A gorgeous recording, this. Gerard Schwarz recorded the luminously hymn-like Mysterious Mountain and the majestic Mount St. Helens symphonies for Delos, and those performances no doubt will reappear in due course on Naxos, but these newcomers are every bit as good and even marginally better-sounding (brighter, more focused). Symphony No. 66 (Hymn to Glacier Peak), the next to last that Hovhaness wrote, employs a wider harmonic range than usual in its thematically memorable first movement, while its second movement is a charming ode to the composer’s wife, Hinako.
Storm on Mount Wildcat is a very early piece composed in 1931 when Hovhaness was just 20. It’s less than three minutes long, and it sounds entirely characteristic. The storm is not a very violent one: from the first, Hovhaness was a gentle soul, and he’s more interested in the storm’s beauty and grandeur than in its destructive violence (the same holds true, of course, for the stylized eruption of Mount St. Helens in the eponymous symphony’s finale).
There is, in short, absolutely nothing wrong with this disc: the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays with dedication and expertise (and the music isn’t ever that difficult in any case), while Schwarz probably knows this music better than anyone else. There is no finer introduction to this composer currently available: if you love Hovhaness, buy this. If you don’t know him and want to get to know him (and you should), start here. You’ll love it. Now Telarc: Promise me your next Hovhaness CD will include his most gorgeous single-movement work, Fra Angelico! [4/19/2003]
