When is cauliflower not good for you? When it turns out that it’s actually Mount St. Helens.
Mount St. Helens blew on May 18, 1980, killing 57 people, reducing hundreds of square miles to wasteland, and causing over $1 billion in damage. It also happened to inspire a symphony by Alan Hovhaness.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” with so much Hawaiian volcanic activity in the news of late, I thought it a good time to revisit Hovhaness’ “Mount St. Helens” Symphony, alongside two works by Icelandic genius Jon Leifs.
Hovhaness was moved to write his Symphony No. 50 in the wake of Helens’ cataclysmic eruption, the deadliest in U.S. history. The composer always viewed mountains as symbols of man’s attempt to know God – symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual worlds.
The friction of the natural and the spiritual inform the progression of the symphony, from a sense of grandeur in the first movement, a prelude and fugue in praise of Helens; the placidity of Paradise Lake, the beauty of which disappeared forever; and the volcano itself, recalled in the third and final movement, most percussively rendered. The violence subsides, and the dawn hymn of the opening returns in triumph.
Hovhaness’ volcano symphony is like a walk in the park alongside Leifs’ mad inspirations. Leifs’ “Hekla,” from 1961, is probably the closest you’ll ever want to get to a volcanic eruption. Requiring 19 percussionists banging away on anvils, stones, sirens, plate bells, chains, shotguns, cannons, and a large wooden stump, it has been called the loudest piece of classical music ever written. For their own well-being, the performers were instructed to wear earplugs.
As a bonus, with what’s left of our hearing, we’ll also enjoy “Volcanic Eruption and Atonement” from Leifs’ ballet, “Baldr.”
If there was a degree awarded for distinguished achievement in volcanic music, these composers would certainly have graduated “Magma Come Loudly.” Prepare to be blown away, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PHOTO: That ain’t cauliflower: Mount St. Helens in 1980
