And God Created Great Whales, Op. 229, No. 1, is asymphonic poem fororchestra and recordedwhale sounds by the American composerAlan Hovhaness. The work was commissioned byAndre Kostelanetz and theNew York Philharmonic, who premiered the piece on June 11, 1970, inNew York City.[1] The piece has been recorded numerous times and remains one of Hovhaness's most popular compositions.[2][3][4] It has also been credited as an early work in the movement to save whales from extinction, alongsideJohn Tavener's 1966cantataThe Whale.[5] The title of the work comes fromGenesis 1:21 in theKing James Version of theBible.
The music contains elements of melodicpentatonicism and asynchronousaleatoricism, which Hovhaness referred to as "free non-rhythm chaos."[1] Specially recorded whale vocalizations play intermittently throughout the work and include the songs ofhumpback whales andbowhead whales.[1] The whale recordings were done byRoger Payne and Frank Watlington, from the albumSongs of the Humpback Whale.[citation needed]
Larry Rohter ofThe New York Times said the piece "can veer toward kitsch."[6] Edward Greenfield ofGramophone similarly gave the work mixed praise, stating:
With its fluent use of gimmicks, it would be easy to mock this, starting as it does with an aleatory twitter which leads on to pentatonic doodling of a kind that one improvised as a child on the black keys of the piano. Then comes the first of the tapes of the songs of the great humpback whale, recorded specially, followed by the first huge climax, very impressive except that the pentatonic melody which roars out on trombones (leading to whale-song imitations) is not distinctive enough, almost banal, punctuated by glockenspiel.[7]
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