Alan Hovhaness ~Concerto for Harp and String Orchestra, Spirit of Trees, Upon Enchanted Ground, The Garden of Adonis, Sonata for Harp (2000) [Telarc CD/DSD]
The Youtube above contains the entire recording, at 73 minutes. The video never changes, you freaking pervs.
I think I may have told this anecdote in our prior iteration, but it's worth it for me to re-tell (though possibly not for you to re-read).
As a college student, many of my pals would travel into Georgetown, D.C., to go to bars, but a few of us enjoyed checking out the record stores for new-to-us mewsiks. They weren't called CD stores back in '72 - '74, for some reason, although one could find reel-to-reel tapes and audiocassettes.
I used to love finding Hovhaness' compositions on Poseidon Society records. I had no idea at the time that he and his wife were producing these albums. In fact, I only discovered this fact later on his Wiki page.
I have almost as many recordings of Hovhaness' music as I do of Keith Jarrett, whom I discovered later, with the
Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne.
If one is unfamiliar with Hovhaness' oeuvre, one could do worse than start here.
Finally, I am reminded of a verse in hoary scriptures, which is well-known (unlike I is, who is
not particularly well-known, actually) as the
Hov (short for
Hovhaness) chapter:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
Hov, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I listen to all manner of Beethoven, and understand all mysteries of Brahms, and though I have all faith that could move me to sit still through Bruckner, but have not
Hov, I am nothing."
Thank you to those who read this far.


