October 19, 2010

  • Review: Harris Piano Music

     

    Harris: Complete Piano Music
    Geoffrey Burlesson, piano
    Naxos 8.559664
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    Roy Harris is best known for his 13 symphonies, and in particular the third of those.  Still, to have written less than an hour of piano music in his entire career seems sparse, especially when many were inspired by his pianist wife, Johanna.  The sole sonata for the instrument, which opens this disc, comes from 1928 while he was still studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.  The last is a brief (one-and-a-half minute) work from 1972, seven years before his death.

    The 1928 sonata bears an “Opus 1” designation indicating Harris’ sense of its importance.  The piece is in four movements that play without pause and encapsulate his style of open tonality, polytonality, and florid musical lines suggesting Medieval chant.  It is in some respects an exercise that reminds one of Debussy’s exploration of the piano and open tonality in The Sunken Cathedral.  The “Scherzo” hints at the more playful side of the composer.  The 1938 “Little Suite” is another trifle filled with four exquisite miniatures.

    In 1942, Harris embarked on adapting folk songs in what he envisioned as a contemporary exploration of “American Ballads.”  These will be among the little surprises for those unfamiliar with his piano works.  These pieces quote, or plainly state popular folk songs, though they are cast in Harris’ polytonal language and feature the sort of open harmonies that he was exploring.  American folkloric music was truly in the air in the 1940s and these pieces have a bit more complexity than the somewhat streamlined work of Copland.  These works too sound a bit like an extension of Debussy, though are by no means Impressionistic in style.  There are five of these settings arranged as set one, but only two in the second set.  Highlights from both include a fascinating setting of “The Streets of Laredo,” a dark “Wayfaring Stranger”, some blues like harmonies in “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” and a mysterious setting of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” in set two.

    The other substantial work here is the three-movement Piano Suite written between 1939 and 1942.  Once again, quotations of folk music make up the primary musical materials here with African call and response patterns and a hymn tune being primary melodies spread across the suite.  The music is set in open intervals and makes full use of the range of the keyboard. 

    There are several other shorter pieces that help fill out the album: a set of variations, a brilliant Toccata illustrating Harris’ interest of Baroque forms, an untitled piece from 1926, an original version of the sonata’s “Scherzo” movement, a brief piece for a friend, and the afore-mentioned late work, Orchestrations. 

    Throughout, one gets a sense that the piano pieces were exercises In exploring the sonorities that Harris could so brilliantly manipulate in larger ensembles.  Here they are stripped bare reveal a simplicity of expression in often deeply personal music.  Geoffrey Burleson uses the published editions of these works as his musical text and provides what are likely definitive performances of these pieces.  You will not find a more engaging performance recorded in a beautifully warm acoustic that is near perfect.  This release will be a welcome addition to fans of American music and Roy Harris.