Alan Hovhaness: Exile Symphony

BMOP/sound 1020
October 2011
67:39
  • Boston Modern Orchestra Project
  • Gil Rose, conductor

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CD price: $16.99

Track Listing

Disc 1
  • 1.Armenian Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 45 (1944)

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  •  Song of the Sea (1933)
  • 2.I. Moderato espressivo

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  • 3.II. Adagio espressivo
  • 4.Armenian Rhapsody No. 2, Op. 51 (1944)
  •  Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Strings, Op. 344 (1980)
  • 5.I. Andante; Fuga
  • 6.II. Adagio espressivo; Allegro
  • 7.III. Let the Living and the Celestial Sing
  • 8.Armenian Rhapsody No. 3, Op. 189 (1944)
  •  Symphony No. 1, Exile, Op. 17, No. 2 (1936)
  • 9.I. Andante espressivo; Allegro
  • 10.II. Grazioso
  • 11.III. Finale; Andante; Presto

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News & Press

Fanfare reviews Alan Hovhaness: Exile Symphony
June 7, 2012 — Back when I was a teenager, I was obsessed with the music of Alan Hovhaness, and was also uninhibited to an extent that is a bit embarrassing in retrospect. During that period, after attending a concert of the New York Philharmonic, I forced my way back to Leonard Bernstein’s dressing room, and asked him whether he ever intended to perform anything by Hovhaness.
Fanfare Full review
MusicWeb International reviews Alan Hovhaness: Exile Symphony
May 31, 2012 — One doubts that the world will ever wholly manage to come to terms with the music of Hovhaness. The sheer volume of his output – over five hundred works including seven operas and sixty-seven symphonies, and that excludes his music before 1940 much of which was destroyed by the composer – rivals the prolixity of seventeenth century composers such as Bach or Vivaldi.
MusicWeb International Full review
Audiophile Audition reviews Alan Hovhaness: Exile Symphony
February 17, 2012 — When a composer has written well over 500 works, one can assume that there will be some unevenness in his production. Despite the fact that a number of Alan Hovhaness's pieces have entered the standard repertoire and that recording projects turn up interesting, little-heard music by the composer on a regular basis, Hovhaness's production is indeed uneven. Remarkably, those 500 works are just the tip of the musical iceberg.
Audiophile Audition Full review
MusicWeb reviews Alan Hovhaness: Exile Symphony
January 20, 2012 — For a composer known of because of his 67 symphonies and seven operas this disc presents Hovhaness the miniaturist.
MusicWeb Full review
Classical CD Review Reviews Alan Hovhaness: Exile Symphony
December 29, 2011 — Imagined Armenias. Undoubtedly, Alan Hovhaness stands as an American original. He has taken from very few. He sounds like nobody else. You can tell a Hovhaness work within a few seconds. Others have even made use of his innovations without, of course, his unique poetry or giving him any credit at all. Hovhaness composed music easily -- like writing a letter, as he put it. Forget Mozart and the Marriage of Figaro overture. Hovhaness, dissatisfied with a symphony in rehearsal, did turn out an entirely new movement in a night.
Classical CD Review Full review
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