Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo (formerly called K.R.T. Wasitodiningrat, informally called Pak Cokro).
Harrison is particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, with a number of pieces written for Javanese style gamelan instruments, including ensembles constructed and tuned by Harrison and his partner William Colvig. The majority of his works are written in just intonation rather than the more widespread equal temperament. Harrison is one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones.
Harrison took Henry Cowell's "Music of the Peoples of the World" course, and also studied counterpoint and composition with him. He later went to the University of California at Los Angeles to work at the dance department as a dancer and accompanist. While there, he took lessons from Arnold Schoenberg which led to an interest in Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. The pieces he was writing at this time, however, were largely percussive works using unconventional materials, such as car brake drums, as musical instruments. These pieces were similar to those being written by John Cage around the same time, and the two sometimes worked together.
In 1943, Harrison moved to New York City where he worked as a music critic for the Herald Tribune. While there he met Charles Ives, became his friend, and did a good deal in bringing Ives to the attention of the musical world, which had largely ignored him up to that point. With the assistance of his mentor Cowell, Harrison prepared and conducted the premiere of Ives's Symphony No. 3, and in return received help from Ives financially. When Ives won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for that piece, he gave half of the money to Harrison. Harrison also edited a large number of Ives's works, receiving compensation often in excess of what he billed (Miller and Lieberman 1998).
As well as Ives, Harrison supported and promoted the music of other unconventional American composers, including Edgard Varèse and Carl Ruggles as well as Alan Hovhaness[2]. Later during his time in North Carolina, Harrison taught at Black Mountain College. In 1947, he suffered a nervous breakdown, and moved back to California.
Like many other 20th-century composers, Harrison found it hard to support himself with his music, and took a number of other jobs to earn a living, including record salesman, florist, animal nurse, and forestry firefighter.
Harrison was outspoken about his political views, such as his pacifism (he was an active supporter of the international language Esperanto), and the fact that he was gay. He was also politically active and informed, including knowledge of gay history. He wrote many pieces with political texts or titles, writing, for instance, Homage to Pacifica for the opening of the Berkeley Headquarters of the Pacifica Foundation, and accepting commissions from the Portland Gay Men's Chorus (1988 and 1985) and by the Seattle Men's Chorus to arrange (1987) his Strict Songs, originally for eight baritones, for "a chorus of 120 male singing enthusiasts. Some of them good; some not so good. But the number is so fabulous."
Listeners to Harrison's music are often surprised that such a modern, innovative composer actually wrote lyrical melodies and often richly harmonized and orchestrated them, much in the tradition of the late Romantic composers.
Another component of Harrison's aesthetic is what Harry Partch would call corporeality, an emphasis on the physical and the sensual including live, human, performance and improvisation, timbre, rhythm, and the sense of space in his melodic lines, whether solo or in counterpoint, and most notably in his frequent dance collaborations.
Like Charles Ives, Harrison completed four symphonies. He typically combined a variety of the musical forms and languages that he preferred. This is quite apparent in the fourth symphony, recorded by the California Symphony for Argo Records, as well as his third symphony, which was performed and broadcast by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
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Terrific piece. The violin line at the end reminds me of something... is it a quotation?
TheRealmsOfGold 6 months ago
bartok bartok bartok
nickwickstrom 1 year ago
excellent! Hi Lois, beautiful playing as always!
eclecticviolin 1 year ago
@papilioj
mi tute konsentas!
lou harrison estis majstro de multaj emocioj...
mikoformiko 2 years ago
Mistera sed belega muziko !
papilioj 2 years ago