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ASV has given the Armenian PO and Loris Tjeknavorian the opportunity to explore some of the byways of Armenian classical music, and they have certainly brought us at least one real gem (Terteryan's third symphony). The music of Edgar Hovhannessian (1930-1998) will presumably be an unknown quantity to most listeners. He was, apparently, a leading figure in the development of Armenian ballet after Khachaturian, but the ballet numbers on this disc, from his early ballet Marmar (1956) are not particularly impressive or original. In fact, this is Khachaturian and water (and there was, frankly, a lot of water in Khachaturian to begin with), and none of the eight numbers we get here contains anything even mildly interesting or appealing. (The back cover gives the date of Marmar as 1963, but that was when the suite was compiled, not when the music was written.)
The third symphony is a different matter. Dating from 1983 but premiered in 1996, it is scored for strings, keyboards and a wide range of percussion instruments and cast in three movements - perhaps somewhat surprising given its rather exotic scoring, the movements are a ricercare, a minuet and a chaconne, and they are indeed based on these ancient forms even if the contents don't exactly fit our preconceptions about what ricercares, minuets and chaconnes sound like. It is troubled, brooding and brilliantly scored music and while it does not exactly add up to a masterpiece (and, again, nothing on the level of Terteryan's third) it is at least a worthwhile encounter. In fact, the first movement is more than that - a highly effective, dramatic, dazzling display of colors, textures and almost bizarrely frenzied figurations, this movement may be worth the price of the disc alone (at least if you can get it at a discount).
Which is good, of course, since the rest of the disc doesn't really rise above the mediocre - again, the symphony as a whole is decent, but the Marmar selections truly boring. Performances are in any case lively and spirited, and both the playing and the engineering is superior to some of the other recordings from this source. In sum, I would give this disc a modest recommendation for the symphony (and in particular that first movement), but it is hardly an essential acquisition.
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