Lou Harrison: Suite for Symphonic Strings (1960), Strict Songs I-IV for Eight Baritones with Orchestra (1955). The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney. First Edition Music FECD-0014 (2003) barcode 809157000143
Strict Songs recorded 12.II.56, Columbia Auditorium, Louisville
Suite recorded 21.XI.61, Macauley Theatre, Louisville
An interesting introduction to a maverick composer, unfortunately marred by too short TT and flawed transfers
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 10 January 2008
Here is one possible definition of a maverick: one who neither goes by the rules nor against them, but makes his way besides them. Lou Harrison is a good example. Some composers write polytonal music, some write polyrhythmic music – but in his Suite for Symphonic Strings from 1960, Harrison writes polystylistically. The Suite’s nine movements alternate between a kind of folk-inspired Dance music announcing the minimalim of Terry Riley (for instance in his Salome Dances for Peace played by the Kronos Quartet on Elektra Nonesuch 9 79217-2, link will open new tab to my review) or the kind of World Music publicized by the Kronos and Balanescu Quartets (try the 1st movement, Estampie, a southern French Medieval stomping dance, or again the 4th and 8th), lyrical passages in a pensive and wistful mood reminiscent of Barber’s Adagio (2nd movement Chorale “Et in Arcadia Ego”, 9th movmement “Nocturne”) or even some more tensely expressionistic, evoking Berg’s Three Movements from the Lyric Suite for string orchestra (4, Lament), and strict fugues and canons, some stern and evocative of, well, Bach’s Art of the Fugue seen through the lenses, again, of Berg’s string quartets (3, 7), others more light-hearted and sunny (6, “In Honor of Apollo”). Harrison not only admitted to that much but even made it a point of style: “This Suite was composed out of materials some of which are quite old. Often, with me, even indivudual movements “assemble” themselves out of items that may have been composed (or sketched) many years apart. (…) As a personal matter, the Suite is, for me, a curiously unified & compact piece. Despite the variety of compositional manners which it encompasses, & its length, I still regard it almost as a ‘story-line’ composition.”
More coherence of World-Music-only style in the four Strict Songs for Eight Baritones with Orchestra from 1955, a Louisville commission, inspired by Navaho Songs and meant as celebrations of- and offerings to “the four divisions of things of which we have awareness”: plants, animals, heavens, minerals. The music is outwardly simple, repetitive and goes for a kind of ritualistic and haunting impact. Britten may fleetingly come to mind – the Britten of the far-East-inspired Church Parables, or again (in the last song) the powerful chorales of Billy Budd. Other than Cowell maybe, I can’t think of many who composed music like that in the 1950s. Of course, starting with the 1980s, they swarmed.
Outstanding booklet, with facsimiles of letters written by Harrison in his beautifully ornate handwriting – a work of art in itself.
However the disc has two flaws: first by a relatively short TT of 48 minutes, which I’d have been ready to put up with in consideration of the coherence of the program (short TT has been the main drawback of First Edition Music’s otherwise highly laudable choice to offer one-composer programs in their valuable series of Louisville reissues, and it often happens that there is no more than 40 to 50 minutes of music of a given composer in the Louisville catalog – see for instance my reviews of FECD-0008 George Crumb, FECD-0015 Alberto Ginastera, or FECD-0030 Toshiro Mayuzumi).
Way more irksome is a problem with the transfers which I’ve remarked in other such First Edition Music Louisville reissues (see for instance my reviews of FECD-0007 Wallingford Riegger, FECD-0015 Alberto Ginastera’s Ollantay or FECD-0013 Peter Mennin’s Cello Concerto). Track 6, the sonic perspective (until then good, present and well-defined mono with unobtrusive tape hiss) suddenly and markedly shifts to the left-channel (as if it were badly processed – how did they call it already? – “electronically reprocessed stereo”) and from there on the sound acquires a pervading kind of metalling flutter apparently pointing to a badly worn master tape. But I know from Mennin’s Cello Concerto (earlier reissued on CD by Albany, TROY044) that this problem comes not from the original tapes, but apparently from something that went wrong in First Edition Music’s transfers. There are discussions online that complain with the lack of technical inclination and interest for sonics of the person in charge of The Santa Fe Music Group/First Edition Music’s, and it is much in evidence here. The feeling is awful. For more about this and the CD reissues of the Louisville catalog, see my Louisville CD-discography.
The Strict Songs were originally released in 1958 on Louisville LOU 582 with Peter Jona Korn’s Variations on a Tune from Beggars’ Opera, and the Suite in 1962 on LOU 621 with Ives’ Decoration Day. None of the pairings were reissued to CD, but they are available on download or streaming.