jazzy_dave | Jul. 20th, 2016

Just a couple of tunes post midnight today - a cool jazz tune from the fifties or sixties -

Harold Land - Ursula

and a fine piece of classical stuff -

Alan Hovhaness - Symphony No. 20, 'Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain', Op. 223

In his Symphony No. 20, 'Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain' (1969), the composer has essentially composed three different pilgrims' marches. He writes: "The first movement is in the spirit of Armenian religious music in three great melodic arcs, the last having the mood of a spiritual". The opening clarinet choir employs an oriental harmonic device called the dragonfly, in which constant open harmonies and triads are periodically touched and then released by temporary dissonances. The first of three arcs begins with a noble, hymn-like trumpet statement. Clarinets return for the second time, again with their dragonfly utterances. A second arc starts with solo English horn. It is a warm, rolling, reverent and fully developed slow march. Once again the dragonfly returns to intersperse the arcs, now with flutes added and leading to the final melodic arc in the style of a grand and noble spiritual. Clarinets and flutes return for a final time to complete the movement. "The second movement is a long melodic line completed non-harmonically and unisonally over held drones in oriental style." Suggesting a fresh start in this collection of pilgrims' marches, a solo alto saxophone plays a dance-like figure, joined on and off with other saxophones and lifted along by the rhythms of a percussion ostinato. Clanging chimes announce grand unison trumpets intoning a prayer/sermon, punctuated with primitive clashing cymbals. The final section is a fetching dance, with solo oboe and clarinet section gracefully moving forward above bouncing timpani and bass drum figures. "The third movement is in the form of a chorale and fugue: at the climax of the fugue, the chorale theme powerfully returns, interspersed with many-voiced canon interludes."