Lou Harrison, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 1997, has often been cited as one of the America's most original and influential composers. In addition to his prolific musical output, Harrison is also a skilled painter, calligrapher, essayist, critic, poet, and instrument-builder. During his long and varied career, he has explored dance, Asian music, tuning systems, and universal languages, and has actively championed political causes ranging from pacifism to gay rights. As an articulate and outspoken observer of the contemporary musical scene, he is frequently quoted in the media; yet until now no comprehensive study of his life and works has been published.
The present book, supported by extensive archival research and nearly 70 interviews, examines the ideas that have shaped Harrison's creative output, as seen through the eyes of the composer and his associates. A detailed biographical section is followed by individual chapters focusing on Music and Dance, Intonation and Tuning, Instruments, Asian influences, Gamelan, Music and Politics, Music Criticism, and Compositional Processes. In a separate chapter, the authors describe the historical background of the San Francisco gay community, Harrison's literary and musical statements on gay rights, and possible "gay markers" on his musical style.
An annotated works-list details over 300 compositions, and a full-length CD illustrates the text in sound, including several unique and previously unrecorded works.
This engaging study of Harrison's life and works will be indispensable to students and scholars of American music and to performing artists and programmers.
"West Coast" composer Lou Harrison (born 1917) is another in a long line of individualist Americans including (primarily) Charles Ives, but also pioneers such as Henry Cowell and Harry Partch. Born in Oregon, Harrison came East after studying with Cowell and was briefly one of Virgil Thomson's stringers on the
New York Herald-Tribune, while also editing some of Ives's music. He returned to the West Coast in the early 1950s, where he settled into a life of teaching and composing.
Harrison's love affair with the various musics of Asia began at this time and coincided with his affinity for dance rhythms in his music. With his longtime companion Bill Colvig, Harrison invented many sounding instruments (influenced by those in the Indonesian gamelan), which he employed in his symphonies and other compositions. Harrison's development of a tuning method (which he calls "just tone" in contradistinction to "mean tone" or "equal temperament") has become central to his compositional practice and receives in-depth discussion.
Miller and Lieberman (a musicologist/performer and an ethnomusicologist/composer, respectively) began this book as an oral history, but it evolved into a thoroughgoing study of the music as well as of the man. After a brief biography, there are a variety of discrete chapters (e.g., on dance, tuning, homosexuality, politics) with a plethora of music examples. Harrison's lifelong interest in typefaces is also addressed, with examples given. The book includes a catalog of his works and a CD of excerpts from his compositions.
In the last 10 years or so, Harrison has enjoyed many more performances of his music, and his position as one of the leading American composers of his generation has been solidified. This affectionate volume--if more for the specialist than for the casual listener--is an appropriate tribute. --Patrick J. Smith
