Lousadzak (The Coming of Light), Op. 48, is a 1944 concerto for piano and string orchestra by the American-Armenian composer Alan Hovhaness . Duration of the piece is about 18 minutes. The work is known for its use of aleatory that is said to have impressed fellow composers Lou Harrison and John Cage , and anticipated "many soon-to-be-hip" aleatory techniques.
8-537: Shortly before composing Lousadzak, Alan Hovhaness had received a severe reprimand from Aaron Copland and, as a result, destroyed a thousand earlier pieces before making a fresh start. While being a student under Fredrick Converse at the New England Conservatory, Hovhaness had already familiarized with Indian classical music and, later on, embraced music from different cultures such as Korean, Japanese, and Chinese music. The aleatoric technique used in
16-519: A shimmering sound." This article about a concerto is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Gramophone (magazine) Gramophone (known as The Gramophone prior to 1970) is a magazine published monthly in London, devoted to classical music , particularly to reviews of recordings . It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie who continued to edit
24-604: The Gramophone Critics' Choice. In April 2012, Gramophone launched its Hall of Fame , an annual listing of the men and women (artists, producers, engineers, A&R directors and label founders) who have contributed to the classical records industry. The first 50 were revealed in the May 2012 issue and on Gramophone ’s website, and each year will see another intake into the Hall of Fame. In late 2012, Gramophone announced
32-580: The magazine until 1961. It was acquired by Haymarket in 1999. In 2013 the Mark Allen Group became the publisher. The magazine presents the Gramophone Awards each year to the classical recordings which it considers the finest in a variety of categories. On its website Gramophone claims to be: "The world's authority on classical music since 1923." This used to appear on the front cover of every issue; recent editions have changed
40-496: The piece is what Hovhaness called a “humming effect.” It occurs several times throughout the piece in the string section. The string players are instructed to play several pre-composed motives at a free tempo throughout various measures to achieve the effect.The aleatory nature of the technique was also controversial. In Arnold Rosner and Vance Wolverton’s writing on the piece: “… is hardly aleatory, since exact pitches are carefully controlled and any two performances will be substantially
48-399: The same.” Andrew Farach-Colton of Gramophone lauded Lousadzak , saying, "the music has a spare sensuality that’s [...] delectable." The work was also praised by BBC Music Magazine ' s Anthony Burton for its "Eastern emphasis on ornamented melody over a drone bass, and its almost complete absence of conventional harmony." On the other hand, John R. White, writing in the mid-1960s before
56-479: The wider usage of minimalist and aleatoric devices in American art music, singled out the work's aleatory passages as a particular weakness, observing that even though the "delicious humming effect" they produce "may delight an audience that has never before seen an orchestra turned loose on chance music", such basic assumptions mean that "this easily playable work sounds static and after a while simply has to cease on
64-450: The wording to "The world's best classical music reviews." Its circulation, including digital subscribers, was 24,380 in 2014. Apart from the annual Gramophone Classical Music Awards , each month features a dozen recordings as Gramophone Editor's Choice (now Gramophone Choice ). Then, in the annual Christmas edition, there is a review of the year's recordings where each critic selects four or five recordings, and these selections make up
#958041