Track Listing

1. Symphony No. 7
2. Epilogue To Profiles In Courage - J.F.K.
3. I. 'We, The People'
4. II. '...To Form A More Perfect Union'
5. III. '...To Promote The Gernal Welfare', Part I: 'Of Life Immense In Passion, Pulse, Power', Part II: 'Cheerful For Freest Action Formed', Part III: 'The Modern Man I Sing'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136908 in Music
• Released on: 2002-08-20
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Stirring
This CD of Roy Harris's later music demonstrates how he developed from the lucid sound world of his popular 3rd Symphony. He inhabits his own sound world in the two symphonies. It's almost a modernist take on Berlioz, with much manipulation of orchestral color in an emotionally dark context. There is no soaring theme, as in the 3rd Symphony, but instead there is a subtle manipulation of motifs and a real sense of drama to the construction. One can hear why a European conductor/composer like Rafael Kubelik was so fond of Harris's music. Indeed, with the Kubelik connection, there is also the reflection that the emotional world of these two symphonies has a lot in common with Martinu's six symphonies. As for the performances, they seem excellent, with much beauty added by the rich Russian sound of the strings. Sound engineering is first-rate. On the whole, this is essential listening for American Music since the Second World War.

Eloquent Music
I have heard only the 3rd and 6th symphonies of Roy Harris prior to receiving this disc as a gift. Roy Harris, for me, has a great sense of elegiac rhythm. His music sounds as if the result of long contemplation, weaving long melodies that are engaging to listen to but are not perhaps memorable in themselves. His music builds, note upon note, into something very moving.

The Seventh Symphony (1952, rev. 1955) is a continual metamorphosis of ideas cast in a single movement. The music begins with the lower strings, progresses to add the upper strings and woodwinds, followed by the brass and tympani, and gradually develops from somber tones to boisterous and dance-like themes; finally become a triumphant blaze at the conclusion.

The Ninth Symphony (1962) was a commission from the Philadelphia Orchestra and each of the three movements bear subtitles from the U.S. Constitution and from the Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (in the three sections of the third movement). The first is titled "We the people," and the second movement has "...to form a more perfect Union. The third movement is broken into three sections, each with their own title: "...to promote the general welfare" (the overall title), "Of life immense in passion, pulse, power" (Part I); "Cheerful for the freest action formed" (Part II); "The Modern Man I Sing" (Part III). Much like the Seventh Symphony, this work proceeds with the orchestra building in a quasi-fugal complexity. The symphony opens with bells and percussion moving on to an interesting rhythm that exudes confidence. The second movement has a beautiful elegiac quality played mainly by the strings. Brass and strings open the third movement, which reminds me of the Third Symphony in scoring. The music becomes more pastoral in mood with a dialogue between the various instruments and the strings. The brass and tympani return in full force and the music returns to that of the first movement.

This CD also includes the Epilogue to Profiles in Courage - JFK, written on the assassination of President Kennedy. It is a moving piece that recalls the President and his ideas rather than giving us a funeral dirge. The strings play with brass and tubular bells, and for a brief time a bass drum quickens the tempo before the music ends quietly.

What I like about Roy Harris' music is the way he uses the orchestra - the long themes that seem to shimmer and have a luminous quality to them. It seems to me like an eloquent person speaking on some subject and making some complex idea clear in a new way. Roy Harris has a voice that needs to be heard and this CD helps a great deal.

Here's the Roy Harris of the Third Symphony
I've been generally disappointed by much of Harris' symphonic music after the triumph of his Third Symphony (which remains, after many years, one of my top-ten favorites, right up there with Mozart's 41st and Copland's Third). In these late symphonies, however, he got his act together again and we are presented with the same sonorous long-line -- almost Gregorian -- passages as in the Third, along with brilliant orchestration.

The sound quality is not quite as good as usual on Naxos. Kuchar's conducting seems good to me, but I haven't previously been familiar with these pieces, so I can't be certain of that.

As usual with Naxos -- a genuine bargain.