"Big bang" symphony by Hovhaness?

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1980, at 8:32 a.m. Pacific Time, Mount St. Helens erupted, its north face collapsing in a massive rock avalanche. Pressurized gasses from the volcano flattened 150 miles of forest, and killed every living thing within a ten-mile radius.

A mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward, and day was turned to night as grey ash fell over eastern Washington state.

It was an awe-inspiring spectacle witnessed by the American composer, Alan Hovhaness, who, in 1983, wrote his Symphony No. 50, a work subtitled “Mt. St. Helens.”

“Since 1972,” said Hovhaness, “I have lived between the young, volcanic Cascades and the oceanic Olympic range with rain forests, and find inspiration from the tremendous energy of these powerful, youthful, rugged mountains.”

As a Washington resident, and as the composer of the “Mysterious Mountain” Symphony, his Symphony No. 2 from 1955, Hovhaness was a natural choice for such a commission. In explaining the title of that earlier “mountain” symphony, Hovhaness wrote:

“Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man’s attempt to know God… symbolic places between the mundane and spiritual world.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Alan Hovhaness (1911 – 2000) Symphony No. 50 (Mount St. Helens) Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, cond. Delos 3137

On This Day

Births

• 1830 - Austro-Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark, in Keszthely, Hungary;

• 1901 - French composer Henri Sauguet, in Bordeaux;

Deaths

• 1733 - German composer and organist Georg Böhm, age 71, in Lüneburg;

• 1909 - Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz, age 48, in Cambo-les-Bains;

• 1910 - French composer and opera singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, age 88, in Paris;

• 1911 - Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, age 50, in Vienna;

• 1975 - American composer Leroy Anderson, age 66, in Woodburg, Conn.;

Premieres

• 1885 - Bruckner: String Quintet in F (final version), in Vienna, by the Hellmesberger Quartet with guest violist; 24 years earlier, Joseph Hellmesberger had asked Bruckner to write a quartet for his ensemble; A partial performance of this work (minus the Finale, and with its original Scherzo replaced by an Intermezzo movement) was arranged in Vienna on November 27, 1881, by Bruckner's pupil Franz Schalk;

• 1887 - Chabrier: "Le Roi malgre lui" (The King in Spite of Himself), in Paris at the Opera Comique;

• 1897 - Dukas: tone-poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," in Paris, with the composer conducting;

• 1917 - Satie: ballet "Parade," in Paris by the Ballet Russe;

• 1922 - Stravinsky: opera, "Renard," at the Paris Opéra, with Ernest Anseremet conducting;

• 1939 - Douglas Moore: opera "The Devil and Daniel Webster," in New York City;

• 1940 - Luigi Dallapiccola: opera "Volo di Notte" (Night Flight), after the novel by Antoine Saint-Exupéry), in Florence;

• 1949 - Milhaud: "Sabbath Morning Service" at Temple Emanu-El, in San Francisco, composer conducting;

• 1950 - Lukas Foss: opera "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (after the short story by Mark Twain) in Bloomington, Ind.;

• 1978 - Cowell: "Quartet Romantic" for 2 flutes, violin and viola, at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, by Paul Dunkel and Susan Palma (flutes), Ralph Schulte (violin) and John Graham (viola); This music was composed in 1917;

• 1981 - Joan Tower: "Sequoia" in New York, with the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies;

• 1988 - Philip Glass: opera "The Fall of the House of Usher" (after Poe) in Cambridge, Mass., at the American Repertory Theater;

• 1990 - John Harbison: Viola Concerto, in Bridgewater, N.J., with soloist Jaime Laredo and the New Jersey Symphony, Hugh Wolff conducting;

• 1996 - Philip Glass: opera "Les Enfants Terrible" (Children of the Game based on the novel by Jean Cocteau), by the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Theatre Casino in Zug (Switzerland), Karen Kamensek conducting.