Spirit Resonance: Rhizomal Creative Influences
in the Music of Alan Hovhaness and Ralph Vaughan Williams
English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Armenian/American composer Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) were musicians whose love of nature resonated throughout their orchestral and choral works. Rather than writing exclusively in the predominantly classic Germanic traditions of their early training, each found their own voice by incorporating folk songs and sacred hymns into their creative work. I will trace multiple ways in which these rhizomal lines of creative influence shaped the music of these two innovative, yet idiosyncratic, composers.
The concept of the rhizome in relation to art was first put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, in their book A Thousand Plateaus (1987). In nature, a rhizome, unlike a bulb or tuber, is a plant that sends out shoots underground in all directions. Like a rhizome, “Music has always sent out lines of flight, like so many "transformational multiplicities," comparable to a weed, a rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 11). From this it can be deduced that artworks are not wholly original, but are derived from previous ideas.
However, the degree to which a work of art is original, whether it be a painting, a poem, a novel, dance, or music is a complex question. From a depth psychological view, C.G. Jung considered artistic creation as stemming from an archetypal idea that is “altered by becoming conscious…and it takes its color from the individual consciousness in which it appears” ( C.G. Jung, 1968, p.5). T.S. Eliot aligned with Jungian thought in his critique that the highest form of poetry is not personal, but consists of traditional ideas that are transformed in an infinite variety of ways. Eliot made this clear in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone” (2009). Although I do not disagree with the opinion of these brilliant thinkers, I would like to add that in the process of creating art there arises an inspiration from the heart, the source of which is unknown. In this regard, I tend to align with the idea of spirit resonance.
Alan Hovhaness has been quoted as saying that he wanted “To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound” (Hovhaness, n.d). Spirit resonance is a 6th-century principle of artistry in Chinese ink paintings of mountains. It refers to the ability of the artist to see to the heart of things and to reveal these insights to the viewer (or listener) through an ineffable psychic energy. For example, “An artist can show that mountains have something in common with honor” (Beacom, 2020). For Hovhaness, the ancient concept of spirit resonance corresponded with the making of music as a spiritual practice. Ralph Vaughan Williams also honored that spirit, but as an agnostic, he was more a lover of nature and country.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams was very much a champion of traditional English music, proudly identifying as a Londoner. His work brought him fame and recognition as the foremost 20th- century composer who created a national English sound by integrating the early music of his country within the framework of familiar European musical traditions. Walking through the English countryside to collect and record over 800 folk songs from cultural oral history, he sensitively incorporated these tunes into his classical compositions.
Although he was not especially religious in the conventional sense, he also contributed greatly to the spiritual needs of the congregations of the Church of England by editing and arranging the English Hymnal (Vaughan Williams, 1906). According to composer Aaron Copeland, “a hymn tune represents a certain order of feeling, simplicity, plainness.” (1952, p. 104) It requires a composer with imagination to set the a folk tune in the proper context so that, as Copeland expressed, “it is not a mere quotation.” This compilation of ancient hymns, many of which are based on English folk melodies, are still sung in English churches today.
Another of Vaughan Williams’ well-known pieces is The Lark Ascending, Romance for Violin (Vaughan Williams, 1925). Inspired by the poem of the same name by English Victorian poet George Meredith (1881), it is an example of intertextuality. A term first coined by Julia Kristeva, intertextuality is the concept that texts are continually intersecting and influencing other texts in “folkloric, anthropological, and the popular dimension” (Orr, p. 643). The Lark Ascending was not only influenced by poetry, but by a rhizomal stream of musical tones, known as the Dorian mode, that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. Vaughan Williams used the Dorian mode for the a cappella violin melody that begins the piece. This tonal scale captures in sound the feeling of lightness and the freedom of a singular bird in flight.
Alan Hovhanness
In addition to the major and minor scales that are heard in European classical music, there are five alternative ancient Greek modal scales that both Vaughan Williams and Alan Hovhaness revived for Western ears in their compositions. When Hovhaness was asked about this in an NPR interview, he responded “I believe very much in melody, but melody as far as the usual Western scales, I felt, was exhausted. All good melodies have been written by Schubert and Mozart and the old composers. So I thought I’ll try using different scales” (Borden, 2000). Hovhaness wrote over 400 compositions in his lifetime, incorporating a variety of exotic modes from all over the globe including those of the Middle East and the Asian countries of Japan, Korea and India.
Born in Massachusetts of Armenian descent, he studied ancient Armenian church music which influenced the spiritual and mystical qualities of his music. However, his “East meets West” approach, now considered mainstream, was not accepted by the classical music establishment in America during a time when atonal music was coming into prominence. For example, when his Symphony No. 1, Exile (Hovhaness, 1936) was played at Tanglewood in 1942, New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein dismissed it as “filthy ghetto music.” Hovhaness was disappointed and hurt by these criticisms, burning 1000 pages of his previous compositions in a bonfire.
In a PBS documentary, he told the story of writing his first piece when he was four years old. “I showed it to my mother who told me it wasn’t any good…” (KCTS, 1984) Although he continued to write music as a child, he suffered for many years from feelings of inferiority stemming from this early memory. In the book, Healing Fiction, James Hillman introduced the idea that our reality is created by what we believe about our past experiences, through the fictions others tell us and what we tell ourselves. These inner wounds can be healed through retelling the stories, “creating in effect a psychopoesis or soul-making” (Quasha,1983). When Hovhaness set his music on fire, it may have been an act of purification, a ritual healing, and a way of beginning a new story.
Hovhaness found his purpose and entered into a period of great productivity when he overcame his need to please the musical elite. Through his interest in esoterica, a psychic medium advised him to imagine himself surrounded by infinite space while he was composing. He then felt himself in contact with the angelic realm, receiving mystic rhizomal creative influences from the universe. He is quoted as saying “My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing” (Hovhaness, n.d.) Recognizing the spiritual quality of the creative influences that flowed through him allowed him to remain true to the urgings of his soul.
Conclusion
Alan Hovhaness and Ralph Vaughan Williams were prolific composers of the 20th century. Their love of nature and country translated into music through an interweaving of rhizomal lines of creative influence. Vaughan Williams drew from the folk music of the English countryside and the songs from the Renaissance period while Alan Hovhaness, in effect, positioned himself as a global citizen, incorporating the varied traditions of world music. In addition, they both utilized harmonic and melodic modes that can also be traced back to ancient Greece. Approaching their art as a spiritual practice in their own unique ways, their life’s work connects to the timeless spirit of music that resounds throughout human history.
Artist Statement
The process of creating the Spirit Resonance video was one of soul-making for me. As I reviewed the photographs that I had taken on my nomadic journey to England in early September this year, memories resurfaced of seeing the enigmatic Silbury Hill for the first time. I felt once again the sensation of trampling through the weeds to place my hands upon the sacred stones, imagining that I was connecting in spirit with the prehistoric people who built this ritual site over 4000 years ago. Adapting and recording the work of Vaughan Williams (who walked through the very countryside that I visited in England) brought me a heightened awareness of the rhizomal lines that move through all time.
In the book A Nomad Poetics, Joris quoted the Arabic word mawqif used by 10C Sufi poet Niffari to define the writing of a poem as “a stop-over…the stay of the wanderer between two moments of movement, two sites, two places…” (2003, p.47). I would like to extend this definition to apply to all poesis, including the making of music. Wandering through the ancient Neolithic paths of Avebury on foot, far from home, created a pause in my life to reflect deeply upon the beauty of nature and my desire to express this musically on the violin.
A Postcard From a Volcano
I have a treasured memory of personally meeting Alan Hovhaness when I was playing with San Jose Symphony for the 1984 premier of his Symphony No. 50: Mount St. Helens (1955). The eruption of Mt. St. Helens volcano was a devastating experience for the people of the Pacific Northwest, but Hovhaness brought a sense of wonder and majesty in the music he created to memorialize that massive display of nature’s power.
In the same vein, essayist Michel Benamou, reflecting upon the poem “A Postcard from a Volcano” by Wallace Stevens (1936), wrote “in the poetic imagination…the meanest and most derelict thing can be significant, beautiful” (1959, p.51). I see this as yet another example of the resonance between nature, poetry, and music. Hovhaness once said in an interview, “I love mountains. They’re symbolic of the meeting of Earth and heaven, man and God. They’re also symbolic of the mountains you seek within yourself” (Borden, 2000).
Coincidentally, I recently had another opportunity to sonically immerse myself in the music of Hovhaness while playing Mysterious Mountain Symphony #2 (Hovhaness, 1982) in concert with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. I love mountains too. Music is a mysterious mountain that embodies the spirit resonance of my artistic journey.
Appendix
Voiceover from the short film Spirit Resonance
“As I followed the path of the stone circles through the fields of Avebury
I walked in the processional footsteps of the ancestral people who once held this land sacred.
A place where they gathered to build ceremonial monuments made of earth, timber and stone.
The mystery of Silbury Hill,
A man-made mountain amassed over 100 years of work,
generations scraping the chalky ground with only deer antlers as tools.
I lingered on the moment, placing my hands on the stones
But the memories of spirit resonance spiral deeply into the cavities of the rock, out of reach.”
References
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Borden, T. (2000). Alan Hovhaness Centennial. Other Minds.otherminds.org
https://www.otherminds.org › alan-hovhaness-centennial
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