Alan Hovhaness – Symphony No. 2 (Mysterious Mountain), op. 132
An American composer of Armenian and Scottish descent, Alan Hovhaness (née Alan Vaness Chakmakjian) was born in Somerville, MA on March 8, 1911 and died in Seattle, WA on June 21, 2000. He must be counted among the most prolific composers in recent history, producing over 70 symphonies (67 of which are numbered), and a catalog of an astonishing 434 opus numbers. His music, all deeply spiritual in nature, includes choral works, chamber music, and orchestral music. Some of it has been used in films. Hovanhess demonstrated interest in music and astronomy when he was very young, and showed signs of a deep spirituality and religiosity that remained with him throughout his life. His influences were a combination of elements, most notably his Armenian heritage and South Asian ragas. He studied at Tufts University and the New England Conservatory of Music (1929-32) and travelled to Finland shortly thereafter to meet Jean Sibelius, whose music he deeply admired. Discouraged by negative comments by composer Roger Sessions, Hovhaness destroyed many of his early works. His music was also taken to task by Leonard Bernstein. His Symphony no. 2 (Mysterious Mountain), his most popular work, was given its premiere by the Houston Symphony under the baton of Leopold Stokowski in October 1955. It is scored for 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 5 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, celesta, harp, and strings.
Hovhaness is a difficult composer to characterize, although his music is among the most easily accessible of 20th-century composers. His conservative bent made him a favorite of Howard Hanson, a composer of similar proclivities who invited Hovhaness to teach during the summer at the Eastman School of Music. Deliberately archaic in nature due to its shifting modality the music is reminiscent, at times, of the English master, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. This is especially true of his Symphony no. 2 (Mysterious Mountain) which has enjoyed considerable popularity since its 1955 premiere in Houston under Leopold Stokowski’s direction, and subsequent recording by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Hovhaness’ evocative use of arpeggios in the celesta, that bell-like keyboard instrument best known from Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” in The Nutcracker, may bring to mind Gustav Mahler of the final song of Das Lied von der Erde. Both works evoke a sense of timelessness.
As Hovhaness himself suggested, any search for the Mysterious Mountain, would be a foolish quest. The name, which he alleged to be representative of “the whole idea of mountains,” was added at the request of Stokowski. Even more interestingly, Stokowski was the one who insisted that Hovhaness give the work an opus number. That he chose Op. 132 may have been a glancing reference to Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor which bears the same opus number and which includes the deeply spiritual “Holy Hymn [Heiliger Dankgesang] in the Lydian Mode” as its slow movement. Interestingly, in later correspondence, the composer became rather annoyed at the work’s popularity because he did not consider it to be his best effort and had the effect of overshadowing his other music.
Hereafter follows the composer’s own program notes:
Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man’s attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual world. To some, the Mysterious Mountain may be the phantom peak, unmeasured, thought to be higher than Everest, as seen from great distances by fliers in Tibet. To some, it may be the solitary mountain, the tower of strength over a countryside – Fujiyama, Ararat, Monadnock, Shasta, or Grand Teton.
The first and last movements are hymn-like and lyrical, making use of irregular metrical forms. The first subject of the second movement, a double fugue, is developed in a slow vocal style. The rapid second subject is played by the strings, with its own counter subject and with strict four-voice canonic episodes and triple counterpoint episodes.
In the last movement a chant in 7/4 time is played softly by muted horns and trombones. A giant wave in a 13-beat meter rises to a climax and recedes. . . a middle melody is sung by the oboes and clarinets in a quintuple beat. Muted violins return with the earlier chant, which is gradually given to the full orchestra.
Program Note by David B. Levy/Alan Hovhaness © 2012/2026
Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony no. 12 (The Year of 1917), op. 112
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, one of the Soviet Union’s greatest composers, was born in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 1906 and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975.Although he composed in a wide variety of genres, he is best known for his fifteen symphonies, works that stand among the finest examples of the genre from the mid-twentieth century. His Symphony no. 12, a work dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Lenin, wascomposed between 1960 and 1961 and first performed in October 1961 by the Leningrad under the baton of Yevgeny Mravinksy. It is scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 3oboes, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, (off-stage brass: 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones), timpani, percussion, and strings.
The era following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 was a time of transition for Dmitri Shostakovich. It has been surmised that the composer’s Tenth Symphony represents, especially in its ferocious second movement, a savage caricature of “Uncle Joe.” The “thaw” under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, a politician who renounced at least some of Stalin’s more severe policies, paved the way for Shostakovich to resuscitate some of his earlier works that had been denounced by Soviet officialdom. In August of 1954 he was declared the “People’s Artist of the USSR.” Two years later he received the “Order of Lenin.” A few years later, Shostakovich was allowed to travel abroad, visiting England (where he met Benjamin Britten) and, in November 1959, the United States. Some of the composer’s finest works appeared in those years—the autobiographical Eighth String Quartet, and the First Cello Concerto, a work commissioned by the great virtuoso, Mstislav Rostropovich. Indeed, the premiere recording of the Cello Concerto was made with Rostropovich joining Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, all under the supervision of the composer. Even as the politburo activated five-year plans and Premiere Khrushchev was threatening to “bury” the West, Shostakovich became the artistic poster boy of a seemingly resurgent Soviet culture. But lying underneath the surface lay the composer’s musical signature, four notes derived from the German nomenclature for the initials D – S (=E-flat) – C – H (=B-natural), i.e., D. SCHostakovich. He uses this motto in the Tenth Symphony, Eighth Quartet, and Cello Concerto, and whenever this motto appears, the composer sends out a warning that things are not as well as they may seem. Ever nervous that officialdom might turn against him, as it had done in the 1930s, Shostakovich took a risk by using the motto so prominently in high profile compositions.
Perhaps by way of demonstrating his appreciation for his new-found artistic freedom, or perhaps as a ruse to keep officialdom happy, Shostakovich authored a series of works in the late 1950s in various genres, including film music, which gave the impression of his whole-hearted endorsement of “socialist realism.” It was from this milieu that the Eleventh and Twelfth Symphonies emerged. Symphony no. 11 (“The Year 1905”) and Symphony no. 12 (“The Year 1917”) represented a pair that reflected the origins of the Soviet Revolution(January of 1905 was marked by the “Bloody Sunday” massacre of protestors in St. Petersburg). They also mirror each other structurally by having titled movements that are played without any pause between their movements. Ostensibly, the Symphony no. 12, is a portrait of the founder of the Revolution and the Soviet Union’s first Premier, Vladimir Lenin(1870-1924). The titles of the first two movements reflect important markers in Lenin’s life, although the music can’t truly be said to be biographical in nature. The first movement, “Revolutionary Petrograd,” quotes two primary themes that continue to resonate throughout the entire work and, according to the composer’s plans, a representation of Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd and his meeting of its working-class citizens. It begins with a mournful theme in the cellos and basses that is derived from a revolutionary folk song whose words read “shame on you tyrants.” A second important theme is a Polish song, “The Warsaw March” (also used in the Eleventh Symphony). Much of the main body of this movement, however, is brutally loud and incredibly fast—perhaps a reflection of the angry mood of the proletariat. The second movement represents “Razliv,” the place near Petrograd where Lenin had his headquarters. The composer quotes an earlier work, “Funeral March for the Victims of the Revolution.” The brief third movement, “Aurora,” is named for the cruiser that fired the first salvo at the Tsar’s Winter Palace, and serves as a bridge to the finale, entitled “The Dawn of Humanity,” in which the mournful themes heard near the start of the symphony are transformed into a forced jubilation.
As is the case with many of Shostakovich’s works, conflicting narratives exist that have generated controversy about the composer’s sincerity in writing works that express some ideal of “socialist realism.” The often biting sarcasm of the music, often quite ferocious as we hear in many episodes of the Twelfth Symphony, belie any notion that the work is an unequivocal tribute to Lenin. Perhaps we will never know the truth about what the composer had in mind. What we do know is that Shostakovich, in his fifteen symphonies, emerged as the most compelling exponent of the genre in the often turbulent twentieth century.
Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2014/2026
