Symphony No. 50, “Mount St. Helens,” Op. 360

Composer: HOVHANESS, Alan
  • Hovhaness composed this symphony in 1982,1 two years after the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which the composer witnessed from his home in Seattle.2

“When Mount St. Helens erupted on the morning of May 18, 1980, the sonic boom struck our south windows. Ashes did not come here at that time but covered land to the east all across the State of Washington into Montana. Ashes continued to travel all around the world, landing lightly on our house a week later, after their journey all around our planet…In my ‘Mount St. Helens Symphony’ I have tried to suggest a musical tribute to the sublime grandeur and beauty of Mount St. Helens and the surrounding majestic Cascade Mountains.”

From Alan Hovhaness’s program notes to his Symphony No. 503

Movements 

1. Andante 
2. Spirit Lake: Allegro 
3. Volcano: Adagio – Allegro4

  • The final movement depicts the 1980 eruption of the volcano. After that sonic portrait, the movement and symphony conclude with a joyful coda, which Hovhaness described thus:5

a “hymn of praise to the youthful power and grandeur of the Cascades Mountains—the volcanic energy, renewing the vitality of our peaceful planet, the living earth, the life-giving force building the majestic Cascade Mountains rising, piercing the clouds of heaven.”

Alan Hovhaness, on the coda of his Symphony No. 506

Sources

  1. Arnold Rosner and Vance Wolverton, “Hovhaness [Hovaness], Alan,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 10, 2022,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000013420.
  2. Betsy Schwarm, Classical Music Insights: Understanding and Enjoying Great Music (US: Trafford, 2011), 60.
  3. Tim Page, “Alan Hovhaness Offers his 61st Symphony,” The New York Times (Aug. 3, 1983), accessed May 10, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/03/arts/alan-hovhaness-offers-his-61st-symphony.html.
  4. Paul Schiavo, liner notes to Hovhaness: Symphony No. 1 “Exile,” Symphony No. 50 “Mount Saint Helens,” Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwartz, Naxos 8.559717, CD, 2012.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid.

Cut IDs

20959, 46160