An Interview with Alan Hovhaness

I became interested in the music of Alan Hovhaness when I first listened to a recording of ‘Fra Angelico’ Op.220. Enormously impressed by this work, I wanted to know about all the works written prior to it and set about tracking down as much information as I could.
In 1975 I wrote to Hovhaness telling him I’d been trying to catalogue his works and asking if he could fill some gaps in my list. He was very happy that I was doing this and said that Leopold Stokowski had often said to him that if he didn’t make a list of everything he’d written, much of it could be lost when he died. Alan also said he would help in any way he could and keep me informed of new works as he completed them.
This led to a lengthy correspondence over several years, in the course of which some works came to light that had been overlooked by Hovhaness, even though they had been performed and the scores subsequently consigned to his garage! This can be a problem for anyone so prolific.
Keen to have the list published, in 1983 Alan put me in touch with New York publisher, ProAm Music, who published it up to and including opus 360, the monumental Symphony No.50 ‘Mount Saint Helens’. Inevitably, the list was out of date even before it went to press as Alan continued composing at an extraordinary rate. In the same year, he invited me to stay at his home in Seattle, which is when I took the opportunity to record this interview with him.
Unfortunately, the 1983 list proved to have several errors and omissions that occurred during the printing process, resulting in an addendum having to be published a little later, in which works up to opus 400 were added. Alan continued composing until 1995, including his 67th Symphony, and his last work, an organ piece entitled ‘Habakkuk’, Op. 434.
Subsequently, an official Hovhaness website was established by Marco Shirodkar, who also added the last 34 works to list. The complete catalogue can be found on his site at www.hovhaness.com along with the printed text of my interview with Hovhaness and much other valuable information, including details of new recordings.
Richard Howard
www.richard-howard.com

[@mattafmusik5228]

Wonderful interview with one of my all time favorites. Tank you, tank you for this!