Lou Harrison

As a fearless explorer and experimenter, Harrison’s music has the kind of encyclopedic variety listeners might expect. But his music differs from the modernism of the mid-20th century because it is so insistently melodic. In his later works can be heard tinges of Romanticism.

• Percussion music: Harrison and John Cage created the first Western percussion ensemble in the late 1930s, contriving instruments from tuned flower pots, brake drums, coffee cans, and Chinese gongs found in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Their compositions for the ensemble, including Harrison’s Suite for Percussion, Simfony #13, and their still-popular collaboration Double Music form much of the early core repertoire for percussion ensemble. Harrison sometimes added a melody instrument (as in his First Concerto for Flute and Percussion), and eventually wrote pieces for violin and percussion, works for organ and percussion, a Mass for percussion and chorus, and Labyrinth #3 (1941) and Orpheus (1969) for large percussion orchestras. 
• Modal dance music: During his later New York years, Harrison composed a series of remarkable dance scores for choreographers Jean Erdman and Bonnie Bird. Influenced by Alain Danielou’s Introduction to the Study of Musical Scales and the music of Alan Hovhaness, which he was among the first in New York to hear, Harrison used modal techniques derived from early music in his dance scores The Perilous Chapel (1949) and Solstice (1950), while his jaunty scores to The Marriage at the Eiffel Tower (1949) and The Only Jealousy of Emer (1949) imbibed the spirit of 1920s Paris. 
• Adventures in tuning: Influenced by the writings of Harry Partch as well as his personal relationship with that tuning pioneer and composer, Harrison spent much of the 1950s experimenting with tunings far removed from the standard, “industrial,” 12-tone equal temperament he believed had contaminated Western music with harsh, unnatural sounds. Some of the fruits of this period include Music for Corneille’s Cinna, Four Strict Songs, and Simfony in Free Style. 
• East meets West: Harrison’s Western/Asian fusion music of the 1960s was the forerunner of the world music movement. In 1963, his Pacifika Rondo used piris (a Korean double-reed), pak (a Korean wooden clapper), chango (Korean drum), daiko (Japanese drum), gongs, psalteries, and zheng (Chinese zither), along with Western instruments, each movement representing the music of a major Pacific Rim region. He wrote Asian-influenced pieces for other instruments that allowed him to easily use tunings he favored. These works influenced the next generation of globally aware composers. 
• Gamelan music: Beginning in 1976, Harrison devoted much of his compositional energy to the ensemble he called the most beautiful on the planet: the Central Javanese bronze gamelan. His music for gamelan and Western instruments, such as Philemon and Baukis (for violin), Main Bersama-sama (horn), Threnody for Carlos Chavez (viola), Double Concerto (cello and violin), Piano Concerto, and Bubaran Robert (trumpet) remain among his most popular, often performed by the many gamelan ensembles in the U.S. and abroad. 
• Young at heart: From the 1980s until Harrison’s death, commissions produced a late-career bloom. His Third Symphony (1982), like many of his large-scale works, reached back across the decades to incorporate tunes and even entire earlier compositions. Last Symphony (1990) used Javanese gamelan techniques with Western instrumentation. Recordings of Harrison’s Piano Concerto (1985), which was premiered by Keith Jarrett, and his Pipa Concerto (1997) won acclaim. New dance scores included New Moon (1986), Ariadne (1987), Tandy’s Tango (1992), and Rhymes With Silver (1996). And that’s not to mention the dozens of pieces for gamelan, solo works, and music for various ensembles that poured forth in these years.