Alan Hovhaness - Mysterious Mountian (1955)
Movement II. Double Fugue. Allegro Vivo.
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An Introduction
In this blog I will be discussing different styles of classical composition that found their roots in the 20th century. At the beginning of each post, as I have done with this one, I will recommend a recording to listen to while reading. This recording will be an example of the style that I will be discussing throughout the post. Listening to music is essential for understanding how the style actually engages the audience, so I hope you are able to pull up the recording and listen along. Be warned! Some of these pieces will sound weird, unusual, and oftentimes off putting to the listener if you have never heard them before. If you stick with it, I promise a basic understanding of why the piece is written the way that it is will, at least, make it more understandable and less foreign to you. Each post will be arranged into two sections. The first will be a more technical explanation and or analysis of the piece. The second will be my own personal exploration of the piece. The pieces that I present to you all have dug their way into at least a small, but present, corner of my heart, and I hope that you find enjoyment from them in the same way that I do.Mysterious Mountain
Nerd StuffI picked this piece to accompany my introduction because, in the realm of things that I will discuss on this blog, it is simple. The movement that I picked is a Fugue. This means a specific initial theme is passed through different players and returns frequently throughout the piece. That's it. What makes this fugue different from the perfectionistic fugues that Baroque and Classical composers wrote hundreds of years earlier is the style. The entire piece strongly channels Renaissance music, but also Western hymns and most unusually pentatonicism. Pentatonicism is using notes from the pentatonic scale, a scale entirely built on whole notes. This, plus rampant use of unison rhythm, gives the whole piece a unique and strange feel that completely sets it apart from fugues of the past. This contemporary style applied over a contrastingly ancient formatting template makes this piece distinctly modern.
How I came to love this piece
I, along with many fellow UNI students, participate in the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra under the direction of Kevin Kelly. In his younger years Mr. Kelly dedicated his study to the French Horn before becoming a conductor. He explained to us one rehearsal that the reason he was having us play this piece today was because he fell in love with it. His high school orchestra, all those many years ago, had preformed a rendition of Mysterious Mountain. Identically to most of us today, when he first heard the piece he hated it. It just seemed like the most boring and repetitive piece imaginable. It was only after playing the piece for many months that he began to like it. I experienced much the same thing with my enjoyment levels. As a Violist I had grown accustomed to boring parts. The monotony of playing the piece once through wasn't off-putting to me. The part that really irked me was the unison. Most of the piece is played with half or more of the orchestra on one part. This was not engaging to me. I wanted the unique fun different little quirks lying underneath overarching form that I was used to, not this comparatively bland monochromatic melody. What I didn't realize at first, and what I grew to realize as time progressed, was that the monochromatic melody made it unique and interesting if you listened closely enough. The infinitesimally beautiful parallel motion between parts, that could be easily overlooked by someone of my initial mindset, now blew my mind. I approached the entire piece with a different outlook and it made the whole experience genuinely enjoyable.
Why I picked this piece for my introduction
By looking closely at anything, no matter how ugly it seems, you can find deep beauty. This is what I hope to accomplish throughout my time posting on this blog. I hope you get the chance to see some beauty in various contemporary styles that are often immediately dismissed as weird or obnoxious. Ten years ago I hated classical music, contemporary classical music most of all. I thought it was a waste of my time. Spending half an hour listening to a single song that sounded about the same the whole way through was revolting to me. Next year, around this time, I will be attending a college to learn how to better write modern classical music. Looking back on it, there is something poetic about it. Even irony is beautiful.
Wow! This is a really beautiful piece. I am actually not an aficionado of classical music, and I generally prefer slower, more moderately paced pieces when I hear recorded classical music. This is probably because––while I know fair amount about rock, R&B, jazz, and hip hop––I'm largely ignorant about classical music, and so I humbly admit that I gravitate more toward "background music" types of classical music. That said, I'm pretty much always roused and transported when I hear classical music played well live (something I get to experience not infrequently, thanks to KCPA). But I found this recording compelling on a first listen. I'm sure it helped that I was reading background and a personal perspective on it as I listened.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to filling some of the wide gaps in my knowledge of contemporary classical music as you continue to post to this blog!
When you mentioned that you had hated classical music but you grew to love it, that really resonated with me. My father is a big fan of classic rock, so I grew up listening to that and playing songs on the guitar. When I picked up the double bass, I was initally adverse to the music. But as I played more music and participated in more music groups, I began to appreciate the ways in which it was different from the alternative rock I was listening to. At first I had the same problem--I was barely able to listen to a single, 10-minute long movement, let alone the 2 hours or so that is Mahler's 3rd. But I eventually built up the "stamina" to listen to such pieces, and I found myself enjoying classical more than the other music I was into.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Mysterious Mountain symphony, I think that you disliked it much more than I at the beginning. Bassists usually don't get interesting parts, so I love any piece that gives us melody. I personally enjoyed the 3rd movement the most. I enjoyed reading your analysis, too. I knew it was pentatonic in nature, but I had trouble distinguishing what made it sound so much different than the traditional fugue. Thanks for writing this post!