Alan Hovhaness: The Wandering Armenian
Written by Harout Arakelian
Alan Hovhaness, Orchestral Compositions
“In England he is called ‘the quiet American.’ In Japan or India he is known as ‘the wandering Armenian.’ In America he is ‘a composer who stands alone.’”
Shogere Markarian, 1977
This is how Shoghere Markarian started her article “Talking to Alan Hovhaness,” which was published in Ararat Magazine in 1977. Markarian, a pianist from Providence, Rhode Island, was one of Hovhaness’ last official students.
Rare is a composer known to be as prolific as Alan Hovahness Chakmakjian. Consider this a short profile into his early Armenian years.
Hovhaness’ exposure to Armenian music began with his father, Haroutioun Hovhaness Chakmakjian. While his mother, Madeline Scott, preferred Alan not to attend any of the after-school programs in the Armenian community, his father made up for any lack in young Alan’s Armenian education. Chakmakjian came to America in 1904 after a turbulent journey from Cypress to Boston. Born in Adana in 1878 and educated in the sciences, Chakmakjian became a professor of chemistry at Tufts University. Alan’s mother Madeline was a graduate of Wellesley College. Alan’s parents met at an Armenian fundraiser. On Alan’s maternal side, his mother’s paternal grandfather was born in Scotland; her maternal side dates back to the 17th century in Westchester County, New York, around Sleepy Hollow.
While Madeline Scott’s family tree dates to early America, Alan’s father wrote that his family name dates back to an ancestor who was a gunsmith in Adana and whose name was changed from Mankoyan to Chakmakjian in the 1840s.
Alan spoke about his name and the reasons for shortening it in various interviews:
“Chakmakjian. I was born with the name Alan Vaness Chakmakjian. Flintlock maker. My great-great-grandfather somewhere, he made guns for the Turkish army, so he got that title. It was skillfully done though, because it would be decorated and made very well. About 1931 or '32, I think, I changed it. It's a nice sounding name. I'm sorry, I did change it in a way.”
In other interviews, Alan spoke of how his father introduced him to the works of Komitas at a very young age. And how his very first published work, Opus #1, was given an Armenian title, Oror, which means lullaby in Armenian:
“My father one time brought home a record of the greatest Armenian composer, Komitas Vartabed, who was a kind of an Armenian Bartok, and he collected and arranged in the most sublime manner ancient folk music from different districts. And his music influenced me.
My Opus One is a lullaby, Oror, which means lullaby in Armenian. That was not really an Armenian kind of melody, but it does have an Eastern quality. Also, Hyman (Bloom) brought me the Six Dances for Piano of Komitas Vartabed, which are masterpieces in minimalism and purity of style. And I worked very hard on them and played them in public a lot.
In another interview, published in the book Soundpieces 2, Alan further elaborates:
“My father brought home one record when I was a kid, which was made in 1911 with Komitas Vartabed and Shah-Mouradian who was a tenor. Shah-Mouradian visited our house a few times because my father was fairly well known among the Armenians — he’d made a great Armenian-English dictionary.”
By the late 1930s, Hovhaness became the organist at the St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, Massachusetts. In 1951 when Olin Downes of The New York Times wrote to Hovhaness inquiring about his upcoming “St. Vartan” Symphony which was to premiere at Carnegie Hall, Alan wrote the following response:
“I truly love the human voice. But the voices that sing most in my ears are those of the Armenian Bishop, Hovsep Garabedian, a master of the Etchmiadzin style of singing, a wonderful singer of Lent music.”
In the same article Hovhaness compliments Deran Dinjian, the choir director of the St. James Church, and Father Hagop Mekjian, who Hovhaness called the “Sharagan King” and “possessor of a wonderful style of religious singing.”
Father Mekjian was a longtime pastor at Our Savior Armenian Church in Worcester. Before the Genocide, Mekjian was a music teacher in Adapazar where he taught a young Udi Hrant Kenkulian.
A friendship with Hyman Bloom also played an important part in Hovhaness’ interest in Armenian, Indian, South Asian and Eastern music. In 1936, Hovhaness and Bloom attended a concert that would capture Hovhaness’ imagination: a performance by Uday Shankar and Vishnu Shirali. Hovhaness was inspired by the sounds he heard.
Hyman Bloom was instrumental during Alan’s study of Armenian music. He acquired for Alan the sheet music of Six Dances for Piano by Komitas Vartabet, and just as importantly Bloom introduced Alan Hovhaness to the singular Yenovk Der-Hagopian sometime between 1941-1942. This would start an intense period of collaboration:
“It was Hyman Bloom, who is an outstanding painter in Boston, and who loved Indian music and who built instruments himself. He introduced me to this very fine folk singer. He was really a troubadour. His name was Yenovk Der-Hagopian. Many Armenians didn't appreciate him, but he was, this was real Armenian music. That started about 1942 when I was introduced to him, and he sang a lot of Sayat-Nova songs and other wonderful Kurdish music. He was the best natural singer of Armenian music that I ever heard.”
Hovhaness would further elaborate on this unique musical relationship:
Q: You transcribed some of his music into Western notation, didn’t you?
Hovhaness: I did. My Armenian Rhapsody is entirely based on his material. He wanted me to do it; he wanted me to copyright these things so the wrong person wouldn’t get hold of it! He trusted me and so did his oud player, and so I made a rhapsody on that. And I made the 12 Armenian Folksongs. That and this rhapsody are both based on the tunes he sang.
At these sessions, Yenovk would play folk tunes for Alan to notate, reminiscent of Komitas’ work as a musicologist., Yenovk recorded the folk tune, Dulhey Dulhey and later Alan published his version of it as Opus 238, Four Songs. And Alan attributes the opus as: “Armenian Van dialect, Anonymous, English version by Alan Hovhaness,” due to Der-Hagopian’s modesty and honesty.
This period for Hovhaness, studying Armenian music with the clergymen, notating Armenian music with Yenovk, and his explorations with Hyman Bloom and his other close friends led to premieres in major venues like Town Hall and Carnegie Hall.
To promote Hovhaness’ music, pianist Maro Ajemian and Dr. Elizabeth Gregory co-founded The Friends of Armenian Music Committee; included in the group were Maro’s sister Anahid and her husband, the pioneering record producer George Avakian, among others. The committee organized concerts, first in the New York area, later traveling to various cities. These performances were successful and created a greater interest in the Armenian music of Alan Hovhaness. It began in 1945 when the committee collaborated with the Armenian Students Association of America to premier his works Lousadzak and the Armenian Rhapsodies. After these successful performances, in 1947 Hovhaness recorded his first set of commercial releases. Hovhaness was accompanied by Maro Ajemian on the piano. The recordings produced for the Disc of America label were secretly produced by George Avakian, who at the time was under contract with Columbia Records. Avakian approached the head of the studio with a clever idea: he would simply sign the liner notes in Armenian. The produced records were a success.
By the late 1940s, Hovhaness had become a very important Armenian-American composer. Within the Armenian community he was invited to be a part of many significant concerts, particularly with music directors like Mihran Toumajan, Harout Mehran, Florence Der-Mateosian.
Over his career Alan Hovhaness produced over 400 musical compositions, a prolific artist who celebrated his Armenian heritage through produced masterpieces of music. We hope this short article inspires further study into the unique life and career of Alan Hovhaness.
Portrait of Alan Hovhaness and Maro Ajemian standing in front of the billboard for their 1946 concert at Boston's Symphony Hall (Image Source: New York Public LIbrary)
A special thanks to the SJS Charitable Trust for their generous support of our work to digitize and share our collection of 78 rpm records.
