Product Description

Twelfth in a series with previously unreleased works by well-known composers, this 126-minute 96kHz|24bit DualDisc features the world premiere recordings of Alan Hovhaness's Shambala and Janabar in addition to the first digital recording of Talin and commentaries by the composer. The CD side contains only Shambala in addition to single movements from the other two works.

Review

the performance of the double concerto for violin, sitar and orchestra Shambala (1969) is the first of any kind. The work was commissioned by Mehuhin to play with Ravi Shankar but was never performed. Intensely Indian in spirit (unsurprisingly as Hovhaness was an Indian music scholar), Shambala (a mythical Himalayan realm) plays as a substantial, structurally freewheeling span for 45 minutes, with improvised passages for the sitar alternating with notated ones for the violin and dialogues between the two. It is played superbly here, ironically, by Shankar pupil Gaurav Mazumdar, partnered by Christina Fong, who plays in all three concertos on OgreOgress's DualDisc and has a long history of Hovhaness performances to her credit. --Guy Rickards, Gramophone, April 2009

Janabar means Journey. It is classic Hovhaness and very appealing. Janabar was the big discovery for me; it has become a favorite piece. I have known Talin since 1959, when I discovered the MGM recording with Emanuel Vardi. The only other recording I know of in all these years used the clarinet in place of the viola. I like the music enough not to mind too much, but I am really glad to have an excellent new recording on viola. I have always thought of it as a viola concerto. The soloist in the third work (Shambala) plays the sitar, so it sounds very Indian. If you like Indian classical music and the sound of the sitar, you are bound to like this long, rather diffuse work. --Don Vroon, American Record Guide, July/August 2008

What proves to be the most outstanding aspect of the release is the work called Janabar, or 'Five Hymns of Serenity.' Hovhaness enthusiasts who have become disillusioned by the shockingly high proportion of dross within the composer's output, especially during the last three decades of his life, have cause to rejoice. Talin … is revered among Hovhaness admirers as one of his most profoundly inspired works … Shambala is said to be the first orchestral work to incorporate the sitar, although the following year Shankar composed his own 'Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra,' which I heard at the time and recall as abysmally bad. --Walter Simmons, Fanfare, 2008