On today’s date in 1980, at 8:32 a.m. Pacific Time to be exact, Mount St. Helens erupted, its north face collapsing in a massive rock avalanche. Pressurized gasses from the volcano flattened 150 miles of forest, and killed every living thing within a ten-mile radius – including 57 unfortunate people caught in the devastating blast. A mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward, and day was turned to night as grey ash fell over eastern Washington state. The energy released by the eruption was estimated at 10 megatons, thousands of times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle witnessed by the American composer, Alan Hovhaness, who, in 1983, was commissioned by his publisher, C.F. Peters, to write his Symphony No. 50, a work subtitled “Mt. St. Helens.” “Since 1972,” said Hovhaness, “I have lived between the young, volcanic Cascades and the oceanic Olympic range with rain forests, and find inspiration from the tremendous energy of these powerful, youthful, rugged mountains.” As a Washington resident, and as the composer of “Mysterious Mountain” Symphony, his Symphony No. 2 from 1955, Hovhaness was a natural choice for such a commission. In explaining the title of his earlier “mountain” symphony, Hovhaness wrote: “Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man’s attempt to know God… symbolic places between the mundane and spiritual world.” Before his death in the year 2000, Hovhaness completed 67 symphonies in all, many with programmatic titles inspired by other natural and spiritual themes.
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