RECORD OF THE MONTH
Lou HARRISON (1917 – 2003)
Music for Orchestra, Ensemble and Gamelan
CD 1
Seven Pastorales (1952) [19:15]
New First Suite for Strings (1937/1947 rev 1995) [19:03]
Vestiunt Silve (1951/1994) [3:50]
Gending Chelsea for Gamelan [10:43]
Sanctus (1940) [6:45]
Suite from the Marriage at the Eiffel Tower (1949 arranged 1961) [16:15]
CD 2
Philemon and Baukis [12:35]
Cornish Lancaran [5:31]
Gending Alexander [13:23]
Homage to Pacifica [36:49]
Bubaran Robert [5:27]
CD 3
Suite from the ballet 'Solstice' (1949) [26:41]
Ariadne (1987) [7:59]
A Summerfield Set (1987 rev 1988) [11:31]
Canticle No.3 (1941 rev 1989) [14:36]
CD 4
Third Symphony (1982) [32:41]
Grand Duo for Violin and Piano (1988) [34:39]
Sarah Adams (viola), Berkeley Chamber Singers, Jody Diamond and the Lou Harrison
Gamelan Group, Lee Duckles (cello), Scott Evans (percussion), Nohema Fernandez
(celesta), Gamelan Si Betty, Emily Wong George (tack piano), Renate Gola (soprano),
Emily Golden (mezzo), Adam Gordon (trumpet), Lou Harrison (narrator), Daniel
Kennedy (percussion), Janet Lyman Hill (viola), Karen Lindquist (harp), Timothy
Malish (flute), Todd Manley (percussion), Leta Miller (flute and ocarina),
Yvonne Powers (oboe), David Rosenthal (percussion), Dennis Russell Davies
(piano), Peter Shelton (cello), Robert Strizich (guitar), Romuald Tecco (violin),
Virgil Thomson (narrator), Stephen Tramontozzi (string bass), William Winant
(percussion), Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra,
Dennis Russell Davies
Recording dates not given DDD
Re–issues of Music Masters recordings: 1990, 1991, 1992 and 2000
NIMBUS 2571/74 [4 CDs: 75:51 + 74:08 + 61:20 + 68:12]
Further
review from Rob Barnett
If ever a composer lived whose music was vital and elemental, whose vision
was that of a seer, whose outlook was worldwide, who communicated and wrote
music which spoke directly to the senses, that man was Lou Harrison. Never
have I received something for review which has given me more pleasure at just
the mere thought of it. In the pantheon of composers, Lou Harrison is one
of the very few who deserves the epithet great.
I had the great, good, fortune to meet Harrison when he came to London for
the 1985 Almeida Festival. He was a big man in every way, his build, his personality
and, I remember it so well, his laughter. He laughed as lot when he spoke.
It seemed that nothing was to be taken seriously. I enjoyed the all too short
time I was able to spend with him, and I shall never forget it.
Not only was Harrison a great composer but he had become part of musical history
for a very different reason – he conducted the first performance of Charles
Ives’s 3rd Symphony, The Camp Meeting,
in 1946. The following year, the Symphony won, for Ives, the Pulitzer
Prize for Music.The composer gave half the prize money to Harrison, saying
"prizes are for boys, and I'm all grown up".
Harrison’s first trip to Japan and Korea took place in 1961 and the following
year he visited Taiwan. With his partner, William Colvig, he built a tuned
percussion ensemble, called "an American gamelan," in order to show
that it was separate from the Indonesia gamelan. He wrote La Koro Sutro
and Suite for Violin and American Gamelan for this ensemble. Lou Harrison
suffered a heart attack, and died, whilst en route to a festival of his music
in Ohio. He was 85 years old, but only physically, for his musical mind was
as young and questing as ever. As tribute to this great man, I can do no bettre
than quote from the biography of him on the University of California and Santa
Cruz website devoted to his archive: “As a composer, artist, poet, calligraphist,
peace activist, Lou Harrison dedicated his life to bringing beauty into the
world, and those of us who remember his warm generosity, his integrity of
spirit, and his irrepressible joyfulness, owe a great debt of gratitude that
he did.*” We, his audience, owe him a debt of gratitude for his many marvellous
musical works.
So what of the music offered in these four CDs? Quite frankly, as far as I
am concerned as the four CDs contain music by Lou Harrison, that is recommendation
enough. But, perhaps a few pointers might be welcome for those not acquainted
with this work. Harrison’s style is basically tonal, but the tonality is expanded
and richer than one would expect. His forms hark back to the baroque and just
as he marries together east and west, in his work the old meets the new.
The Seven Pastorales are scored for a small orchestra, but there is
the feeling of chamber music throughout, so carefully, and delicately, are
they scored. The New First Suite for Strings has been performed in
England – the Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square, under John Lubbock gave
the UK première at the Proms on 12 August 1997 – so at least we’ve had a chance
to hear it. It’s a serious work in five movements, but with episodes which
will surprise, and delight, you – the third movement Round Dance in
particular.
Vestiunt Silve is a simple song inscribed “For Wilfrid Meller’s (sic)
80th birthday”. Wilfrid was another larger than life figure – I
remember bumping into him at the Wigmore Hall, after a performance, by the
Guildhall Strings, of his Hortus Rosarium, saying, “I’m going backstage
to see them, just to let them know I’m still alive, because I am, you know!”
It’s easy to understand the affection they would have shared for one another.
Gending Chelsea is based on a sixteen bar idea by Virgil Thomson and
sets some of his aphorisms. Sanctus is an ecstatic setting of the words
of the mass, for voice and piano. Marriage at the Eiffel Tower is a
ballet with text and décor by Jean Cocteau for which five members of Les Six
composed the music. Harrison was asked to compose a new score for the ballet
and this suite is from that score. After what has already been heard, the
sheer light-heartedness of the piece will surprise. It’s in the manner of
Les Six but with an American twang. This is added to by having Virgil Thomson
and the composer tell the story. Delightful!
CD 2 contains gamelan music, and here one must leave behind all your ideas
about what constitutes music. Gamelan music is so different from anything
you’ve ever heard that the purity and beauty of the sound can come as quite
a shock. The first two works here include parts for western solo instrument
– violin and trumpet, but the third is pure gamelan; Gending Alexander
consists of a very beautiful line which is accompanied by a variety of rhythmic
devices. The pulse is slow, the tone gentle. Homage to Pacifica is
a very large-scale suite in eight parts. This is more urban, American-sounding
gamelan music – even to the extent of the second movement ending with a very
western classical music cadence. There are solo parts for western instruments
as well as parts for speakers and singers.
With Solstice we return to Harrison’s American music persona. This
octet contains the sound of the gamelan, created with conventional instruments.
This is a rather severe score, spiky and complex, yet it’s still attractive
and approachable. There are nine short movements. Ariadne is a brief
duo for flute and percussion and A Summerfield Set is a three movement
work for solo piano. This latter would make a really good teaching piece,
introducing young pianists to an interesting idiom which they might not otherwise
encounter. Canticle No.3 could almost pass for real gamelan music,
with a little bit of ocarina; as you’d expect flute in the real thing this
is a good substitute, and some guitar, which you wouldn’t. It’s a nicely jaunty
piece of cross-fertilisation from a master hand.
Perhaps the best has been kept for last. The Third Symphony is a six
movement work with big outer movements and smaller inner ones. Again, there
is a slightly different voice at work here when compared with some of the
other pieces in this collection. The Symphony is a joyous work, a sunny,
smiling, uncomplicated piece, using music written as long ago as 1942! In
one way this is quite an Ivesian composition, with movements being taken from
already existing pieces – a light waltz is set up by a threnody, and the whole
ends in high spirits. Unlike Ives, there is no catastrophe There isn’t any
overt reference to the gamelan and a more American voice asserts itself in
the manner of Copland.
There is a strange, misty quality about the opening movement of the Grand
Duo for Violin and Piano. Both instruments seem to be taking it carefully
so as not to falter. It’s beautiful and hypnotic, with a long-breathed melody
for the fiddle which is self-perpetuating. Often in this work, the two instruments
seem to be enjoying separate reveries, which progress simultaneously without
regard for each other. But yet, they work well together and each could not
exist without the other. It’s a fascinating piece.
As I have pointed out there might appear to be more than one Lou Harrison
at work here – the eastern-influenced composer and the American. But this
should not worry us for, as Virgil Thomson has said, “Lou Harrison is not
making plastic roses for funeral parlors. He is simply speaking in many personae
and many languages. The message itself is pure Harrison. And that message
is of joy, dazzling and serene, and even at its most intensely serious, not
without laughter.”
These four CDs comprise the complete recordings of Harrison’s music made by
the MusicMasters label and we must be grateful to Nimbus for bringing them
back into the catalogue, and in such marvellous sound. The notes are very
good indeed – 20 pages of them – and they are a real help to someone just
starting to investigate this very interesting composer. This is one of the
most exciting and interesting items I have had the pleasure of reviewing all
year, I hope that it will be enjoyed by as many people as possible for it
shows a side of American music so removed from the music we know from that
country – Copland, Barber, Rorem. Also, it’s very good music. Please, on no
account, should you miss this very special issue.
Bob Briggs
* Bill Alves Professor of Music, The Claremont Colleges
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/harrisonbio.html
On no account, should you miss this very special issue.