Symphony No. 2 (Hovhaness)


Symphony No. 2, Op. 132, Mysterious Mountain is a three-movement orchestral composition by the Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness. The symphony was commissioned by the conductor Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony, and premiered live on NBC television in October 1955 on the Houston Symphony's first program with Stokowski as conductor. The first and most popular recording of the work, released in 1958 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing under Fritz Reiner, is often regarded as the foremost performance of the piece. This recording, like early performances of the work, predates the composer's decision to categorize the work "symphony". Later on, the G. Schirmer published score was titled Mysterious Mountain with "Symphony No. 2" printed as a subtitle in smaller typeface.

Style and composition

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for three flutes, two oboes and English horn, two B clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, five horns, three B trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, celesta, harp, and strings.

Structure

The symphony has a duration of roughly 17 minutes and is composed in three movements:
  1. Andante con moto
  2. Double Fugue
  3. Andante espressivo
The composition blends elements of consonant Western hymns, pentatonicism, and polyphonicism reminiscent of Renaissance music. The second movement also contains a reworking of ideas from Hovhaness's 1936 String Quartet No. 1.

Opus number

In a 1981 conversation with Charles Amirkhanian, Hovhaness detailed the rather haphazard way Mysterious Mountain acquired its opus number, recalling:

Reception

Critical response

Contemporary critical reception to Mysterious Mountain was positive and it remains one of Hovhaness's most popular works. In 1995, Lawrence Johnson of the Chicago Tribune said the symphony "still amazes today" and that it "anticipated by nearly 40 years the spiritual, meditative quasi-minimalism of composers such as Pärt, Tavener and Górecki." Edward Greenfield of Gramophone noted similarities in the piece to the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and favorably commented, "'Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man's attempt to know God', says the composer, and his spiritual purpose is expressed in the modal writing of the Andante outer movements, with overtones of Vaughan Williams pastoral as well as of Tallis, framing a central fugue characteristically smooth in its lines. The finale, at the start sounding like 'Tallis Fantasia meets Parsifal', culminates in a chorale leading to a grandiose conclusion."
Not all early reports were uncritically enthusiastic, however. Harold C. Schonberg, reviewing a Carnegie Hall performance by Leopold Stokowski, pronounced Mysterious Mountain "well-made and full of delicate sounds", but found it "a not too convincing fusion of his Byzantine with Western elements".

Hovhaness's opinion

Despite the popular success of the symphony, Hovhaness expressed having "mixed feelings" about certain sections of the piece after its completion. In a 1987 interview, he was quoted saying:

In popular culture

Passages from the second movement were quoted by musician Carlos Santana in the song "Transformation Day" from his 1979 album Oneness and the third movement is cited by Stars Of The Lid as a reference for their 2007 album, And Their Refinement of the Decline. Parts of the symphony were also used to score the 2014 film The Better Angels.

Partial discography