559227bk Harris 8/1/06 8:37 pm Page 8 Also available on Naxos AMERICAN CLASSICS ROY HARRIS Symphony No. 3 Symphony No. 4 ‘Folk Song Symphony’ Colorado Symphony Chorus Colorado Symphony • Marin Alsop 8.559227 8 559227bk Harris 8/1/06 8:37 pm Page 2 Roy Harris (1898-1979): Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 die Einsamkeit und Härte des Lebens in jener erbar- es-ters (mit geteilten Bratschen und Celli) sorgen hier für mungslosen, ungezähmten Landschaft spiegeln, die der Pathos. Nach einer ausgedehnten Introduktion bringt die Born originally LeRoy and, reputedly, in a log cabin in From the opening long-limbed and intensely lyrical Text reflektiert. im Stile einer langsamen Trauerprozession gehaltene the state of Oklahoma, Roy Harris was raised by cello theme, fresh melodic shoots develop (as of life Es folgt das erste Orchesterzwischenspiel, in dem Negro fantasy die beseelten Weisen Little Boy Named farmers of Scottish and Irish descent whose pioneering awakening) and the overall effect is an extraordinarily Streicher und Schlagzeug (einschließlich des Vibra- David und De trumpet sounds it in my soul. forebears were stagecoach riders. Moving from this well-crafted and expressively powerful whole. Instead phons) eine unbeschwertere Naturstimmung vermitteln. Der Schluss-Satz, When Johnny Comes Marching remote frontier territory to California at the age of five, of the traditional symphonic notion of opposing themes In seiner dreiteiligen Anlage (ABA) erscheinen originale Home, ist ein weiteres begeisterndes Bürgerkriegslied. Harris eventually took up the piano and clarinet. and tonalities with their development and recapitulation, Materialien, die auf hoe-down-Mustern und der Jig The Mit diesem optimistischen Finale wollte Harris, der in Following a period at the University of California in the Harris creates a work of continuous organic growth with Irish Washerwoman basieren. Auch das gleichermaßen diesem Satz seine American Overture (1934) benutzte, early 1920s he studied composition privately in the superb economy of means. The scoring, with its „aufgeknöpfte“ zweite Interludium verwendet tanzhafte „das Gefühl des Überschwangs und der Freude einfangen, evenings and drove a dairy truck by day. After moving conventional woodwind, brass and string forces, calls Weisen und bringt neben anderen originalen Streicher- das unser Volk empfand, als die Männer aus dem Krieg eastwards to New York he met Aaron Copland who for a second tuba, and the percussion group includes melodien die Weise Jump up my Lady. Der zentrale Moun- heimkehrten.“ recommended further study in Paris with the bass drum, cymbals, triangle, xylophone and taineer Love Song ist eine wehmütige Melodie aus dem distinguished teacher Nadia Boulanger who was to vibraphone. Süden, die auf der Ballade He’s gone away beruht. Die generate, in 1927, his first significant work, a Concerto The composer provided his own notes for the expressiven, üppigen Texturen des Chores und des Orch- Deutsche Fassung: Cris Posslac for Clarinet, Piano and String Quartet. Compositions in Boston première and outlined its five linked sections: almost every genre followed (the exception was opera), Tragic, Lyric, Pastoral, Fugue – Dramatic, and Dramatic 1 Harris schrieb mindestens 18 Symphonien. Einige davon sind allerdings nicht für Orchester komponiert, andere nicht and while he was notably active as a choral and – Tragic. The opening paragraph is characterized by numeriert und wieder andere unvollständig, fragmentarisch oder verschollen. orchestral composer, it is his thirteen completed irregular phrases, spacious textures, bare fourths and orchestral symphonies1 spanning the years 1933 to 1976 fifths in a quasi-medieval style and a major tonality that Die gesungenen Texte dieser CD sind als PDF-Dateien online unter that form the backbone of his output. is undermined by increasing modal and minor nuances. www.naxos.com/libretti/royharrisfolksongsymphony.htm erhältlich. Das soll helfen, den günstigen Preis Written in 1938, Symphony No. 3 incorporates The lean scoring gives way to a striding, chorale-like unserer Veröffentlichungen und die führende Position von Naxos in diesem Preissegment zu halten. Auf der material refashioned from his first String Quartet violin theme where parallel rhythms in horns and Rückseite der CD finden sie den entsprechenden Link. (1929), the Second Symphony (1936) and an aborted woodwind add rich sonorities. A solo flute marks the Violin Concerto (1937), and was the result of a beginning of the Pastoral section where woodwind and commission from the National Symphony Orchestra. Its later brass punctuate a shimmering, polytonal string première, however, was given in February 1939 by the background (the parts distributed over fourteen staves) Boston Symphony Orchestra, whose conductor, Serge with numerous short variants on the triadic material in Koussevitzky, called it ‘the first great symphony by an Harris’s characteristic block-like scoring. This leads to American composer’. The Boston Globe admired ‘its an assertive five-bar fugue theme (first heard by the unflagging vitality’, while the twenty-year-old Leonard strings) of ambiguous metre. A series of brass Bernstein described the work in Modern Music as exchanges over dominating percussion gathers ‘mature in every sense, beautifully proportioned, momentum and builds to a climax. Tension is released eloquent, restrained, and affecting’. The symphony in a sonorous restatement of the opening themes above a immediately established itself in the repertory of fragmented version of the fugal idea in the brass and a American music and was to propel the 41-year-old relentless timpani pedal. The work’s dramatic composer to international prominence. conclusion and drawn out final bars is utterly Cast in a single movement, a design shared with the convincing. ‘Made in the USA’ is stamped on every Seventh, Eighth and Eleventh symphonies, the work’s page; its broad, sweeping melodies evoking vast creative stimulus derives variously from plainsong, landscapes, a sense of endeavour and of a nation on the Renaissance polyphony, hymnody and folk-song. These threshold of something momentous. elements Harris welds into his own distinctive voice. Misnamed by the composer ‘Folk Song Symphony’ 8.559227 2 7 8.559227 559227bk Harris 8/1/06 8:37 pm Page 6 organisch wächst. Die Besetzung verlangt neben den 1939 und wurde im April des nächsten Jahres beim Amer- (Symphony No. 4), this work is really a fantasia for A solo horn sets the mood for Western Cowboy – a üblichen Holz- und Blechbläsern sowie den Streichern ican Spring Festival in Rochester, New York, unter chorus and orchestra. It began life in the late summer of movement featuring the traditional songs: ‘Oh bury me eine zweite Tuba, und das Schlagzeug besteht aus großer Howard Hanson uraufgeführt. Die ursprüngliche, aus 1939 and was first performed in April the following not on the lone prairie’ and ‘The Streets of Laredo’, this Trommel, Becken, Triangel, Xylophon und Vibraphon. fünf Chorsätzen bestehende Anlage des Werkes wurde year at the American Spring Festival in Rochester, New last tune eventually being heard in canon. In the spare Zu der Bostoner Uraufführung schrieb der Kompon- revidiert und um zwei Orchesterzwischenspiele erweit- York, conducted by Howard Hanson. The original orchestral writing with its sustained woodwind and ist eine eigene Einführung, in der er die fünf miteinander ert. In dieser Form erlebte das Werk dann seine Premiere outline of five choral movements was revised and two brass chords, its abrupt major/minor shifts and wandering verbundenen Abschnitte umriss: Tragisch, Lyrisch, Pas- am 26. Dezember 1940 durch das Cleveland Orchestra. orchestral interludes were added, and it is in this form tonality of ‘no fixed abode’, Harris attempts to mirror torale, Fuge-Dramatisch sowie Dramatisch-Tragisch. Es war keineswegs der erste Versuch des Komponisten, that it was premièred on 26th December 1940 by the the loneliness and hardships of life in an unforgiving Der erste Teil ist durch unregelmäßige Phrasen, weite ein großangelegtes Chorwerk zu schreiben: Fünf Jahre Cleveland Orchestra. This was by no means his first and untamed landscape reflected in the words. Texturen, gewissermaßen mittelalterliche Quarten und früher hatte er bereits eine dreisätzige Symphony for Voic- attempt at writing a large-scale choral work: five years There follows the first orchestral interlude in which Quinten sowie durch eine Dur-Tonalität charakterisiert, es für Chor a cappella nach Walt Whitman verfasst. Sein earlier he had completed an unaccompanied, three- strings and percussion (including vibraphone) bring a die in zunehmendem Maße durch modale Nuancen und Interesse an der Chormusik resultierte sogar in einer movement Whitman-inspired Symphony for Voices. more carefree, outdoor character. Its ternary structure Moll-Elemente unterminiert wird. Die schlanke Beset- intensiven Forschungsarbeit und der zweibändigen Indeed, his interest in choral singing led to a period of (ABA) encompasses original material based on hoe- zung weicht einem choralartig-schreitenden Thema der Anthologie Singing through the Ages mit Chorwerken intensive research and a two-volume anthology of down dance patterns and a jig The Irish Washerwoman. Violinen, in dem parallele Rhythmen der Hörner und europäischer Meister. Nach den Erfahrungen, die Harris choral works (of the European masters) entitled Singing The second interlude, again in unbuttoned mood, Holzbläser die klangliche Palette bereichern. Eine im Sommer 1938