source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 18:45:31 -0700 Subject: Lou Harrison Concerts in Minneapolis From: Harold Fortuin Yes, Kris, there is at least one other tuning list subscriber in Minneapolis--me. Yes, it's too bad that one of us didn't post news about the Lou Harrison mini- fest on this list earlier. This weekend, I attended both the Boriskin piano recital and the concert including the local Schubert Club gamelan orchestra and the Minneapolis Contemporary Ensemble. The Boriskin concert had no alternately tuned music, but did make insightful pairings of pieces of Harrison with those of his teachers or contemporaries including Henry Cowell, Schoenberg, Carl Ruggles, and Virgil Thomson. Each Harrison piece in these pairings did sound substantially similar in style to one of the above composers, without suffering the typical not-as-good-as-the-original problem. (In fact, I'd certainly rather hear Harrison's Suite (1943) than Schoenberg's Suite Opus 19, although I used to play the latter.) The Rondo in Harrison's Suite was particularly good, and its Conductus movement anticipates the complexity of Boulez. The Carl Ruggles Four Evocations was a particularly brilliant piece on the program, and the Harrison Triphony (1945) compares well. Harrison's Reel: Homage to Henry Cowell (1939) is also very worthy of further performances. The program was framed by some more accessible music of his: a Dance Suite a la Aaron Copland, and a Tango. I think that Boriskin has, or will, release this music on an album entitled The Equal-Tempered Lou Harrison. Today's concert began with traditional Javanese gamelan, and then included Gendhing in Honor of Palladio Slendro and Bubaran Robert Slendro by Harrison. The style difference between traditional gamelan and Harrison's pieces was certainly noticeable, even without the clapping in the first piece, and the trombone soloist in the second. Nevertheless, the rather static style of these pieces, and many of their structural features were very close to those of the traditional pieces. The second half of the program included Triphony again, and Waltz for Evelyn Hinrichsen both played by local pianist Mary Jo Payne, the Air for Flute solo backed by synthesized drone, and Party Pieces for chamber ensemble of piano and wind quintet. These latter were written from fragments composed at some New York composers' parties in the 1940s. Regrettably, there was none of Harrison's JI music so far this weekend. Perhaps the Kronos Quartet will do some tomorrow night? European list members: for those of you with an interest in freely atonal music, please seek out the music of Ruggles. It's some of the best of its kind, and I think it's not well-known across the Atlantic. Another such composer is Ruth Crawford Seeger, whose string quartet is hopefully known a bit, but whose other work is certainly unjustly neglected as well. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 06:21 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01134; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 06:21:38 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01132 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id VAA21008; Sun, 13 Apr 1997 21:19:57 -0700 Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 21:19:57 -0700 Message-Id: <3351B503.1D97@dnvr.uswest.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu