Mysterious Mountains (Includes Symphony No. 50, Mount St. Helens)

"An excellent introduction to Hovhaness's music, plus some intriguing early rarities."
(Gramophone November 2003)

American conductor Gerard Schwarz has been Music Director of the Seattle Symphony since 1985 and recently began his new tenure as Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Gerard Schwarz brings the great American composer, Alan Hovhaness' works to life on Mysterious Mountains including the opuses; Mysterious Mountain, Hymn to Glacier Peak, Mount of St. Helens and Storm on Mount Wildcat.

Hovhaness' musical style was unlike any other 20th century composer. He followed his "instinct and his voice."

After attending Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, on scholarship and drawing harsh criticism from Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, Hovhaness burned more than one thousand pieces of music in his fireplace. In an effort to regain a better sense of creative direction, he returned to his ethnic roots in Armenia. Around this time, his music came to the attention of conductor Leopold Stokowski, who performed his Symphony No. 1, Exile, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and later commissioned and premiered Hovhaness' Symphony No. 2, Mysterious Mountain, Op. 132.

Vilem Sokol and the Seattle Youth Orchestra invited him in 1966 to conduct his music in Seattle, and a year later he became Composer-in-Residence, and made the city his home for the remainder of his life. Gerard Schwarz, then the new young conductor of the Seattle Symphony, conducted (and later recorded) Hovhaness' Symphony No. 50, Mount St. Helens, Op. 360. In 1991, the Seattle Youth Symphony commissioned Hovhaness to write a symphony for their 50th anniversary season. The result was Symphony No. 66, Hymn to Glacier Peak. The second of the symphony's three movements is "Love Song to Hinako," an ode to Hovhaness' wife.

Schwarz and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's new recording on Telarc features not only Hymn to Glacier Peak, Mysterious Mountain and Mount St. Helens, but also a lively performance of Storm on Mount Wildcat, which was originally composed in 1931, when Hovhaness was twenty years old.

American conductor Gerard Schwarz has been Music Director of the Seattle Symphony since 1985, and recently began his new tenure as Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He served a long and distinguished tenure as Music Director of New York's Mostly Mozart Festival from 1982 to 2001, and recently completed his successful collaboration as Music Director of the New York Chamber Symphony—a post he has held since 1976. Recent and upcoming guest conducting engagements include appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and a return to the Seattle Opera, among others.