These days, Roy Harris is remembered as the
composer of a famous
3rd Symphony,
who wrote a lot of other Symphonies, but whose other music is
hardly known, let alone heard. There is a school of thought which
believes that beyond the
3rd Symphony
most of his work isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Certainly
there appears to be a lack of self-criticism on Harris’s part
which allowed less well constructed and written works out into
the public arena. Works such as the
Concerto for Piano, Clarinet
and String Quartet, op.2 (1927),
String Quartet No.3,
Four Preludes and Fugues (1937),
Violin Sonata (1941)
and the chamber cantata
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
(1953), not to mention the orchestral works
When Johnny Comes
Marching Home: An American Overture (1934), the
Violin
Concerto (1949) and the
1st (1933)
and
7th (1955)
Symphonies show
a composer of real stature. The chamber works could so easily
be programmed but they’re not and our not hearing them is our
loss, and a significant loss at that.
None of the pieces on this disk could be claimed to be major works
but there are some very attractive and interesting things nonetheless.
The two sets of
American Ballads use folk-tunes, such as
The Streets of Laredo and
When Johnny Comes Marching
Home, and are delightful suites with some nice quirky turns
of phrase. In feel they are reminiscent of Barber’s
Excursions
for piano and would enrich any recital of modernish piano music.
The early
Sonata is a tersely argued work in four succinct
movements, and it’s easy to see why the original
scherzo
wouldn’t have fitted into Harris’s scheme of things. The
Piano
Suite is another strong work; the first movement is bold and
brassy, demonstrative and forthright, the middle movement pensive
and the finale a French flavoured gigue.
For the rest we have six miniatures. The
Toccata contains
elements of both the headlong rush you’d expect from such a work,
and short reflective interludes. The
Variations on an American
Folksong, True Love Don’t Weep starts in a most serious manner,
becomes lighter then just as you think it’s going somewhere it
stops!
Untitled is, I believe, the earliest piece we know
by Harris and it’s very strange, questing and angular, almost
tuneless and imbued with an otherworldly feel.
Little Suite
is fun, this could almost be a teaching piece.
A Happy Piece
for Shirley is a delightful tribute.
Orchestrations,
a strange title for a solo piano piece, especially from someone
as adept at orchestration as Harris, is very serious and profound.
Whilst most of these works have been recorded before, it’s good
to have them collected together on one disk, and although none
of them can claim pretensions to be a lost masterpiece, they are
more than mere chippings off the block of genius. The performances
have an air of authority about them and the recording is clean
and clear. The notes, if not exhaustive, are helpful. Essential
for anyone investigating the Symphonies which Naxos is in the
process of recording and there are works here which pianists should
be investigating when seeking something piquant for their recitals.
Bob Briggs
Other
Harris recordings on Naxos
Geoffrey Burleson (piano) 
