Alan Hovhaness Quotations

There were periods when I sometimes made fires in a large, open fireplace that lasted about two weeks, which was how long it took to burn my compositions. So there has been an awful lot that I have destroyed.

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

I did all kinds of things in order to earn a living.

I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it.

I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.

No, no, I didn't know him. He lost his mind around 1917 because of the tragedy of the Armenians.

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.

I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.

My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.

This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.

There are certain composers I have always admired very much, but I have always admired nature mostly and the music of the Orient.

The greater the emotional intensity, the greater the simplicity.

There is nothing like practice.

To me, atonality is against nature. There is a center to everything that exists. The planets have the sun, the earth, the moon.

My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound.

The composer...joins Heaven and Earth with threads of sounds.

Also, many very good records of contemporary music have been allowed to disappear. They don't recut them even when they are successful.

In back of the house where I was born there was an attic and from there you could see a poorhouse. I remember that very clearly.

I had been composing but I didn't know I was. When I realized that this was what I had been doing, I began to take it seriously.