Prayer of Saint Gregory

A solo oboe enters with a prayer, the orchestra has a soft spoken response, which then followed by a second prayer form the second oboe. After the second prayer the strings respond with a resounding optimism. The work closes with the same prayer returning, the orchestra, a hush in hopes.

Alan Hovhaness (1911 - 2000) was an American composer of Armenian and Scottish descent.
His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation. Richard Buell of the Boston Globe wrote: "Although he has been stereotyped as a self-consciously Armenian composer, his output assimilates the music of many cultures. What may be most American about all of his music, is the way he turns his motives and harmonic structural materials into a kind of exoticism. The atmosphere is hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic."

Lou Harrison reviewed a 1945 concert of Hovhaness' music which included his 1944 concerto for piano and strings, entitled Lousadzak:  "There is almost nothing occurring most of the time but unison melodies and very lengthy drone basses, which is all very Armenian. It is also very modern indeed in its elegant simplicity and adamant modal integrity, being, in effect, as tight and strong in its way as a twelve-tone work of the Austrian type. There is no harmony either, and the brilliance and excitement of parts of the piano concerto were due entirely to vigor of idea. It really takes a sound musicality to invent a succession of stimulating ideas within the bounds of an unaltered mode and without shifting the home-tone."