My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing.
ALAN HOVHANESSMy purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing.
ALAN HOVHANESSThis is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of.
ALAN HOVHANESSIt’s hard for me to think of others because I’m not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.
ALAN HOVHANESSI was born in Somerville, but I don’t remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.
ALAN HOVHANESSShe came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.
ALAN HOVHANESSI was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano.
ALAN HOVHANESSTo attempt what old Chinese painters called ‘spirit resonance’ in melody and sound.
ALAN HOVHANESSWell, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.
ALAN HOVHANESSTo me, atonality is against nature. There is a center to everything that exists.
ALAN HOVHANESSThe composer…joins Heaven and Earth with threads of sounds.
ALAN HOVHANESSBut I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
ALAN HOVHANESSAs well as from the beginning, although I didn’t know anything about it.
ALAN HOVHANESSI did all kinds of things in order to earn a living.
ALAN HOVHANESSI’ve always regarded nature as the clothing of God.
ALAN HOVHANESSThe planets have the sun, the earth, the moon.
ALAN HOVHANESSI think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.
ALAN HOVHANESS