Alleluia and Fugue for string orchestra, Op. 40b

• Date: 1941
• Composer: Alan Hovhaness
• Period: Modern (1910-1949)

Review

The Alleluia and Fugue (1941), one of Hovhaness' earliest works for string orchestra, is a companion to the Psalm and Fugue of the same year. The richness of its textures -- the violins are divided into six parts, the cellos into two -- owes a great debt to choral music of the Renaissance, as well as more modern works like the similarly Renaissance-inspired Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The Alleluia is modal, with dense, flowing polyphony that gradually becomes more intense. The five-voice Fugue begins in the cellos and travels throughout the strings. Its tone is restrained, almost pastoral at first, eventually progressing to an almost ecstatic peroration. ~ Chris Morrison, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Alan Hovhaness: And God Created Great Whales; Concerto No. 8 for Orchestra; Anahid; Etc.	1989
American Adagios	1998
Delos Great American Composers Series [Box Set]	2008
Hovhaness Collection, Vol. 2	1993
Hovhaness: Celestial Fantasy	1998
Hovhaness: Celestial Gate and Other Orchestral Works	1995
Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain; And God Created Great Whales	1994

Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Gloria, Songs of Exaltation	2009
The Divine Feminine	2006

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