Visionary Landscapes Op. 214

for Piano

By Alan Hovhaness

I am an amateur pianist who is at home with Mozart. I heard a Hovhaness piece for orchestra on PBS and that was my introduction to the composer -- I loved it. As an experiment, I ordered the Visionary Landscapes. They are more "modern" than I expected, but I like them...

-- more accessible to me than for example Scriabin. If you are at all tempted, try them!

This is Alan Hovhaness at his most evocative -- well, for the piano. Four of the five pieces are written on one staff, not the usual pianist's two. Lots of pedal work for amassing large bell-like, temple-like sound masses. And yet this is very precise music, harmonically simple...

, if based on non-diatonic scales and non-tertian chords. The final piece requires direct (finger) access to the strings inside the piano. Lovely. Sublime. Dissonant-but-melodic. Exquisite music.