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Roy Harris's Symphonies: an Introduction (I)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Malcolm D. Robertson
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Extract

The American symphonic output of the 20th century is still, for the vast majority of the music-loving public, a largely unexplored territory. Although in the past few years there has been some renewal of interest in this area of modern music, we remain in ignorance of some of its most characteristic composers. None more so than Roy Harris (1898–1979), whose birth centenary fell on 12 February this year and who used often to be described as America's leading symphonist. Certainly his Third Symphony is one of the few internationally recognized American works in the genre, yet most of the rest of his works remain virtually unknown, even in the USA.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 207 , December 1998 , pp. 9 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 The Symphonies of Roy Harris, An Analytical Study of the Linear Materials and of Related Works (available from UMI Dissertation Services). I will refer to this dissertation elsewhere in this article. It includes analyses of all the symphonies with the exception of the then-unwritten Thirteenth, in a generally well-balanced manner, and I would recommend it to any prospective researcher of Harris's works.

2 Harris originally numbered American Portrait as Symphony No.l, calling the next simply Symphony 1933 to distinguish it: though he changed his mind, 1933 is listed without number in many works of reference.

3 From Harris's programme note, reprinted by Stehman, 1973.

4 Copland, Aaron, The New Music, revised & enlarged edition (London: Macdonald, 1968), pp. 122–3Google Scholar.

5 ‘Inscriptions’ was also partly reworked as a movement of an unfinished four-movement Choral Symphony on Whitman texts for soli, chorus and orchestra which Harris sketched in New York in 1936. He returned to this general idea in the 1950s, beginning a choral-orchestral Wall Wliitman Symphony to the same texts as his 1936 project but with completely different music. The one completed movement became the cantata for baritone and orchestra, Give me the splendid silent sun (1955–6, rev. 1959).

6 During 1937 Harris is known to have worked on a Symphony for High School Orchestra commissioned by G Schinner, but though parts of this work were tried over by the Cleveland Heights High School Orchestra no material certainly relating to it can now be found and it was presumably not completed.

7 He had already (1938) composed two movements of an American Symphony for Jazz Band, commissioned by Tommy Dorsey, which was originally to have been numbered as Symphony No.4, but this was never completed.

8 Sleeve note by Harris to the recording on Vanguard 08 4076 71.

9 Extract from Harris's manuscript dedication (not in the printed score), quoted in full by Stehman, Dan in Roy Harris: A Bio-Bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), p. 151 Google Scholar.

10 Though not apparendy at its Moscow première (of the first movement only) under Nikolai Anosov, which took place as early as 1944, a year after Koussevitsky introduced the work in Boston.

11 These were mainly cuts and re-scorings: the recorded performance by the Louisville Orchestra under Robert Whitney (Albany ARO12), dating from 1965, is severely cut.

12 Reprinted in sleeve-notes for Andante AD72402.