March 2024  New CD: Hovhaness Harpsichord Works from Sara Stowe/Tremula Records

Almost a quarter of a century after his death, the first commercial release dedicated (for the most part) to Hovhaness's harpsichord works has appeared on the independent English label Tremula Records. The CD comprises two works from the mid-1960s and the composer's Harpsichord Sonata No.1 from 1977. The performer, English harpsichordist Sara Stowe, intersperses these three works with two shorter pieces by composers of younger generations.

Unsurprisingly, Hovhaness wrote much less music for harpsichord than piano, probably doing so only to commission or when there was a performer at the ready. The two shorter works here, Dark River and Distant Bell and Bare November Day, were likely written for their dedicatee the Scandinavian composer and keyboardist Jan Wallgren who, like Hovhaness, delved into both early Western and various kinds of Oriental music (before later establishing himself as a jazz band leader).

Dark River and Distant Bell is a brooding mini-suite resting entirely on an E-note drone. Its tiny central movement, comprising a melody built on note clusters, is flanked by two slightly longer movements in the composer's characteristic keyboard style wherein a freely rhapsodic melody in an oriental mode is imbued throughout with melisma. The third movement's graceful melody may be recognisable to some, having previously been used in both a 1963 Ghazal for piano and the 1964 dramatic orchestral work Floating World.

The contemporaneous Bare November Day comprises a prelude and five hymns. Whilst these "Hymns" have hymn-like moments they also employ varying degrees and types of contrapuntal device. As with his piano writing, Hovhaness draws upon his 'toolkit' of archaic modes, vocal-like melisma, canon, imitative counterpoint and a plethora of melodic grace notes. But heard on the harpsichord rather than piano, this musical melting pot may at times convey idioms from the instrument's remote past, namely fleeting reminiscences of Couperin and (in Hymn IV) the English Virginalist School of the late 16th century.

Receiving its first recording here is Hovhaness's Harpsichord Sonata No.1, appearing late in his career in 1977. There are in fact seven numbered harpsichord sonatas, but being self-published late works they have remained virtually unknown. Like his piano sonatas, the ones for harpsichord comprise sets of contrasting movements far more akin to the Baroque suite than any Classical sonata template. The five movements of No.1 reference not only an eclectic gamut of idioms (from raga-infused melody to neo-Baroque fugue) but also harmonic treatments (from insistent, sparse drones in the opener to sentimental chromaticism towards the end). This sonata was one of several composed for Hovhaness's daughter Jean Nandi, a recitalist, pedagogue and the author of three books on harpsichord playing and music theory.