Hovhaness: Symphony No. 1 - Exile / Symphony No. 50 - Mount Saint Helens / Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints

One of the most intriguing and individual of 20th century American composers, Alan
Hovhaness rejected the cosmopolitan modernism of other leading composers of
the 1930s and 40s. The connection Hovhaness felt with his Armenian heritage is
evident in his Exile Symphony, which commemorates the flight forced upon those
people by the Ottoman Turks after World War I. Delicacy, charm and vitality in
the Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints evoke the composer's love for Japan, and
the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens inspired the Symphony No. 50, with its
remarkable evocation of the violent power and hauntingly mystic beauty of nature
in 'startlingly realistic engineering' (Gramophone).