Browse by Artist: HARRISON, LOU

Artist:	HARRISON, LOU
Title:	For Strings
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 140CD

Features: "Suite No. 2 for Strings" (1948); "Suite for Symphonic Strings" (1960); "Concerto for Pipa with String Orchestra" (1997). Performed by: Wu Man (pipa) & the New Professionals Orchestra. "The present recording traces the development of Harrison's creativity over a half century -- from 1948 to his last large-scale composition (1997). Harrison had been interested in Asian music since his early years. The late 'Concerto for Pipa' is a model of Harrison's trans-ethnicism, evoking the many influences that had attracted him over a half century. The work ends with an extended, medieval-inspired estampie, a virtuoso tour-de-force for soloist and orchestra."

Artist:	HARRISON, LOU
Title:	Por Gitaro: Suites For Tuned Guitars
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 195CD

John Schneider (guitars); with Just Strings: T.J. Troy, Gene Sterling and Erin Barnes (percussion). "Even though Lou Harrison rhapsodized about the 'dulcet tones' of the guitar, for much of his career, he refused to write for it. The problem was that the guitar's straight, fixed frets resulted in the tuning system known as equal temperament, while Harrison preferred the crystalline purity of harmony found in the types of tuning known as just intonation. In the 1970s, Harrison learned of a guitar with removable fingerboards, allowing the player to simply swap out fingerboards refretted with different tunings. Energized by this innovation, Harrison completed the first works for just-intoned guitar: the 'Serenade for Guitar and Optional Percussion' in 1978. He began the next work in the series, the 'Ditone Suite,' but grew impatient trying to acquire the necessary fingerboards. Two and a half movements into the suite, he reluctantly turned away from his ambitious guitar project, adapting the 'Ditone Suite' movements for his 'String Quartet Set.' In 1981, the guitarist John Schneider met with Harrison and played his first arrangements of his harp works for just intonation guitar. With Harrison's authorization and encouragement, Schneider began adapting some of Harrison's other works into suites. This is the first complete recording of the reconstructed 'Suites' and of the 'Ditone Set' and the first recording of 'In Honor of the Divine Mr. Handel' in the version for guitar and gamelan. The recordings were made in Harrison's straw bale house in Joshua Tree, California, where the house's main hall was intended for musical performances."

Artist:	HARRISON, LOU
Title:	Solo Keyboards
Label:	NEW ALBION
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	NA 117CD

Complete title: Complete Harpsichord Works, Music for Tack Piano & Fortepiano, In Historic and Experimental Tunings. Performed by Linda Burman-Hall, keyboards. "Although for several centuries keyboards were made that presented more than twelve tones, the hypnosis of twelve has continued, and continues to spread wherever 'Western' culture settles in. Even here there are apostates. The important composer Harry Partch built an entire orchestra for his works written in a forty-three tone scale. Younger people still do this and, in addition, tend to show tunings by means of 'lattices'. In this fine recording of my keyboard works, Linda and I have become a part of such apostasy from the dull grey of industrial twelve tone equal temperament and worked together to take back to ourselves as artists the natural right to tune pieces in ways that are fitting, appropriate, or enhance musical beauty." -- Lou Harrison

Artist:	HARRISON, LOU
Title:	Chamber and Gamelan Works
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	NW 80643CD

"Lou Harrison (1917-2003) believed fervently in music's power to create cultural bridges. To this end he applied his prodigious skills and creative energies to creating syncretic works that link diverse musical languages. Faulted at times for his eclecticism, Harrison responded with a vibrant defense of hybridity, cultivating a musical multiculturalism long before that term -- or even the concept -- held the currency it now enjoys. Harrison's major contributions to twentieth-century American music lie in three main areas: (1) the development of the percussion ensemble as a viable performance medium; (2) the linkage of Asian and Western musical styles; and (3) the exploration of just intonation tuning systems. All three are represented in the works on this disc. The influences manifest in the works on this disc remained with Harrison for the rest of his career. He ultimately composed over three dozen gamelan pieces and the estampie became one of his favorite forms (he used it in a dozen works, ranging from solo keyboard to full orchestra). Nor did his advocacy of just intonation systems diminish: he called for pure intervals in works in all genres. But the most distinctive characteristic of Harrison's music lies in its inherent plurality. He was drawn to community, both in performance groups such as the gamelan and the percussion ensemble, and in the compositions themselves, which unite elements from various times and places. Harrison's originality lay in the way he creatively combined these elements to produce novel syntheses. His fervent advocacy of hybridity led to a type of transethnic music that truly foreshadowed the post-modern celebration of diversity. The reissue of this long-unavailable release from the CRI catalog features extensive new liner notes by Harrison biographer Leta Miller."

Artist:	HARRISON, LOU
Title:	In Retrospect
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	NW 80666CD

"Although the compositional style of Lou Harrison (1917-2003) evolved and matured during his long and productive life, he held fast to a number of basic aesthetic principles: a devotion to beautiful melody; the foregrounding of rhythm, melody, and counterpoint over harmony; a preference for just-intonation tuning systems; and the integration of influences from diverse world musics. On the present disc, which includes works from 1939 to 1987, all of these characteristics are in evidence. Despite its early origin, 'First Concerto for Flute and Percussion' (1939) has remained one of Harrison's most frequently performed and recorded works. The ballet 'Solstice' (1950) is written for octet: three treble instruments (flute, oboe, trumpet), three bass instruments (two cellos and string bass), and two keyboards (celesta and tack-piano). Harrison found that by combining the tack-piano with the celesta he could create a sound that resembled that of an Indonesian gamelan, which he first encountered in 1939. The complex rhythms and exuberant melodies of gamelan became a major source of inspiration. The gamelanish sounds in 'Solstice' can be heard most prominently in the fourth movement ('Earth's Invitation'), when the solo flute line is accompanied by celesta, tack-piano, and pitched percussion created by the bass player, who strikes the strings of his instrument with drum sticks below the bridge. The text for 'Strict Songs' (1955, revised 1992), modeled on Navajo ritual song, is of Harrison's own invention. Harrison's interest in gamelan had led him to explore the possibilities of pentatonic modes. Each of the four movements of 'Strict Songs' is based on a different pentatonic mode. All intervals are tuned to exact mathematical proportions, rather than to the impure compromise-intervals of present-day equal-temperament. The fixed-pitch instruments in the ensemble (piano and harp) are retuned to produce non-beating intervals; the strings and trombones match these pitches by ear. The effect of the retuning is a rich palette of intervals, far more varied in size than those in equal temperament (where all intervals of a particular type are the same). 'Ariadne' (1987) draws inspiration from the music of India. Harrison's music combines Indian and Western influences. The opening movement, 'Ariadne Abandoned,' functions like an alap -- an introductory piece that introduces the mode and spirit of the work. In the second movement, 'The Triumph of Ariadne and Dionysos,' Harrison employs a compositional principle related to the Indian tala, a complex repeating rhythmic pattern."

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