Lou Harrison:  Selected Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937-1994

Leta E. Miller and Lou Harrison

"It was Mozart's boast that he could master any composer's musical style within a week and by the end of that time compose in it adeptly enough to deceive experts. Lou Harrison has something of that virtuosity himself," wrote Virgil Thomson in 1981. But "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" (Virgil Thomson, "The World of Lou Harrison," KPFA Folio 39, no. 5 [May 1987]: 7; reprinted in Peter Garland, ed., A Lou Harrison Reader [Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1987], 86.)

Lou Harrison's ability to combine wide-ranging influences, while at the same time projecting a sense of cohesion and stylistic individuality, is the essence of his skill. He often compares the compositional process to a "delightful game," choosing from toys he has "spread out over a wide acreage" and mingling them in novel combinations. Harrison (b. 1917) accumulated these toys gradually, from sources that intrigued him at various points in his career: the music of Schoenberg, Ruggles, and Cowell; the percussion ensemble; Asian musics, especially Indonesian, Chinese, and Korean; dissonant counterpoint; just intonation; dance; the French Baroque and Medieval music, to cite the most important.

Lou Harrison: Selected Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937Ð1994 (MUSA 8), edited by Leta Miller, presents seven of Harrison's compositions, spanning nearly 60 years and illustrating his compositional virtuosity. France 1917-Spain 1937, a political work from 1936 for percussion and string quartet, is one of his first "peace pieces" - a theme that emerges frequently in his compositions ranging from the 1930s to the 1990s. The percussion trio Tributes to Charon contains one movement from 1939, written for John Cage's Cornish School percussion ensemble in Seattle (and later choreographed by Jean Erdman), and a companion movement added in 1982 for the celebration of Harrison's sixty-fifth birthday at Mills College.

The solo organ work Praises for Michael the Archangel dates from Harrison's troubled New York period. Heavily influenced by the style of Carl Ruggles, the work is a model of what Harrison calls "secundal counterpoint." Its stark dissonances and tortured melodies presage the worst crises of his life, a serious nervous breakdown that required his hospitalization for nearly nine months. Though temporarily debilitating, the experience brought with it a reevaluation of his compositional style that led Harrison to reject dissonant counterpoint and twelve-tone serialism (which he had explored periodically since the 1930s) in favor of diatonism and melodicism. In the aftermath of his illness, Harrison began a gentle setting of a medieval goliard text, Vestiunt Silve, which he completed in 1994. The work shows medieval influences in its quintal harmonies and its instrumentation (soprano, flute, two violas, and harp), the flute and violas evoking the sounds of a recorder and a pair of violas de gamba

Harrison's path out of his mental crisis was arduous:  it took nearly a decade before he felt fully healed. During the recovery period a new influence emerged that helped him find focus and redirection:  in 1949 Virgil Thomson introduced him to theories of just intonation by giving him a copy of Harry Partch's new book, Genesis of a Music. In the tack-piano work Cinna, which dates from the mid-1950s, Harrison exploited the possibilities of a non-equal temperament that he devised specifically for this piece. Cinna also illustrates Harrison's connection to the theater (he first appeared on stage at the age of two-and-a-half in a production of Jean Webster's Daddy Long Legs):  its five movements were intended for performance as intermezzi between the acts of Pierre Corneille's 1641 play. The final two works in the volume date from the late 1980s and aptly illustrate the syncretic process Harrison has cultivated over the past half century. The Varied Trio for violin, percussion, and piano opens with a movement titled "Gending," in which Harrison adapts compositional processes and timbres of the Indonesian gamelan into a work for Western instruments. The second movement, "Bowl Bells," draws directly on his early percussion ensemble experiences and makes reference as well to North Indian musical practices and instruments. Expansive melody - for which Harrison has become justly renowned - is embodied in the work's central "Elegy," which in turn is followed by a gentle "Rondeau" influenced by eighteenth-century French music. In the finale Harrison draws on his early dance training: he not only has accompanied and composed for dance throughout his life but has also appeared on stage in numerous professional dance performances.

Similarly, the virtuosic Grand Duo for violin and piano blends a French Baroque rondeau, a Medieval estampie, a jovial polka, and an expansive air. Percussion influences are manifest here as well, particularly in Harrison's use of an octave bar, a simple device he invented that allows the pianist to strike octave clusters at prestissimo tempi.

The 40-page introductory essay to this volume documents Harrison's cultural pluralism and provides historical background for the seven compositions included therein. It also provides insight into his compositional philosophy and describes techniques that have guided him throughout his career. Harrison generally begins the compositional process by devising a set of "controls" designed to manage the array of possibilities offered by his historical and cultural influences. His goal is to create tightly regulated frameworks that he then embellishes with elegant surface materials.

With this volume, MUSA and A-R Editions embark on new territory by presenting the work of a living composer. Miller and Harrison, who have collaborated for over a decade on various recording and performance projects, acted as a team to ensure the edition's accuracy and authority. The editor was able to consult directly with the composer on many performance details and to discuss with him the genesis and aesthetic aim of each work. Harrison, whose own researches have often led him to productive interaction with historical musicologists, gave unstintingly of his time, reading the introductory essay and ruling on innumerable questions of interpretation. The edition reflects his latest thinking on each of the compositions; in some cases it mirrors none of the surviving manuscript sources but rather incorporates revisions Harrison now wishes to preserve. The result suggests a radically new possibility for collaboration between scholars and composers: an authoritative critical edition.