Decent Recording, Especially for the Stravinsky | Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain

A classsic! Reiner iluminated the world. | Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain | Alan Hovhaness, Igor Stravinsky, ...

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	• Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain Alan Hovhaness, Igor Stravinsky, ... RCA, 1995 average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Mysterious Mountain

Actually heard this the first time when my local classical radio station played it. I am very pro-Copeland and Sebelius and the timbre and melodic movements by Hovhaness were unforgetable. Although an older piece from the 1950's, Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner, and originally issued on vinyl, the transfer by RCA to CD is quite good. Additional pieces by Stravinsky and Prokofiev round out the rest of the album.

Decent Recording, Especially for the Stravinsky

I can't speak for the Hovhaness, because I'm not a big fan, and I think the Prokofiev ("Lieutenant Kijé"), while fair, has been done better on other recordings. But this was my introduction to "The Fairy's Kiss: Divertimento," and I have to say that even hearing other recordings that I prefer for technical reasons, this reading is terrific. The wild, schizophrenic string playing at two key points during the Danses suisses is a great wake-up call, and the orchestra plays feistily throughout. My only regret is that the recording wasn't preserved better with age, as there is too much white noise for my taste. But if you don't mind that, I definitely recommend Reiner's interpretation of the Stravinsky.

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A classsic! Reiner iluminated the world.

I first heard this as a junior in college way, way back. I belonged to the RCA Record Club in the '50s, and every month some delicious record would arrive in the mail. Does anyone remember getting Morton Gould conducting Rodeo & Billy the Kid? Wow, so much good music and so beautifully recorded. Why don't they make this into an SACD as they did with others on this label.

Anyway, everything has already been said, but I've got to add something. In the more than 50 years since I received this record in the mail, I've yet to run into anyone who knows this glorious music of Alan Hovhaness. How lucky I was to have some caring music lover at RCA send it to the Club. Where is it that I am taken when I hear the opening measures of Lt. Kije, Stravinsky, too, takes us yet to another world. Thank you Friz, and everyone at RCA for this glorious inexpensive transportation.

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A Gathering Of Mystics

Hovhaness, Vaughan Williams, and Stravinsky came from very different places, but they all shared an ability to write music that expressed the Mystical and the Earlthy in the same breath. Hovhaness' "Mysterious Mountain" may be his best example of that talent, and this LIVING STEREO recording is probably (as so many other reviewers have stated), the best performance in existence.

The LIVING STEREO series includes some of the finest musicians and performances ever recorded (please investigate another Fritz Reiner offering in the series, Ottorino Respighi's "Pines Of Rome" and "Fountains Of Rome"). "Mysterious Mountain" goes on my list of top favorites. It is a marvelous mix at a bargain price.

An odd aside -- when I was a kid, my mother used to take me to Knott's Berry Farm, long before it turned into a slick theme park. Back then, the park featured some amazing 19th Century music machines (literally, gigantic music boxes). I loved those gizmos, but the thing I always wanted to do on that trip was to go on the Mine Ride, a trip into a faux mountain to demonstrate what the old mines might have been like. As we rode through one of the caverns that displayed mineral crystals, they piped in a piece of music that I'm pretty sure was an excerpt of Hovhaness' "Mysterious Mountain," and it captured the wonder perfectly.

That's why I can honestly say that "Mysterious Mountain" is a gem. Add it to your collection.

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Wow.

My God. I got this strictly for the Hovhaness.

The Double Fugue alone is worth the price of the disc.

It will blow you away.

Most people became acquainted with Hovhaness's greatest symphony, Mysterious Mountain (Symphony 2), through this recording when it appeared on vinyl during the Stone Age. It plays like an extended prayer and is oddly structured. It was an immediate hit when it appeared in 1955. Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss is a 1928 ballet commission that, quite intentionally, recalls Tchaikovsky and was written to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death. Last here is a bang-up reading of Serge Prokofiev's classic Lieutenant Kije Suite. If you want to turn a young person onto classical music, play this disc. Worked with me. --Paul Cook

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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Tracks
Symphony No.2 ('Mysterious Mountain'), Op. 132: Movement 1 | Symphony No.2 ('Mysterious Mountain'), Op. 132: Movement 2 | Symphony No.2 ('Mysterious Mountain'), Op. 132: Movement 3 | Symphony No.2 ('Mysterious Mountain'), Op. 132: Movement 4 | Divertimento, symphonic suite for orchestra from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss: Divertimento | Divertimento, symphonic suite for orchestra from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss: Divertimento | Divertimento, symphonic suite for orchestra from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss: Divertimento | Divertimento, symphonic suite for orchestra from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss: Divertimento | Lieutenant Kijé, film score and suite for orchestra, Op. 60: No. 1, 'Birth of Kije' | Lieutenant Kijé, film score and suite for orchestra, Op. 60: No. 2, 'Romance' | Lieutenant Kijé, film score and suite for orchestra, Op. 60: No. 3, 'Kije's Wedding' | Lieutenant Kijé, film score and suite for orchestra, Op. 60: No. 4, 'Troika' | Lieutenant Kijé, film score and suite for orchestra, Op. 60: No. 5, 'Burial of Kije'

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