovehaness Website

NOTE: If you’re not used to modern music, hang in there until about 1/3 of the way through where the piece really takes off and shifts into a more tonal style.