Guide to the Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts
Charles Hanson
The University Library
Special Collections and Archives
University Library
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California, 95064
Email: specoll@library.ucsc.edu
URL: http://library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/
© 2005
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Guide to the Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts
Collection number: MS 132, ser.1
The University Library
Special Collections and Archives
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California
- Processed by:
- Initial processing by Charles Hanson; Final processing by M. Carey
- Date Completed:
- May 2005
- Encoded by:
- UCSC OAC Unit
© 2005 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts
Dates: 1927-2003
Collection number: MS 132, ser.1
Creator:
Harrison, Lou
Collection Size:
113 scores
Repository:
University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library.
Special Collections and Archives
Santa Cruz, California 95064
Abstract: The Music Manuscripts series contains complete autograph music scores, sketches, revisions and fragments produced by Harrison
during his seventy five years of writing music.
Physical location: Stored in Special Collections and Archives: Advance notice is required for access to the papers.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Latin
Esperanto
Access
The collection is open for research
Publication Rights
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permission to publish or to reproduce the material, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Preferred Citation
Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts. MS 132, ser.1. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California,
Santa Cruz.
Acquisition Information
Gift from Lou Harrison 1991-2003.
Funding
Special Collections, with appreciation, has received funding to acquire and process the Lou Harrison Archive. The Rex Foundation and the Unbroken Chain, two foundations established by members of the Grateful Dead, generously contributed to the acquisition of Lou Harrison material for the Archive. Members of the Grateful Dead had a long
association with Harrison, having performed together on several occasions at San Francisco Symphony programs, and they recognized
the importance of Harrison's musical contributions. Without their support some of Harrison's essential manuscripts and recordings
would not have been part of the Archive. Special Collections also acknowledges Richard Faggioli for his contributions towards
the archiving and preservation of music at UCSC and for his continued interest shown to Special Collections' holdings. We
are particularly grateful to the
Title: Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
of New York for awarding a grant to Special Collections to support preparing the inventory and preserving Lou Harrison's
music manuscripts. Delmas Foundation support has allowed for the construction of this detailed electronic finding aid of the music manuscript collection available
through the Online Archive of California. We thank the Delmas Foundation for assisting us in making this special resource accessible to the public and for their continued efforts to support scholarly
resource sharing beyond institutional boundaries.
We are particularly grateful to Charles Hanson, longtime personal archivist to Lou Harrison, who patiently identified the
music manuscripts within the Archive and prepared the inventory provided in this Finding Aid.
Biography
Lou Harrison (1917-2003) is recognized especially for his percussion music, his work with just intonation tuning systems,
and his syntheses of Asian and Western musics. His compositions have combined instruments from various cultures and utilized
many of his own construction. His style is marked by a notable melodicism: even his percussion and 12-note works have a decidedly
lyrical flavor.
Harrison spent his formative years in northern California, where his family settled in 1926. In 1935 he entered San Francisco
State College (now University), and in his three semesters there studied the horn and clarinet, took up the harpsichord and
recorder, sang in vocal ensembles and composed works for early instruments. In Spring 1935 he enrolled in Henry Cowell's course
"Music of the Peoples of the World" and began composition lessons with Cowell, who proved one of the strongest influences
in Harrison's life.
Harrison also collaborated with West Coast choreographers and in 1937 was engaged by Mills College in Oakland, California
as a dance accompanist. At Mills in 1939 and 1940, and in San Francisco, Harrison and John Cage staged high-profile percussion
concerts, for one of which they jointly composed
Double Music for Four Percussionists.
In August 1942 Harrison moved to Los Angeles, where he taught music to dancers at University of California, Los Angeles and
enrolled in Arnold Schoenberg's weekly composition seminar. The following year he moved to New York. There he wrote over 300
reviews for the New York Herald Tribune, premiered (as conductor) Ives's
Third Symphony, and composed works in a dissonant contrapuntal style. But New York life proved difficult and in 1947 Harrison suffered a
nervous breakdown that ultimately served as a catalyst for a change in his compositional language. Following this traumatic
event, Harrison turned more deliberately to melodicism and pentatonicism, and embarked on studies of tuning systems. After
a two-year residency at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, he returned to the West Coast. In 1954 he settled in Aptos,
California where he remained for the rest of his life.
Studies in Korea and Taiwan in 1961-62 and an intensive exploration of Indonesian gamelan beginning in 1975 inspired Harrison
to bring Asian influences into his musical style and to write works combining Eastern and Western instruments. In 1967 Harrison
met William Colvig (1917-2000), an electrician and amateur musician who became his partner and collaborator in instrument-building
and tuning experiments. Together they built three instrument sets evoking the gamelan. In his last years, Harrison returned
more avidly to composing for Western instruments. He wrote four symphonies, various concerti, and numerous chamber works.
Throughout his life, Harrison articulated political views of multiculturalism, ecological responsibility and pacifism in both
writings and musical compositions. He and Colvig were also active politically in the gay rights movement. In addition to his
musical compositions and prose writings, Harrison, a published poet and a painter, was renowned for his calligraphic script,
and even designed his own computer fonts.
Leta Miller
Scope and Content of Collection
The Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts series consists of autograph music scores, sketches, and revisions. Organized in categories
by genre according to the Grove's Music Dictionary, the entries include instrumentation, dates of composition, movement titles
and premiere dates as well as cross references and notes. These details are provided by the Harrison works catalogue created
by Leta Miller and Charles Hanson for the Miller/Lieberman book
Lou Harrison: Composing a World (Oxford, 1998). In addition to his performed works, the collection includes numerous unfinished works, works in process, small
"gift" pieces, and experimental sketches. There are transcriptions of traditional Asian pieces, musical examples from workshops,
and experimental works using specified tones and tunings. These pieces, unpublished and not authorized for performance, are
inventoried by description, such as, 7-tone equal temperament sketch, unfinished 3-tone song, Just Intonation sketches, but
not by specific date or genre.
Pieces within each genre are listed chronologically by date of completion unless otherwise stated. Complete works later used
as movements of larger works are listed separately because (1) they were complete compositions at the earlier date and remain
as separate viable compositions on their own; and (2) new material was added when they were incorporated into the later composition.
The Music Manuscript collection contains over 113 complete representations of the variety and styles that the composer achieved
in his 75 years of writing music. Included are the earliest juvenilia from age ten that Harrison himself said "are perfectly
dreadful" as well as the percussion and dance compositions from the 1930's and 40's that are still considered signature pieces
and as Lou also said " still hold the boards". Harrison continued composing until his last day of February 2, 2003. He was
on his way to a festival of his music which included yet another revision of his Third Symphony. His final work,
Scenes from Nek Chand, for American Steel Guitar, shows his faltering hand after decades of a beautiful calligraphic script and notation. In various stages of his life, Harrison's
script changed dramatically and was to become one of the factors in helping to identify, and date, fragments and scores.
The Music Manuscript materials are filed in order of movements with entries indicating pages or folios, scores and sketches.
Pages are numbered at the top right in parenthesis. Harrison is known for his continual revision process and his "mining"
of earlier materials to incorporate in to new works. To that effect, the manuscripts in this collection were carefully studied,
versions compared, and sketches identified so that the most complete picture of his compositional process could emerge. In
extreme cases of cross-referenced manuscripts (such as the
Political Primer where material ended up in the
Elegiac and
Third symphonies), all folios and sketches are retained in the original work with pencil indications where fragments and themes were extracted
and to which work they were taken. In other instances of multiple revisions, such as the
Fourth Symphony, bound published scores are included because they contain autograph revision sketches. In cases where entire movements are
taken out and replaced (such as
First Suite for Strings/New First Suite for Strings 1937, 1948, 1995), all materials extant can be directly identified in the cross-reference section of the notes. In the few
instances where one of the "revisions" is simply an exchange of movement order, manuscript materials are listed in the original
order so as to avoid confusion where numbering occurs.
Where possible, program and performance notes, written by the composer,
are included.
Harrison often used his preferred spellings of certain words as in
Simfony in Freestyle,
Labrynth,
Short Set from Lazarus Laughed (or
Set for 4 Haisho which was eventually reverted to Suite to avoid cultural confusion). He was an early proponent of the universal language
Esperanto. Several of his works are titled in Esperanto and several vocal pieces are written to be sung or recited in this
language. His
Kon-certo por la violono kun perkuta orkestro (
Suite for Violin with Percussion Orchestra),
Nova Odo (
New Ode), and
La Koro Sutro (the Buddhist
Heart Sutra, translated to Esperanto and sung to the accompaniment of an American gamelan) are examples of what the visitor to this collection
might encounter.
As of 3/16/2012, Series 1: Music Manuscripts & Series 2: Notebooks are the only series within the
Lou Harrison Archive that are fully processed and available to the public. The other series are unprocessed and not available for use. As the
processing is completed they will be published and made available to the public.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Harrison, Lou, d. 1917-
Composers--United States
Dramatic music
Dance music
Incidential music
Motion picture music
Orchestral music
Vocal music
Ensembles (Music)
Percussion
Gamelan music
Keyboard instrument music
Other Index Terms Related to this Collection
Harrison, Lou, 1917- --Lou Harrison archive
Related Material
Related Collections
Additional information may be found in these related collections held by other repositories
-
Harrison, Lou, 1917-2003. Music manuscripts, sketches, poetry, and drawings. 1945-1991: Guide, Ms. Coll. 132; Eda Kuhn Loeb
Music Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
- San Jose State University School of Music & Dance
-
Lou Harrison Archive at Mills College
-
The John Cage Music Manuscript Collection, Henry Cowell Collection, & New Music Society Archives, at the Music Division of
the New York Public Library
- Northwestern University Music Library, Special Collections - John Cage Collection
Collection Contents
box 1
1. Dramatic Works
1941-1996
Physical Description: 18 titles
Scope and Content Summary
Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts are categorized by broad genre, with subdivisions, according to the Groves Music Dictionary
and the Lou Harrison Catalogue of Works created by Leta Miller and Charles Hanson. Dramatic genre includes subseries Dance,
Incidential and Film and Opera.
box 1
1.1 Dance Scores
1941-1996
Physical Description: 15 titles
Scope and Content Summary
Dramatic: Dance genre includes musical compositions for
regulating the movements of a dance, or music composed in a dance
rhythm - choregraphed music.
box-folder 1:1
Waterfront
1934
Physical Description: 2 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Percussion
Movements: Three "phases":
speed-up, strike, Bloody Thursday
Date: ca. 1935-36
Premiere: Boxing ring,
Longshoremen's Union headquarters, San Francisco, CA, date
unclear; Second performance: May 17, 1936, Veterans'
Auditorium, San Francisco, CA
Choregrapher: Carol Beals
Publisher: Partial manuscript
score in composer's archives.
box-folder 1:1
Folio 4 pages. 1 page autograph
sketches/score for
Waterfront. 3 pages
autograph score
Sonata 4th (unpublished /
not authorized for performance).
1934
box-folder 1:2
In Praise of Johnny
Appleseed
1942
Physical Description: 33 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 3 percussion
(One percussion part includes wooden flute). Composer also
approved performances with 4 or more players per part
Movements: (1) The Trumpets of
Heaven (2) Seed (3) Coronation (4) The Battle with Bunyan (5)
Fruition (6) Meeting with the Ancient of Days (7) Ode (8)
Whoops for Johnny
Date: 1942
Premiere: May 7, 1942, Holloway
Playhouse (Fairmont Hotel), San Francisco, CA: Lou Harrison,
John Cage, and ensemble
Choregrapher: Carol Beals
Publisher: Warner Brothers
Length: Variable (see notes)
Notes: A kit in which the players may assemble phrases in any
order with various amounts of repetition.
box-folder 1:2
13 pages, copy of original score from notebook.
ca. 1942
box-folder 1:2
20 pages autograph score. [Music notation and
title page not in composer's hand. Performance notes in composer's
hand].
box-folder 1:3
Gigue and Musette
1943
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: 1943 (before move to New York City in
summer)
Premiere: May 8, 1944, "Evenings on a Roof",
Los Angeles, CA: Frances Mullen
Choregrapher: Melissa Blake
Publisher: Unpublished
Cross References: Orchestrated and used in
Rhymes with Silver, Movement IIIa (1996)
Notes: Score has composer's autograph signature from later date
indicating composition date as 1941.
box-folder 1:3
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score.
box-folder 1:4
Changing Moment - Dance for Jean
Erdman
1946
Physical Description: 10 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: February 13-15, 1946
Premiere: 1946, New York, NY (Jean
Erdman, Helaine Blok, Elizabeth Sherbon, dancers)
Choregrapher: Jean Erdman
Publisher: Unpublished
box-folder 1:4
Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph score.
box-folder 1:4
4 pages photocopy of autograph score (different from above) with
performance markings.
box-folder 1:5
Jephtha's Daughter (A Theatre Kit)
1941
Physical Description: 33 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Flutes, percussion, other optional
instruments
Movements: Theater kit with dramatic readings, 3
melodies for flute, 4 rhythms for percussion, drones, theater realization
Dates: 1st version: February 26, 1941 (percussion,
reader, dance); expanded kit: March 1963 (flute parts and other material added; see
notes)
Premiere: March 9, 1963, Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA:
David Johnson, music director
Choregrapher: Carol Beals
Publisher: Unpublished
Length: Variable
Notes: A kit in which the composer approves any
combination of flute pieces, percussion pieces, drones, chords, colors, etc.,
interspersed with the dramatic readings. A wedding present for Carol Genieve and Jose
Sevilla.
Box: folder 1:5
Folio, 12 pages. 10 pages autograph score, 1941, with sparse additional
notes.
1963
box-folder 1:5
8 pages autograph score with performance notes.
ca. 1963
box-folder 1:5
13 pages autograph material: 1 pages color schema notes, 12 pages
"Declamations".
ca. 1963
box-folder 1:6
Solstice
ca. 1950
Physical Description: 1 folio
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
The ballet
Solstice, composed for the dancer and choreographer Jean Erdman, depicts a myth conceived by Erdman herself relating to the sun and
the rotation of the seasons. The work opens in the warmth of summer with the "sun lion" rendered by a luxurious sweeping melody
played by flute and cello in octaves. Soon, however, the lord of the night enters in the form of a moon bull and a battle
ensues between the principles of darkness and light. The sun lion, temporarily the victor, dances with five animal nymphs
during the
Earth's Invitation and, in his triumph over the bull, carries off the bride of spring in the
Vernal Dance. In part 2, however, the moon bull returns and in his attempt to take the sun out of its season, throws the world into total
darkness. He charges the throng of sun, bride, and nymphs in the frenzy of orgiastic
Saturnalia, ushering in the darkest days, the winter solstice. The gear of falling into never-ending darkness now demands magical powers
to regenerate the life giving sun. The flute appears alone in desolation, calling in a haunting incantation to rekindle the
lost light. Slowly the wheel of the seasons turns as the lion and the bull turn to face each other. But instead of battle,
the two forces join in a spiritual reconciliation, and the work concludes in the harmony of the blaze of day. Although Harrison
calls for traditional instruments in this composition, they are at times used in non-traditional ways. The piano is prepared
in advance by inserting tacks in the hammers, thus accentuating the instrument's percussive qualities. During the
Entrance of the Moon Bull and the
Earth's Invitation, the string bass player abandons his bow and instead beats the strings of his instrument below the bridge with sticks. Combining
this effect with the tack piano (and at times with the celesta) Harrison is able to effectively imitate the sound of an Indonesian
gamelan. Though an octet,
Solstice often gives the impression of a much larger ensemble due in part to the strongly reinforced bass (the second cello frequently
doubles the string bass in octaves).
Leta Miller
Instrumentation: Flutes, oboe, trumpet, 2 cellos,
contrabasso, tack piano, celesta
Movements: (1) Garden of the Sun (2) Entrance of the
Moon Bull (3) Battle (4) Earth's Invitation (5) Vernal Dance (6) Saturnalia (7)
Rekindling of the Fire (8) Turning of the Wheel (9) Blaze of Day
Date: Begun 1949, Composition completed: before January
22, 1950
Premiere: January 22, 1950, Hunter Playhouse, New York,
NY: Erdman dance troupe
Choregrapher: Jean Erdman
Publisher: Peer, 1978
Length: 27 minutes
Recording: CD: MusM 60241X: Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
box-folder 1:6
Copy of original score (not in composer's hand) Movements II-IX only. Score has
autograph movement titles and music notation additions in composer's hand.
box-folder 1:7
Prometheus and Io
1951
Physical Description: 24 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano (revised version for chamber
ensemble with vocal parts)
Movements: (I) Tableau; (II) Dance of Anxiety; (III) Lament;
(IV) Response; (V) Dance of Defiance.
Date: 1951; revised 1985 (vocal parts added)
Premiere: July 9, 1951, University of Colorado,
Boulder, CO: David Tudor. Revised version: September 7, 1985, Athens, Greece
Choregrapher: Jean Erdman
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Notes: Score originally titled
Prometheus Bound.
Vocal parts are variable in performance
box-folder 1:7
6 pages autograph score.
ca. 1951
box-folder 1:7
5 pages copy of autograph score (different from above) with
autograph pencil additions ca. 1985 (Movements I-IV only).
ca. 1951
box-folder 1:7
5 pages autograph piano score.
ca. 1985
box-folder 1:7
7 pages autograph, vocal settings.
ca. 1985
box-folder 1:7
2 pages typed vocal and choral parts with autograph notes (Movements
II-V only).
box-folder 1:8
Western Dance
1947
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: (a) Piano (b) flute, bassoon, trumpet,
piano, violin, cello
Date: Fall 1947
Premiere: December 14, 1947, Hunter College, New York,
NY
Choregrapher: Merce Cunningham
Publisher: (a) Only: Unpublished
Length: 4 minutes
Note: Dance title:
The Open Road
box-folder 1:8
4 pages autograph score in ink.
ca. 1947
box-folder 1:9
Tandy's Tango
1992
Physical Description: 7 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Tandy's Tango was composed for use by the delightful dancer Tandy Beal. I had always wanted to write a tango, and when she told me that
she was choreographing a sizable number of pieces for the Pickle Family Circus, I took the opportunity to compose this piece
for her. It comes from my subconscious memories of the slinky kind of tango sometimes seen in the movies of the 1920s and
1930s. Those were the days in which couples danced in one-another's arms, learned formal dance-steps, could recognize music
to dance to by their metrics and melodies and, of course, preceded the days when people simply stood and wiggled at one another.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: June 1992
Premiere: November 27, 1992
Choregrapher: Tandy Beal
Publisher:
Various Leaves: A Collection of Brief
Works for Piano by Contemporary American Composers
(Fallen Leaf Press,
Berkeley, 1992)
Length: 3.5 minutes
box-folder 1:9
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:9
4 pages computer printed score with notes and admonishments by composer.
box-folder 1:10
Rhymes with Silver
1996
Physical Description: 44 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Rhymes with Silver was commissioned by Mark Morris and premiered in 1996 with Yo-Yo Ma. Mark had already choreographed several of my works,
including
Grand Duo and
Homage to Pacifica and this request was for a piece specifically for his company, his musical ensemble and for the virtuosity of cellist Yo-Yo
Ma. Mark is a trained musician, which was very important to me in the writing of this work. It allowed me to feel the music
kinetically, as he does, and also allowed me to use rhythmic shapes with confidence in Mark's musical expertise. In that respect,
I had quite a bit of structure within which to work as well as the fact that Mark tours with a set musical ensemble (violin,
viola, cello, piano, and percussion). All of the material in the twelve movements that make up the piece is new, though I
did borrow the
Gigue and Musette from 1943. I recall that this piece was written during my Los Angeles period, when I was studying with Arnold Schoenberg,
and that he liked the piece.
In Honor of Prince Kantemir is dedicated to a Romanian prince who maintained a palace in Istanbul. Himself a composer, he had an immense enthusiasm for
Ottoman music, and was the first to write a major theoretical work about it, which is still in use. Several of the other movements,
for instance
Romantic Waltz,
Fox-trot, and
Round Dance, were written specifically for Mark's musicality and knowledge of these forms and rhythms. The "Allegro" utilizes a particular
method which I absorbed from Henry Cowell in the late 1930s. During Henry's San Quentin imprisonment he wrote elastic forms
for Martha Graham and was commissioned by Marion Van Tuyl of Mills College, California for an adjustable piece, which I then
assembled appropriately to Miss Van Tuyl's choreography. Another example of a kit, as these flexible performance scores in
which elements can be rearranged at the pleasure of the performer's are called, is
Ariadne, for flute and percussion, written for my friend Eva Soltes. Indian music generally is based on the relation's between a
fixed rhythmic scheme and a melodic flow. The Turkish "Usul" is again a fixed rhythmic scheme, but unlike the Indian "Tal"
which is varied in such way as to thicken the plot, the Turkish "Usul" is an invariant rhythmic, pattern which, as it were,
sustains the melody as pillars of the piece.
Lou Harrison
In
Rhymes with Silver there are two kits---
Allegro and
Five tone Kit, in the recording of which the realization of each is by Mark himself.
Instrumentation: Violin, viola, cello, piano,
percussion
Movements: (1) Prelude (2) Allegro (3) Scherzo (4)
Ductia (5) Gigue and Musette (6) Chromatic Rhapsody (7) Romantic Waltz (8) Fox Trot
(9) Threnody (10) In Honor of Prince Kantemir (11) 5-Tone Kit (12) Round Dance
Date: November 1996. Movement 3b: 12-95 completed
December 1995
Premiere: March 6, 1997, Zellerbach Hall,
Berkeley, CA: Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Choreographer: Mark Morris
Publisher: Peer
Length: ca. 22 minutes
Cross references: Movement V arrangment of
Gigue
and Musette
(1942-43)
Note: For Mark Morris and Yo-Yo Ma.
box-folder 1:10
Movement I, Prelude: 1 page autograph score, pencil. 1 page autograph
sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement II, Allegro: 4 pages autograph score/schema, ink. 2 pages
autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement III, Scherzo: 1 page autograph score, pencil. 1 page autograph
sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement IV, Ductia: 5 pages autograph score, pencil.
box-folder 1:10
Movement V, Gigue and Musette: 5 pages autograph score, pencil.
2 pages photocopy of autograph score of
Gigue and Musette for piano
with autograph sketches for version for
Rhymes with Silver.
box-folder 1:10
Movement VI, Chromatic Rhapsody: 3 pages autograph score, pencil.
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement VII, Romantic Waltz: 3 pages autograph score, ink.
3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement VIII, Fox Trot: 4 pages autograph score, pencil. 1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement IX, Threnody: 4 pages autograph score, pencil.
box-folder 1:10
Movement X, In Honor of Prince Kantimir: 6 pages autograph score, pencil. 2 pages autograph revised measures for insert.
box-folder 1:10
Movement XI, 5 - Tone Kit: 1 page autograph score/schema, pencil.
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:10
Movement XII, Round-Dance: 8 pages autograph score, pencil.
2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:10
4 pages photocopy of autograph score with slight autograph revision notes.
box-folder 1:10
3 pages unidentified sketches
box-folder 1:10
1 page fax from Margaret Fisher with autograph music notation by composer
1 short note from Barry Alterman.
box-folder 1:11
Adjustable Chorale for Katherine Litz
1951
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Music used for Chorales for Spring, Black Mountain College, November 29, 1951.
box-folder 1:11
Small 4 page folio. 2 pages autograph score for Chorale. 2 pages autograph sketches, signed Lou Harrison, BMK [Black Mountain
College],
1951
box-folder 1:11
Photocopies of Lou Harrison autograph scores from the Litz Collection, New York Public Library:
1951
box-folder 1:11
Adjustable Chorale: 1 page (different from above).
1951
box-folder 1:11
Chorale for Spring: 1 page.
1951
box-folder 1:11
Little Gamelon for Katherine Litz to teach with: 1 page.
1951
box-folder 1:11
A Thought on the anniversary of Katherine Litz & Charles Oscar, July 26, 1951: 1 page with small autograph notation by composer ca. 1996.
1951
box-folder 1:11
Note to Juilan [Teck] with birthday piece to Garrick: 1 page
undated
box-folder 1:12
Praises for Hummingbirds and Hawks (aka Suite for Small Orchestra)
1952
Physical Description: 1 score, 1 page short score
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chamber orchestra
Movements: Set of 5 pieces
Date: 1952
Premiere: April 23, 1952, Brooklyn High School for Homemaking, Brooklyn Music School for Dancers series: students of South Broughton
(information from Harris, Arts at Brooklyn Music College?)
Choregrapher: Shirley Broughton
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript. Not authorized for performance.
Notes: Commentary by Broughton. Also known as
Suite for Small Orchestra
box-folder 1:12
Blueprint copy of autograph score with autograph sketches in pencil:
box-folder 1:12
First Praises for the Beauty of Rivers
box-folder 1:12
Praises for the Beauty of Hummingbirds
box-folder 1:12
Second Praises for the Beauty of Rivers
box-folder 1:12
1 page autograph short score
Praises for the Beauty of Hawks.
box-folder 1:13
New Moon
1986
Physical Description: 44 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Some years ago my friend Eric Hawkins asked for a new work for choreography for his company. He had already done beautiful
solo choreography to some of my already composed pieces, and he was an old friend whom I had much admired. I began a work
for him and composed a set of movements for the curious and interesting orchestra which the company maintains. This is not
a "pickup" orchestra in each city but rather a company orchestra that travels with the group. An exchange of letters and thoughts
and tryouts in his studio in New York produced changes, omissions, and one completely new movement before the work was completed.
It has turned out that this ballet of Eric's in later years has been acclaimed as a masterpiece, and I am proud and moved
that my music is part of his work.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, violin, contrabasso, percussion
Movements: (1) Alabado: largo (2) Usul: moderato (3) Bright call: slow but free (4) Barcarole (5) Stampede: molto allegro (6) Epilogue
Date: Begun: May 1986. Movements I, II, III, Movement V completed June 16, 1986; Movement VI completed September 5, 1986. Movement
IV completed before November 1989 (replacement for rejected movement from 1986)
Premiere: November 28, 1989, Joyce Theater, New York, NY: Hawkins Dance Company
Choregrapher: Erick Hawkins
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 22.5 minutes
Cross Reference: Rejected fourth movement (
Song) used as basis for
Fourth Symphony, Movement I (1990)
box-folder 1:13
Movement I, Alabado: 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:13
Movement II, Usul: 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 1:13
Movement II, Usul and Movement III, Bright Call: 2 pages with autograph revisions.
box-folder 1:13
20 pages autograph score with replaced Movement IV, Barcarole.
box-folder 1:13
13 pages autograph score of rejected Movement IV, Song.
box-folder 1:13
Movement V, Stampede: 1 page autograph version of "drum pattern".
box-folder 1:13
Movement VI, Epilogue: 1 page with autograph revisions.
box-folder 1:13
1 page, fragment of unidentified sketch.
box-folder 1:13
1 page, autograph introductory notes before Movement IV replacement.
box-folder 1:13
1 page, photocopy of letter from composer to choreographer.
box-folder 1:14
Ariadne
1987
Physical Description: Notebook no.
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Ariadne was composed in 1987 for my friend Eva Soltes to choreograph. Her long background in Barata Natayam dancing suggested to
me a modal and "talic" work which I then composed in the form of a "kit" for flute and a percussionist. This may be "assembled"
in a number of ways so that the dancer, or the musicians, or both, may order the work to their heart's desires.
The first performance was given by Eva (with flutist David Colvig and percussionist William Winant) at Mills College on the
night of my seventieth birthday. A suggestion towards an interesting variety that I have heard... in the first movement the
alto flute was used in the low section with the vibes low part. In the "triumph" a sizable section was played on the alto
or bass, then a sizable section on the usual flute, and finally a brilliant and extended ending on the piccolo. The effect
of these changes was quite wonderful.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Flute, 1 percission (plus dancer)
Movements: (1) Ariadne Abandoned (2) The Triumph of Ariadne and Dionysos
Date: March 30, 1987
Premiere: May 14, 1987, Mills College, Oakland, CA: William Winant, percussion, David Colvig, flute, Eva Soltes, dancer.
Choregrapher: Eva Soltes (Barata-natyam dance)
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: variable (approximately 9 minutes or longer)
Notes: Movement II is a musical kit: flute and percussion lines may be played in any order or any combination.
box-folder 1:14
See Series 2 Notebooks: Notebook no.
box-folder 1:15
The Perilous Chapel
1948-49
Physical Description: 1 notebook
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
The Perilous Chapel was composed by Lou Harrison in 1948 as a ballet for Jean Erdman. Exploring the struggles of the subconscious, the work pits
the force of anarchy against the power - the ultimate triumph - of the divine. Although the ballet comprises six movements,
the concert version sounds as three large sections, since Movements I and II and Movements III to V are to be played without
break. The sixth movement, in itself a third the length the composition, stands alone, exemplifying, in Harrison's words "a
dance on the floor of heaven". The entire work may be viewed as an emotional arch, beginning an ending in tranquil serenity.
The forces of evil, portrayed in the barbaric dance of Movement III, reach the height of their power in the middle of Movement
V, a musical representation of chaos. The dramatic close of this section is then abruptly countermanded by the heavenly transfiguration
of the final Alleluia.
According to Harrison, the instrumentation of
The Perilous Chapel was inspired by Persian miniatures; the title draws from the works of William Blake. A tetrachordal motive pervades the composition,
found in the accompanimental figures of Movement I and V, in the repeated ground bass motive of Movement VI, as part of the
melodic figuration of Movement I, and, with octave displacement, in the flute line of Movement III.
Leta Miller, 1989
Instrumentation: Flute, cello, harp, 1 percussion
Movements: (1) Prelude: andante (2) Poco maestoso (3) Barbaro (4) Brilliante (5) Energico (6) Alleluia: Poco adagio
Date: 1948-49; revised 1989
Premiere: January 23, 1949, Hunter Playhouse, New York, NY: Erdman Dance Group
Choregrapher: Jean Erdman
Publisher: Peer, 1990
Length: 13 minutes
Cross Reference:
box-folder 1:15
See Series 2 Notebooks: Notebook no.21 - Schirmer's Manuscript Music Book, 24 pages.
Note
Note: This notebook contains only sparse sketches of
The Perilous Chapel. It also includes the first autograph score of
Homage to Milhaud for piano.
box 2
1.2 Incidental Music
1994
Physical Description: 5 titles
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Dramatic: Incidental music is music played as an accompaniment or 'background' to a play, film, or other performance or entertainment.
box-folder 2:1
Marriage at the Eiffel Tower
1949
Physical Description: 60 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In 1921 Jean Cocteau composed the text and designed the decor for a Swedish ballet presentation of his
The Marriage at the Eiffel Tower. A ballet with words, the work caused a scandal at once. The music was composed by members of "Les Six" (The Six Composers).
Roughly 36 years ago, Bonnie Bird and John Cage presented the ballet at the Cornish School in Seattle. At John Cage's request,
a group of U.S. composers composed another group-score for the work. In 1949, at the summer session of Reed College in Portland,
Oregon, Bonnie Bird again produced
The Marriage at the Eiffel Tower, and for that occasion I composed what is, I believe the only complete score for the ballet which is written by one person.
Be that as it may, in 1961 I made a suite from the music and scored it for light orchestra on the occasion of the Santa Cruz
Symphony's participation in a new art festival.
The Wedding at the Eiffel Tower was a full ballet with a surrealist text spoken by two men on either side of the stage. It contains many narratives and curiosities....
among them that the camera of the wedding's photographer doesn't function properly....things come out of it instead of going
in to make an image. Of the stories, I've retained only the one about the death of the general.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: (a) Chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, cello, contrabasso, piano, 1 percussion)
Movements: Suite: (1) Overture; (2) Manager and Photographer (before Wedding March); (3) Wedding March; (4) Waltz; (5) Speech by the
General; (6) Trouville Bathing Beauty; (7) Funeral of the General; (8) Quadrille.
Date: Summer 1949
Premiere: Chamber ensemble: July 29, 1949, Reed College, Portland, OR, Harrison, conductor
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
box-folder 2:1
Movement I, Overture: Two 4 page folio's comprising 4 pages autograph score.
box-folder 2:1
Movement III, Wedding March: Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score with orchestration markings in pencil ca. 1961. Additional
4 page folio with 1 page partial score.
ca. 1949
box-folder 2:1
Movement VII, Funeral of the General: 2 pages autograph sketches and short score.
box-folder 2:1
Movement VIII, Quadrille: Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score with orchestration markings in pencil.
ca. 1961
box-folder 2:1
Art Dealer's Music. 1 page autograph score for piano.
box-folder 2:1
Piano: 6 pages. 5 pages autograph score for Movements I, II, IV, VI, VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Flute: Folio, 4 pages, 2 pages autograph score for Movements I, VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Clarinet: Folio, 4 pages, 3 pages autograph score for Movements I, III, VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Trumpet: Folio, 4 pages, 3 pages autograph score for Movements I, III, V, VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Viola/Violin: 1 page autograph score for Movements VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Cello: Folio, 4 pages, 3 pages autograph score for Movements I, III, IV, VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Contrabass: Folio, 4 pages, 3 pages autograph score for Movements I, III, VII, VIII.
box-folder 2:1
Snare Drum: 1 page autograph score for Movement V.
box-folder 2:2
The Only Jealousy of Emer
1949
Physical Description: 10 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Flute, cello, contrabass, tack piano, celesta
Movements: Incidential music for drama: (1) Music for the Unfolding of the Cloth (2) Eithne Inguba (3) Emer's story; the Evil of Bricriu
(4) Emer's Incantation; the Woman of the Sidhe (5) Music for the Folding of the Cloth
Date: Summer 1949
Premiere: July 29, 1949, Reed College, Portland, OR
Choregrapher: Bonnie Bird
Text: William Bulter Yeats,
Four Plays for Dancers
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Length: 28.5 minutes includes spoken text
box-folder 2:2
10 pages autograph score on red lined paper, in titled folio. Back of folio, autograph sketches, unrelated - (1) Ingula's
Entrance. Music for the Unfolding of the Cloth (2) Andante. Through entrance of Eithne Inguba (3) Emer's Story (4) The Evil
of Bricriu (5) Emer's Incantation (6, 7 ,8,) The Woman of the Sidhe (9) Sketches for the Woman of the Sidhe (10) Music for
the Folding of the Cloth
box-folder 2:3
Incidental Music for Cinna
1955-56
Physical Description: 33 pages, 1 folio (46 pages)
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Tack piano
Movements: (1) Medium fast (2) Slow (3) Fast (4) Medium slow (5) Medium: grand
Date: 1955-56
Premiere: August 4, 1968: Old Spaghetti Factory, San Francisco, CA: Donald Pippin
Text: Pierre Corneille
Publisher: Xenharmonikon v.3:1 (Spring 1976); Music of the United States of America, v.8, editor Leta Miller
Length: 12 minutes
Notes: Revised title, 1976:
Suite for Tack Piano. Sequence of pieces to be performed as prelude, conclusion, and between the acts of Corneille's play. For Henry Allen Moe
and the Guggenheim Foundation.
box-folder 2:3
Movement I: Folio, 8 pages. 6 pages autograph score including title page and tuning schema
box-folder 2:3
Movement II: 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score
box-folder 2:3
Movement III: Folio, 6 pages. 5 pages autograph score and sketches
box-folder 2:3
Movement IV: Folio, 4 pages. 1 page autograph score
box-folder 2:3
Movement V: Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph score
box-folder 2:3
Folio, 46 pages. 40 pages autograph sketches and notes
box-folder 2:3
12 pages autograph score in ink,
ca. 1976
box-folder 2:3
1 page, tuning schema,
ca. 1976
box-folder 2:4
Payatamus - The Rainbow Boy and the Corn Maiden
ca. 1975
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Vocal soloists, unisex choir, recorder, flute, viola, harp, percussion
Movements: (1) Prelude and Chant (2) Rainbow Boy's Entrance (3) Drought Music (4) Dance (5) Rainbow Boy's Grief (6) Rain Dance
Dates: ca. 1975-79
Text: Elsa Gidlow
Publisher: Unpublished
box-folder 2:4
12 pages autograph score. 10 pages autograph sketches
box-folder 2:5
Lazarus Laughed
1994
Physical Description: 45 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Flute, oboe, trombone, harp, percussion, strings
Movements: Incidental music for radio broadcast of Eugene O'Neill's play
Date: 1994
Premiere: Downlinked to PBS in Winter 1995 for Spring broadcasts on public radio stations. Produced and directed by Erik Bauersfeld
and Edward Hastings.
Text: Eugene O'Neill
box-folder 2:5
Act I: 8 pages autograph score; Opening phrase, music for recorded tracks, Musicalized Laugh, 1st Dance, 2nd Dance, Choruses
box-folder 2:5
Act II: 13 pages autograph score; Opening phrase, music for strings, Caligula's Dance, March, Musicalized Laugh, Choruses
box-folder 2:5
Act III: 6 pages autograph score; Opening phrase, Miriam, Crucified Lion, Caligula's Dance
box-folder 2:5
Act IV: 4 pages autograph score; Opening phrase, Musicalized Laugh, Clangor, Final Ascent
box-folder 2:5
Caligula's Punic War Song. 2 pages autograph sketches and score
box-folder 2:5
Whole play harp "cut-offs" and "Horn calls". 2 pages autograph score
box-folder 2:5
Act I: 5 pages autograph sketches; Opening phrase and Dances
box-folder 2:5
Act II: 3 pages autograph sketches; March, Caligula's Dance, Mariam (from Scene III, IV)
box-folder 2:5
Act III: 7 pages autograph/copy of autograph, sketches; Opening phrase, Caligula's Dance, Mariam
box-folder 2:5
Act IV: 3 pages autograph/copy of autograph, sketches; Opening phrase
box-folder 2:5
Percussion schema: 1 page autograph phrases
box-folder 2:5
General melodies for each act: 1 page autograph sketches
box-folder 2:5
Additional sketches: 3 pages autograph including names of players
box-folder 2:5
Complete printed script with autograph notes and sketches by Harrison. Includes 11 small papers pieces from each player's
score with instrument in composer's calligraphic writing in separate envelope.
box-folder 2:5
Computer generated score and parts for March in Movement II
box 2:6-8
1.3 Film Scores
1968-1987
Physical Description: 3 titles
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Add scope and content
box-folder 2:6
Nuptiae - Wedding Song from Nuptiae
1968
Physical Description: 15 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 2 part chorus, Filippine kulintang
Movements: Music for film
Date: November 27, 1968
Premiere: May 20-22, 1969
Filmmaker: James Broughton
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
box-folder 2:6
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, rough draft, including title page
box-folder 2:6
2 pages autograph score of "Chant Version", rough draft
box-folder 2:6
1 page autograph score of "Chant Version", final copy
box-folder 2:7
Discovering the Art of Korea
1979
Physical Description: 18 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Variety of East Asian instruments, harp, bells, miscellaneous percussion.
Movements: Set of movements for film
Date: 1979
Filmmaker: David Myers
Publisher: Unpublished
box-folder 2:7
18 pages autograph sketches and fragments for various instruments.
box-folder 2:8
Air from the Scattered Remains of James Broughton - Air for the Poet
1987
Physical Description: 30 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
I met the poet and filmmaker James Broughton in the 1940's after one of my percussion concerts. Many years later James asked
me to write for his film
The Scattered Remains of James Broughton. The film was created by James himself and his friend Joel Singer.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: (a) Metallophone, drum (b) solo instrument with 2 ostinati (c) orchestra
Movements: Music for film
Date: Autumn 1987
Filmmaker: James Broughton and Joel Singer,
The Scattered Remains of James Broughton
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 3.5 minutes
box-folder 2:8
Versions (a) and (b); 3 pages photocopy and autograph score with pasted over revisions. 3 pages photocopy with autograph sketches
toward version (c).
box-folder 2:8
Version (c) 24 pages autograph score.
box-folder 2:8
13 pages parts: Photocopy of autograph score with pencil markings.
box 17-18
1.4 Opera
1941-1996
Physical Description: 2 titles
Scope and Content Summary
Dramatic: Opera is a dramatic musical work in which singing forms an essential part, chiefly consisting of recitatives, arias,
and choruses, with orchestral accompaniment.
box 17
Rapunzel
1952
Physical Description: 1 folder
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This opera is not yet processed. 6/10/05
box 17
Young Caesar [Puppet version]
1970
Physical Description: 1 box
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This Opera is based on actual events in the early life of Julius Caesar, who became a Roman statesman and one of the greatest
military commanders in world History. Part I takes place in Italy, starting in c. 86 B.C. Part II is set in Bithynia, an ancient
country of northwestern Asia (now Turkey). Bithynia was an independent kingdom for two-and-one-half centuries, from the death
of Alexander the Great until 74 B.C., when King Nicomedes willed it to Rome.
Young Caesar has fourteen scenes, seven in each part.
Instrumentation: (a) 5 instrumentalists playing a variety of Asian, European instruments, including American Gamalan; 5 puppeteers, 5 singers;
(b) arranged for orchestra (flute, oboe, trumpet, organ, harp, tack piano, 5 percussionists, strings) by Kerry Lewis
Movements: Opera (2 acts, 14 scenes)
Date: Begun 1970; completed October 1971; (b) November 1977
Premiere: (a) November 5, 1971, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (premiere of entire opera; excerpts performed prior
to this date)
Text: Robert Gordon
Publisher: Peer (both versions)
Length: 2 hours
Cross Reference: Revised and made into standard opera version with chorus added, 1988. See listing in 1988
Note: Commissioned for Encounters (Pasadena, CA) by the Judith S. Thomas Foundation.
box-folder 17:1
1 page autograph score
Beginning of Young Caesar. 3 pages autograph score Scene I(a), Scene I(b)
Prelude and
Prelude II. 1 page autograph score Scene I(c)
Introduction.
box-folder 17:2
3 pages autograph score., Scene I(d)
Overture, for five players. 7 pages autograph score,
Overture, for seven players.
box-folder 17:3
17 pages autograph score, Scene I(e); Libretto,
To the Atrium, Exit All.
box-folder 17:4
10 pages autograph score.
Prelude to Scene II, Scene II voice and instruments,
Music for Shadow Scene of Pisa and the
Funeral.
box-folder 17:5
5 pages autograph score. Scene II,
Procession.
box-folder 17:6
10 pages autograph score. Scene III,
Noon on the Campus Martius.
box-folder 17:7
11 pages copy of autograph score. Scene IIII,
Overture. Scene IIII(a),
Narrator. Scene IIII(b)
Cossutia's Despair.
box-folder 17:8
5 pages autograph score. Scene V, Libretto and
Lullaby.
box-folder 17:9
10 pages autograph score. Scene VI with revision markings in red.
16 pages autograph score, revised.
box-folder 17:10
33 pages autograph score. Scene VII.
box-folder 17:11
4 pages autograph score Part II,
Overture, for five players. 4 pages autograph score Part III,
Second Overture for seven players, used in
Episodes from Young Caesar.
box-folder 17:12
10 pages autograph score. Scene VIII with
Procession.
box-folder 17:13
7 pages autograph score. Scene IX with
Palace Music.
box-folder 17:14
10 pages autograph score. Scene X with
Whirling Dance and
Acrobat.
box-folder 17:15
9 pages autograph score. Scene X,
Eroticon.
box-folder 17:16
10 pages autograph score. Scene XI, vocal sheets and instrument sheet.
box-folder 17:17
12 pages autograph score. Scene XII, with
Procession.
box-folder 17:18
10 pages autograph sketches/score. 29 pages autograph score. Scene XIII.
box-folder 17:19
13 pages autograph score. Scene XIIII.
box-folder 17:20
19 pages autograph score.
At the Monument to Archytas.
box-folder 17:22
Prelude: 5 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:23
Introduction. 1page autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:24
Overture. 4 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:25
Scene I. 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:26
Scene II. 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:27
Scene III. 5 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:28
Scene IV. 3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:29
Scene V. 1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:30
Scene VI. 3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:31
Scene VII. 3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:32
Scene IX. 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:33
Scene X & XI. 9 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:34
Scene XII. 5 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:35
Scene XIII. 5 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:36
Scene XIV 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:37
General. 29 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 17:38-40
Episodes from Young Caesar by Lou Harrison
box-folder 17:38
Movement I, First Overture. 5 pages autograph score by Kerry Lewis.
box-folder 17:39
Movement II, Procession. 6 pages autograph score by Kerry Lewis.
box-folder 17:40
Movement IV, Second Overture. 5 pages autograph score by Kerry Lewis (incomplete).
box-folder 17:41
14 pages original multicolor scene designs. These designs became enlarged paintings and were used as the backdrop for first
production.
box-folder 17:41
6 pages autograph design work by Harrison for Puppets.
box-folder 17:41
7 sketches for costume and scene design by Rick Young.
box-folder 17:41
Technical sketches by William Colvig.
box-folder 17:42
Letter from Bob Berner. Letter includes description and detailed designs for the scroll apparatus.
July 23, 1970
box-folder 17:41
Telegram from Ned Rorem,
August 21, 1971
box-folder 17:41
Lincoln Center letter of commission.
box-folder 17:41
Letter from Harrison to Mark Morris regarding Morris' backing out of project.
box-folder 17:41
4 Photographs of puppet production with copies.
box-folder 17:41
Two complete librettos translated to German for a proposed production which did not occur.
box-folder 17:41
Copy of score with autograph sketches by Harrison attempting to fit translated libretto into music schema
box 18
Young Caesar [standard Opera version]
1988
Physical Description: 1 box
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This Opera is based on actual events in the early life of Julius Caesar, who became a Roman statesman and one of the greatest
military commanders in world History. Part I takes place in Italy, starting in c. 86 B.C. Part II is set in Bithynia, an ancient
country of northwestern Asia (now Turkey). Bithynia was an independent kingdom for two-and-one-half centuries, from the death
of Alexander the Great until 74 B.C., when King Nicomedes willed it to Rome. Young Caesar has fourteen scenes, seven in each
part.
Instrumentation: Male and female soloists, male chorus, chamber orchestra (flute, oboe, trumpet, organ, harp, tack piano, 5 percussionists,
strings)
Movements: 14 scenes
Date: 1988
Premiere: April 9-10, 1988, Portland, OR: Portland Gay Men's Chorus, Virtuosi della Rosa, Robert Hughes, conducting.
Text: Robert Gordon
Publisher: Peer
Length: 2 hours
Cross Reference: Based on 1970 Puppet version
box 18
First Transcription by Kerry Lewis.
box 18
4 pages autograph title page, production notes, singers, and instrumentation.
box 18
198 page autograph score.
box 18
Spiral bound score of Part I with additions and corrections with autograph further revision notes.
box 18
Autograph score of Prelude to Scene II and Scene II.
box 18
Copy of Scene VIII with autograph addition of chorus.
box 18
Scene I,
Exit All. Copy of score with autograph addition of chorus.
box 18
6 photo proof sheets of Portland production
box 18
Final Revisions
Note
Note: These revisions have not been performed as of June 30, 2005.
box-folder 18
Caesar's 1st Aria. 4 pages autograph sketches, 2 pages autograph short-score.
box-folder 18
Caesar's 2nd Aria. 2 pages autograph short-score.
box-folder 18
Julia's Aria. 2 pages autograph short-score.
box-folder 18
Caesar's Aria Scene IX. 2 pages autograph sketches, 2 page autograph short-score.
box-folder 18
Nicomedes Aria Scene XI. 1 page autograph sketch. 1 page lyric. 2 pages autograph short-score. 4 pages [photocopy] of autograph
full score.
box-folder 18
Nicomedes Aria Scene XIII. 2 pages autograph short score.
box-folder 18
96 page spiral bound music notebook with 4 pages autograph sketches.
box 3-7
2. Orchestra
1942-1997
Physical Description: 10 titles
Scope and Content Summary
Orchestral works are listed by Full Orchestra (Symphonic orchestra), Chamber Orchestra (small orchestra), and String Orchestra.
box 3
Elegiac Symphony
1942
Physical Description: 1 box
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Harrison had already begun work on his
Elegiac Symphony [in 1945], but it would be another quarter-century before he finished it. The first sketch for the symphony is dated October
11, 1942, but it was not completed until 1975. It is dedicated to the memory of the longtime conductor of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky, and his wife Natalie. Harrison credits another great conductor (who was also associated with
the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Pierre Monteux, with encouraging the creation of movements two and five. There is a strong
spiritual impulse to Harrison's music. The five movements of the
Elegiac Symphony are titled " Tears of the Angel Israfel", " Allegro, poco presto", "Tears of the Angel Israfel II", "Praises for Michael
the Archangel", and " The Sweetness of Epicuros". "The large orchestra includes two harps, a piano, and a tack piano", Harrison
has written. " Serge Koussevitzky was a brilliant virtuoso on the contrabass viola, and that fact is reflected in my writing
for two solo contrabassi in the third movement (the second of the "Tears of the Angel Israfel") only on harmonics; they play
a mode first noted down by Claudius Ptolemy in third-century Alexandria.
"The angel of music, Israfel ('whose heartstrings are a lute' - Edgar Allan Poe ) stands with his feet in the earth and his
head in the sun," Harrison further has written. "He will blow the last trumpet. Six times daily he looks down into hell and
is so convulsed with grief that his tears would inundate the earth if Allah did not stop their flow. For three years he ministered
to Mohammed before Gabriel took this office, although Israfel in nowhere mentioned in the Koran". Harrison has added two particularly
poignant epigrams: Epicuros said of death: "Where Death is. we are not; therefore, Death is nothing to us"; and, perhaps even
more revealing, from Horace: "Bitter sorrows will grow milder with music"
Here is beautiful music - straightforward, deeply felt, expertly made yet far removed from deliberate cleverness, serene,
affirmative, even holy.
Tim Page - CD: Music Masters 6020 4K American Composers Orchestra: Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
Instrumentation: Orchestra (3-3-3-3; 4-3-3-1; timpani-3 percussion-piano-tack piano-2 harps-organ-celesta-vibrafone; strings)
Movements: (1) Tears of the Angel Israfel (2) Allegro, poco presto (3) Tears of the Angel Israfel 2 (4) Praises for Michael the Archangel
(5) The Sweetness of Epicurus
Date: Movement I begun 1958; Movements II, V, begun 1942; Movement IV, 1946-47. See Cross Reference: Symphony completed November
15, 1975; revised 1988
Premiere: December 7, 1975, Paramount Theater, Oakland, CA: Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra, Denis de Coteau, conductor
Publisher: Peer, 1977, 1988
Length: 33.5 minutes
Cross References: Movement I: revised version of overtures II or III from the
Political Primer (1958). Movement II: revised version of
Canticle #6, Movement I (1942). Movement IV: revised and orchestrated for organ work with same name (1947). Movement V: revised version
of
Canticle #6, Movement II, Passacaglia; 1942
Notes: Commissioned by Koussevitzky Foundation. To the memory of Natalie and Serge Koussevitzky.
box 3
Movement I, Tears for the Angel Israfel:
box 3
11 pages, photocopy of autograph score of original version before revisions. [See also manuscript materials in
Political Primer]
box 3
Movement II, Allegro poco presto:
box 3
16 pages copy of autograph score
box 3
Folio, 4 pages piano sketches of Allegro (Movement I) from
Canticle #6
box 3
Folio, 4 pages. 1 page autograph sketches of Allegro from
Canticle #6, with 3 pages unrelated material including fragment from
Suite for Cello and Piano, Movement II
box 3
Folio, 20 pages autograph full score of Allegro from
Canticle #6
box 3
Movement III, Tears for the Angel Israfel (2):
box 3
16 pages copy of autograph score, original version before revisions
box 3
15 pages photocopy of autograph score, original version with autograph revision markings
box 3
12 pages copy of autograph revised score
box 3
Movement IV, Praises for Michael the Archangel:
box 3
22 pages blueprint copy of autograph. Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches for organ version of Praises for Michael
the Archangel
box 3
1 page unidentified sketches
box 3
Movement V, The Sweetness of Epicuros:
box 3
14 pages blueprint copy of autograph score. Folio, 16 pages. 15 pages autograph full score of
Passacaglia (Movement II) from
Canticle #6
box 3
Folio, 32 pages including piano score of
Rondo, Movement III of
Canticle #6. Autograph full score of Rondo, Movement III of
Canticle #6. Title page of
Canticle #6 and performance notes
box 3
Spiral bound photostat copy of autograph score of
Canticle #6 with revision notes in pencil
box 3
1 partial page tuning schema for "Bells for Elegiac Symphony"
box 3
1 page tuning schema for contra bassi in Movement III of
Elegiac Symphony
box 3
1 page autograph score. First 5 measures of Movement II,
Elegiac Symphony
box 3
1 page autograph partial score/sketch of Movement III,
Elegiac Symphony, with letter to Gibson Walters on reverse
box 3
1 page short score of Movement III,
Elegiac Symphony
box 3
1 page autograph score. Opening measures of Movement IV,
Elegiac Symphony
box 3
1 page blueprint copy of page 4, Movement IV,
Elegiac Symphony. Revision markings in red pencil
box 4
Third Symphony
1982
Physical Description: 5 folders
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My
Third Symphony was written for Dennis Russell Davies on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Cabrillo Music Festival.
Since it was commissioned by the Festival it was clear that many of my friends had contributed to making it possible and therefore
I expressed my hope that their various tastes would find at least something pleasurable. I also had continuously in mind Dennis's
immense conducting powers and the goodness of his personality. Movement I is a simple A B A form because in composing it,
it flatly refused to become a symphonic sonata shape, in a sense, the whole center section is the second thematic. Following
the idea that I used in my
Symphony on G, the scherzo section is a little suite consisting of a
Reel in Honor of Henry Cowell and
A Waltz for Evelyn Hinrichsen and an
Estampie for Susan Summerfield. The
Largo Ostinato which constitutes the 3rd movement was commenced in San Francisco in 1937 and reached its completion in 1982. This in keeping
with my pretense that civilization may go on and therefore I might take time to try to make a good thing. The 4th movement
has undergone two full revisions. I regard the writing of a symphony as, at least in some part, the creation of a world and
one which to my mind needs the balance of humor, seriousness, and both drama and lyricism.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Orchestra (3-3-3-3; 4-3-3-1; celesta, tack piano, harp, percussion, strings)
Movements: (1) Allegro moderato (2) a. A Reel in Honor of Henry Cowell; b. A Waltz for Evelyn Hinrichsen; c. An Estampie for Susan Summerfield
(3) Largo Ostinato (4) Allegro
Dates: August 9, 1982, revised 1985
Premiere: August 29, 1982: Cabrillo Music Festival, Aptos, CA: Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
Publisher: Peters, 1982
Length: 33 minutes
Cross References: Movement I: revised version of Overture 2 or 3 of the
Political Primer (1958; manuscript sketches in composer's archives fail to clarify which movement). Movement IIa: revised and orchestrated
version of
Reel: Homage to Henry Cowell (1939). Movement IIb: orchestration of
Waltz for Evelyn Hinrichsen (1977). Movement IIc: revised and orchestrated version of
Estampie for Susan Summerfield (1981). Movement III: revised and orchestrated version of
Largo Ostinato (1937, revised 1970). Movement IV: revised version of Overture 1 from
Political Primer (1958).
Notes: Additional materials for this Symphony are included in the
Political Primer files.
box 4
Folio, 16 pages. 13 pages autograph score.
box 4
1 page autograph sketches.
box 4
(a)
A Reel in Honor of Henry Cowell: Folio, 16 pages. 13 pages autograph score.
box 4
(b)
A Waltz for Evelyn Hinrichsen: Folio, 6 pages. 4 pages autograph score.
box 4
(c)
An Estampie for Susan Summerfield: Folio, 36 pages. 25 pages autograph score (in different hand from composer with corrected paste overs in composer's hand).
10 pages photocopy of original work for organ with orchestration markings (short-score).
box 4
Movement III, Largo Ostinato:
box 4
Folio 8 pages. 6 pages autograph score.
box 4
4 pages blue-print copy autograph original work for piano, with autograph short-score in pencil. Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph
sketches.
box 4
1 page autograph score of final revisions, five new measures from measure 45.
box 4
1 page photocopy of autograph revisions with additions in pencil.
box 4
1 page autograph short-score measures 34-42 with initial movement references.
box 4
36 pages autograph score, including paste-over revisions. 1 page autograph score: addition of two medium drums, measures 224-319.
box 4
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score from an unfinished work, ca. 1953, that was absorbed into the
Political Primer and then to the
Third Symphony.
box 4
1 page autograph sketches/score:
A Happy Journey to Jack Heliker on his third trip to Italy, absorbed into Movement IV of this Symphony.
box 4
3 pages autograph score of final revisions, measures 35-68.
box 4
Published score, copy of autograph with notes and revisions in pencil and ink; composer's hand.
box 5
Symphony No. 4 (Last Symphony)
1990
Physical Description: 12 folders
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Originally called
Last Symphony my chronologically fourth was prepared for Dennis Russell Davies, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
As is very usual to me I found that I was right away wanting to change the piece. In the first place it needed paring down
from fifty minutes and a number of other things. Having worked it over again for a performance at the Cabrillo Music Festival
I was still restless about it and made more alterations for Basle and have, I hope, reached a final version. I regard a symphony
as a kind of world---and it does take some time and thought to make a world . It also needs variety and inter-relationships
among its parts. Here two of my movements are chromatic and intervalic and two of them are modal - both six-tone and five-tone.
I have also written three Amerindian stories into the work, one of them especially written for me by Daniel Harry-Steward,
who lives in Seattle and is of California Wintu anchestry.
As a matter of fact now the piece begins with a kind of "prelude" composed using Javanese methods but in European chromatic
style and then moves to a vigorous "stampede" in a medieval European form, in two rarely used six-toned modes. The following
slow movement is chromatic in European style, has a little melodic procession in it, and leans toward a resigned sort of ending.
The last movement asks for a baritone to sing and rhythmically recite three Coyote Stories, thus bringing the whole symphony
home to essential America.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Baritone (originally tenor), orchestra (3-3-3-3; 4-3-3-1; 4 percussion-tack piano-celesta; strings)
Movements: (1) Largo (2) Stampede: poco presto (offered to William Colvig) (3) Largo (4) Introduction "Coyote's Path" Story I; "Coyote's
Path" Story II; "Coyote's Path"; Story III Finale
Date: August 31, 1990, revised 91, 93 and 95. Movement IV, orchestration and expansion of work from 1984 (see cross references).
Premiere: November 2, 1990, Brooklyn Academy Opera House: Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York, N.Y.; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor;
Damon Evans, tenor
Text: Movement IV: stories 1 and 3: tradational American Indian tales (see listing for Coyote Stories, 1987); story 2: Daniel Harry-Steward
Publisher: Peer, 1993
Length: ca. 48 minutes
Cross References: Movement I: based on rejected fourth movement of
New Moon (1986). Movement IV: outer parts of the movement are an orchestration of the
Foreman's Song Tune (1984) with two of the Coyote Stories (1987); new middle section added with text by Harry-Steward.
Notes: Commissioned by Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra and Brooklyn Academy of Music. For Dennis Russell Davies. Movements II and
IV previously reversed; listing here reflects latest version. Archive materials are organized by original placement of movements
to avoid confusion.
box 5
#1: 3 pages, autograph title page and performance notes.
box 5
#2: 25 pages autograph score, revisions pasted over original version.
box 5
#3: 6 pages copy of autograph/autograph revisions.
box 5
#4: 12 pages photocopy over rejected Movement IV from
New Moon with autograph revision markings for
Fourth Symphony.
box 5
Movement II, Coyote Stories:
box 5
#5: 9 pages autograph score; introduction, Coyote's Path.
box 5
#6: 3 pages autograph revisions. 4 pages autograph sketches.
box 5
2 pages typed words with autograph music notation for tenor.
box 5
1 page typed words with autograph pitched music notation for tenor (original version).
box 5
3 pages typed words with autograph sketches for rhythmic structure; non pitched.
box 5
3 pages typed words with autograph rhythmic structure with percussion notation (final version).
box 5
2 pages typed words with autograph music notation for tenor.
box 5
2 pages typed words with autograph music notation for baritone.
box 5
#8: 7 pages autograph score with revisions pasted over original score.
box 5
#9: 1 page autograph sketches. 6 pages autograph/photocopy with score/sketches with comment by composer.
box 5
#10: 7 pages autograph score.
box 5
#11: 43 pages autograph score.
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#12: 11 pages autograph short score/sketches.
box 5
#1, First published score: Copy of autograph with autograph revisions.
box 5
#2, Copies of autograph score with revisions added.
box 5
#3, First engraved score with revisions added.
box 5
#4, Revised version of Movement I.
1992
box 5
#5, Engraved score with revised Movement I with autograph new revisions.
box 5
#6, Engraved score with autograph corrections and revisions.
box 5
#7, Engraved score with corrections and revisions added.
box 5
Four Coyote Stories. 7 pages typed words with autograph music notation.
Note
Originally added to
The Foreman's Song Tune (1983) in March of 1987. Four Native American tales quoted from Bruce Walter Barton,
The Tree at the Center of the World. Two of these tales, "People" and "Children yet to Come" are used in the Fourth Symphony. Story #2 in the Symphony is by
Daniel Harry-Steward.
box 6
Concerto for P'i-p'a with String Orchestra
1997
Physical Description: 6 folders
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Having just completed a work for unaccompanied Japanese Sangen, I began my
Concerto for Chinese P'i-p'a with String Orchestra by writing single tones chromatically. Something felt uncomfortable so I constructed a set of six-tone modes and asked Wu
Man if they were okay on the p'i-p'a. She said that they were, so I designed their use in five movements, their home-tones
falling on the open strings of the p'i-p'a plus on one more tone which is a good "key" also.
It was Dennis Russell Davies who asked me for such a work over a several year period, and Lincoln Center for the Performing
Arts Inc. who generously supported its composition. Therefore, the Concerto is dedicated to Dennis Russell Davies, Wu Man,
and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: P'i-p'a, string orchestra
Movements: (1) Allegro moderato (2) Bits and Pieces: a. Troika; b. Three Sharing; c. Wind and Plum, an Elegy for Liu Tien Hua; d. Neapolitan
(3) Threnody to the Memory of Richard Locke (4) Estampie
Date: March 3, 1997
Premiere: April 26, 1997, Lincoln Center., New York, N.Y.: Wu Man and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
Publisher: Peer
Length: 27 minutes
box 6
7 pages autograph score, pencil.
box 6
Movement II, Bits and Pieces:
box 6
(a) Troika; 3 pages autograph score, pencil.
box 6
(b) Three Sharing; 2 pages autograph score, pencil.
box 6
(c) Wind and Plum; 1 page autograph score, pencil.
box 6
(d) Neapolitan; 2 pages autograph score, pencil.
box 6
Movement IV, Estampie: 11 pages autograph score, pencil
box 6
Spiral bound music notebook. 14 pages autograph sketches and notes.
box 6
5 inserted pages including sketch revisions, modes of the Concerto, obituary for Richard Locke.
box 6
10 pages autograph sketches, large format paper.
box-folder 7:1
Alleluia for Small Orchestra
1945
Physical Description: 104 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chamber orchestra (2 flutes, 2 oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 horns, harp, strings)
Date: Begun August 1943, completed January 1945
Premiere: May 8, 1951, McMillin Theater, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.: Manhattan School Chamber Orchestra, Harris Danziger, conductor
Publisher:
New Music Quarterly, XXI/2, January 1948
Notes: Notebook also includes
Motet for the Day of Ascension and Triphony
box-folder 7:1
Cardboard bound folio, 36 pages. 30 pages autograph score
box-folder 7:1
8 pages autograph short-score
box-folder 7:1
Folio, 54 pages Manuscript music book. Pages 6-13, autograph short-score. 8 pages autograph short-score
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New Music Quarterly, XXI:2
1948
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Motet for the Day of Ascension
1945
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chamber orchestra (4 violins, 2 cellos, contrabass, harp)
Date: Begun February 1945, completed May 16, 1945
Premiere: April 5, 1946, New York, NY, Little Symphony: Lou Harrison, conductor
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Notes: Notebook also includes
Alleluia and
Triphony
box-folder 7:2
Folio, 12 pages autograph score with revision markings and notes
box-folder 7:2
Folio, 8 pages. 1 page title and 2 pages autograph revisions marked "Revisions I" and "Revisions II"
box-folder 7:2
Seven 4 page folios with autograph parts
box-folder 7:2
Folio, 54 pages. Manuscript music notebook, autograph short score and sketches, pages 20-31
box-folder 7:3
Symphony on G
1947-64
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
The title itself (on G, not in G) refers to the fact that the whole work, though serially composed with twelve tones, is nonetheless
centered on the note G. In the first three movements the technique is classical 12-tone procedure, but in the Finale I have
ignored the forbiddance concerning octave-conjunction, and have written freely in the "grand-manner". This Finale was composed
especially for Gerhard Samuel, whose interest in the work brought the symphony to its present state, and to whom it is dedicated.
Beginning in 1948 (during recovery from a breakdown) I worked on various sections of it, off and on, until 1954. Later, Robert
Hughes brought me together with Maestro Samuel who then premiered the Symphony in its first state - with the old Finale -
at the Cabrillo Music Festival in 1964. Although it was well received, I was nevertheless dissatisfied with the full shape
of the piece, and, when the conductor wished to program it for his regular Oakland Symphony season in 1966, I took advantage
of the occasion to make a new, and final Finale. Thus, the second "premiere" was the first full one. The Scherzo "section"
is actually a whole little Suite, in four movements - Waltzes, Polka, Air, and Rondeau - an idea that is already incipient
in the classical Minuet with Trio, or Scherzo and Trio. Here I have simply expanded it a bit, and in the Rondeau, made a piece
for only a trio of Piano, Tack-Piano, and Harp, which, as it were, stands as a kind of "cadenza" for the whole Symphony, just
before the Finale. The Allegro Deciso, Largo, and the Finale are according to common symphonic practice. One 12-tone Row was
used throughout, and instrumentation is for medium forces, without bassoons or tubas but including both piano and the tack
piano.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Orchestra (2-3-3-0; 2-2-2-0; timpani-percussion-piano-tack piano-2 harps; strings)
Movements: (1) Allegro deciso (2) Largo (3) Scherzo (a. Waltz, b. Polka, c. Song, d. Rondeau) (4) Largo - Molto allegro, vigoroso, poco
presto.
Date: 1947-64, revised 1966 (new finale). Movement I: short score, December 26, 1947. Parts of Movements II and III: Summer/Fall
1947. Movement IIIb: short score, October 9, 1953. Completed first version: 1964. New finale, 1966.
Premiere: August 23, 1964, Cabrillo Music Festival, Gerhard Samuel, conductor; Revised version, February 8, 1966: Oakland Symphony,
G. Samuel, conductor.
Publisher: Peer, 1975
Length: 35 minutes
Cross References: Movement IIIc: short score completed 1947; revised in 1949 as Movement IV of
Suite for Cello and Harp; revised and orchestrated for completion of symphony in 1964.
Notes: Movement IIIc for John Cage; Movement IIId for Jack Heliker; Movements IIIa-b for "Leona" and "Janet", patients at Presbyterian
Hospital, New York, N.Y.
box-folder 7:3
1 page autograph row chart.
box-folder 7:3
Movement I: Folio, 24 pages. 14 pages autograph short score with some sketches and notes.
box-folder 7:3
Movement II: Folio, 14 pages. 8 pages autograph short score with sketches and revisions. 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 7:3
Movement III a (Waltz). Folio, 10 pages. 6 pages autograph score with sketches and revisions.
box-folder 7:3
Movement III b ( Polka). Folio, 8 pages. 3 pages autograph short score with sketches and revisions.
box-folder 7:3
Movement III c ( Song). Folio, 6 pages. 2 pages autograph short score with sketches and revisions.
box-folder 7:3
Movement III d ( Rondeau). Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph score with notes. 1 page autograph sketches. Folio, 4 pages.
3 pages sketches.
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Movement IV ( original before revised).Folio, 28 pages. 16 pages autograph short score with sketches. 1 page autograph sketches.
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Movement IV ( revised). Folio, 20 pages. 14 pages sketches for new Finale.
box-folder 7:4
First Suite for Strings
1948
Physical Description: 45 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: String orchestra
Movements: (1) Allegro moderato (2) Adagio cantabile (3) Molto moderato (4) Poco lento, affetuoso (5) Allegro
Date: 1946-48. Movement II: March - August 10, 1947; Movement III: May 14, 1946 (based on earlier works; see cross references).
Rest of work begun 1947, completed 1948. Movement II revised 1991.
Premiere: May 21, 1948, National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, N.Y. (now the American Insitute and Academy of Arts and Letters)
Publisher: Peer, 1978 and 1991
Cross References: Movements I and II: incorporated without alteration into
New First Suite (1995). Movement III based on a series of revisions as follows:
Passacaglia completed 1937; revised version used in
Canticle #2, Movement I (1942); heavily revised version, titled
Ground for Strings: Version for two pianos, completed May 14, 1946; this Ground is a piano version of
First Suite for Strings, Movement III. In
New First Suite for Strings (1995), this movement is abandoned. Movement IV: expanded from 12mm to 47mm for
New First Suite. Movement V: replaced by new movement in
New First Suite.
Notes: Entire work supplanted by
New First Suite for Strings (1995)
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Folio, 18 pages, Autograph score of
Canticle #2. Movement I, pages 3-6, used in original Movement III.
box-folder 7:4
2 folios, 8 pages each. 12 pages autograph score for
Ground for Strings version for 2 pianos.
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Folio, 12 pages. 5 pages autograph score of Movement I, Moderato.
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Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score of Movement II, Adagio.
box-folder 7:4
5 pages unidentified sketches.
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New First Suite for Strings [supplants
First Suite For Strings, 1948, revised 1991, 1995
1991-95
Physical Description: 18 pages, 1 bound parital score
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Although it had been played at a meeting of what is now the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and been made available
by the publisher "Peer " I had never really been satisfied that the work was all that it could have been. About four years
ago I revised the slow second movement and a performance in Portland persuaded me that I was on the right track. Back and
forth over compositional time I went: the dance movement which is movement three reaches back to the Thirties for its main
tune and is written in an interesting mode, the final chaconne reaches back to the early Fifties for its beginnings, the fourth
movement finally received the intensification that it originally needed. The alternation of modal and chromatic composition
was intended from the beginning and the use of counterpoint based for the most part on the second and the fourth does indeed
allow melodies to go where they want to go, singly more often than not. Thus my reflections on Jenkins, Coperario, Frescobaldi,
and other of the earlier baroque come to a modern concert version. My dedication of the work is to Mary Woods Bennett and
is meant to express my thanks and admiration to her and also my thanks and admiration to Mills College which she so long and
so well served.
Lou Harrison
New First Suite for Strings (1948; revised 1995)
Asked once how he knew when a composition was finished, Harrison responded, "When it stops itching." The
First Suite for Strings, now finally completed to his satisfaction, itched for over a half century. It all began in 1937 with the composition of
a
Passacaglia for piano; five years later he revised the work and coupled it with a
Ricercare on Bach's Name to form
Canticle #2. Still dissatisfied with the
Passacaglia in 1946, Harrison reworked it a third time into a
Ground for Strings which became the third movement of his
First Suite for Strings.
Harrison "completed" his
First Suite for Strings in 1947 and it was premiered at the National Institute of Arts and Letters in May 1948 when the organization awarded him
a creative grant. The piece was published in 1978 and republished in 1991 (with alterations). Even then, however, the old
Passacaglia - now in its third metamorphosis - still itched, as did several other movements. In 1995 Harrison revised the Suite one final
time. In doing so, he threw out the old
Passacaglia-
Canticle #2-
Ground for Strings as well as the finale from 1947 and replaced them by two new movements; he expanded the
Lento fourth movement from 12 to 47 measures; and he graced the whole with a revised title. It seems that his itch has been satisfied
- at least for the time being.
Leta Miller, 1997
Instrumentation: String orchestra
Movements: (1) Fantasia (2) Chorale (3) Round-Dance (4) Threnody (5) Chaconne
Date: Movements I, II: from
First Suite for Strings, Movement III: completed February 12, 1995 on tune from the 1930s. Movement IV: revision of
First Suite for Strings; Movement IV (expanded from 12 to 47 mm), November 17, 1994. Movement V completed ca. 1950, revised 1994.
Premiere: September 8, 1995, Majorca, Spain: Stuttgart Chamber Ensemble, Stuggart, Germany; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
Publisher: Peer
Length: 16 minutes
Cross References: Revised version of
First Suite for Strings (1948).
Notes: Dedicated to Mary Woods Bennett.
box-folder 7:5
Movement III, Round Dance, 6 pages autograph score.
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Movement IV, Threnody, 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement V, Chaconne, 4 pages autograph score.
box-folder 7:5
Folio, 6 pages. 4 pages autograph sketches of Movement V.
box-folder 7:5
Spiral bound computer printed partial score with autograph revisions and notes.
box-folder 7:6
Suite #2 for Strings
1948
Physical Description: 8 pages, 1 bound score
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: String orchestra (string quartet approved by composer)
Movements: (1) Adagio, molto cantabile (2) Allegro moderato (3) Allegro moderato, tranquillo
Date: 1948
Premiere: March 15, 1949, McMillin
Theatre, Columbia University, New York, NY: Orchestra of Greenwich House
Music School
Publisher: Merrymount Music Press, 1949
Length: 10.5 minutes
Notes: Composed for Fritz Rikko's Greenwich House ensemble.
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Movement I. Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph sketches.
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1 page autograph sketches.
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Movement III. Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 7:6
Spiral bound copy of autograph score signed by the composer in New York with pencil additions and revisions.
box-folder 7:7
Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra
1951
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In 1951, the wonderful Ajemian sisters, Anahid and Maro, commissioned my
Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra. It is an assembly from sketches and ideas that I was at that time most interested in. The choice of instruments in the orchestra
reflects my wish to reveal and emphasize the sounds of the two soloists. The overture, aria, and chorale were worked from
preliminary sketches that I made for a possible oratorio on a text by Charles Peguy. The two movements titled "Gamelan" reflect
my long-time interest in the magnificent music of Indonesia. Interestingly enough, the mode used in the "first Gamelan" is
derived from a mode charmingly used by Roy Harris in his
Second String Quartet thus realizing a conjunction between the work of an older American composer and my own ravishment by Gamelan. The "second
Gamelan" is a "tourist's - ear" impression of the Balinese Wayang Gender ensemble. The "Elegy" was inspired by the tiny, sometimes
sad paintings of Paul Klee, but the contrasts between the mystic fields of France and the glamour and heat of Bali are the
formal generating powers of the piece. Recordings of the work have been made under Leopold Stokowski and also Robert Hughes...the
latter with Keith Jarrett and Lucy Holtzman.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Solo violin, solo piano, chamber orchestra (2 flutes, oboe, harp, tack piano, celesta, tam-tam, 2 cellos, 2 contrabass)
Movements: (1) Overture: Allegro poco maestoso (2) Elegy: Adagio (3) First Gamelan: Allegro (4) Aria: Lento espressivo (5) Second Gamelan:
Allegro moderato (6) Chorale: Andante moderato
Date: 1951
Premiere: January 11, 1952, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY: Maro and Anahid Ajemian; Lou Harrison, conductor
Publisher: Associated Music Publishers, 1955; Peters 1985
Length: 18.5 minutes
Notes: Commissioned by Maro and Anahid Ajemian.
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1 page autograph sketches.
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Suite for Symphonic Strings
1960
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: String orchestra
Movements: (1) Estampie (2) Chorale: "Et in Arcadia Ego" (3) Double Fugue, "In Honor of Heracles" (4) Ductia: "In Honor of Eros" (5)
Lament (6) Canonic Variations: "In Honor of Apollo" (7) Little Fugue: "Viola's Reward" (8) Round:
"In Honor of Hermes" (9) Nocturne
Dates: Movements I, IV, VI: 1960; Movements II, III, V, VII, VIII, IX revisions or arrangements of previous works (see cross references).
Premiere: October 18, 1961: University of Louisville Symphony, Louisville, KY; Robert Whitney, conductor.
Publisher: Peters, 1961
Cross References: Movement II: revised version of
Chorale for Spring (1951; new middle section added); Movement III: revised version of
Double Fugue (1936); Movement V: revised version of
Triphony (1945) and
Trio (1946); Movement VII: orchestration of
Fugue for David Tudor (1952); Movement VIII: taken from
Almanac of the Seasons (1950); Movement IX: revised version of
Nocturne, Movement I (1951).
Notes: BMI 20th annual commission; for Carl Haverlin, president, BMI.
box-folder 7:8
Movement II: 1 page autograph score of
Chorale for Spring,
1951
box-folder 7:8
1 page autograph sketches.
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4 pages autograph score,
ca. 1960
box-folder 7:8
6 pages autograph parts,
ca. 1960
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Movement III: Folio, 12 pages. 9 pages autograph score of
Double Fugue, 1936, with revisions and orchestrations,
ca. 1960
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Movement IV: 7 pages autograph score. 8 pages autograph parts. 8 pages, blueprint copy of autograph with autograph notes and
tuning schema. Folio, 6 pages. Autograph sketches.
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Movement V: 5 pages autograph sketches on 8 pages. 1 page autograph score, end of movement.
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Movement VI: Folio, 18 pages. 10 pages autograph sketches.
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Movement VII: Folio. 10 pages. 8 pages autograph sketches and related material.
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Movement IX: Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score of
Nocturne for Victor Sprague. 2 Movements scored for tack-piano and harp. Movement I orchestrated for
Suite for Symphonic Strings.
box-folder 7:8
Folio, 4 pages. 1 page score of
Nocturne. 3 pages unrelated material.
box-folder 7:8
6 pages, partial parts, title page, autograph.
box-folder 7:8
Folio, 16 pages. 12 pages autograph sketches for various movements.
box-folder 7:8
Folio, 16 pages. 13 pages autograph sketches. Unidentified but relating to
Suite for Symphonic Strings.
box-folder 7:9
Suite for Toy Piano (John Cage, Suite for Toy Piano: orchestrated by Harrison in 1963)
1963
Physical Description: 1 score
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Score is copy of autograph by John Cage with orchestration notes in pencil by Lou Harrison.
box-folder 7:9
Original published score, Henmar Press Inc. 1960
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At the Tomb of Charles Ives
1963
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Trombone, 2 psalteries, 2 dulcimers, 3 harp, tam-tam, 5 violins, voila, cello, contrabass.
Date: November 20, 1963
Premiere: July 23, 1970, Aspen Music Festival, Aspen, CO
Publisher: Xenharmonikon 1 #2 (Fall 1974); Peer 1978
Length: 4 minutes
Recordings: LP: Gramavision GR-7006, Brooklyn Philharmonic, L. Foss, conductor
Cross Reference: See Ser. 2 Notebooks: Notebook #24
Notes: Parts in "Free Style": tuning tape available from publisher. John Cage,
Suite for Toy Piano: orchestrated by Harrison in 1963
box-folder 7:10
7 pages blueprint copy of autograph score.
box-folder 7:10
1 page blueprint copy of performance notes.
box-folder 7:11
Charles Ives, Christmas Music
1977
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Notes: Arranged for chorus/orchestra by Lou Harrison 1977.
box-folder 7:11
Movement I, Adeste Fidelis. Folio, 14 pages. 7 pages autograph score.
box-folder 7:11
2 pages photocopy of published Ives score with autograph orchestration notes in pencil by Harrison.
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Movement II, December. 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement III, A Christmas Carol. Folio, 6 pages autograph score.
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Elegy, to the Memory of Calvin Simmons
1982
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Calvin Simmons was the brilliant young conductor of the Oakland Symphony. In 1982 he died in a boating accident and I wrote
this elegy as a tribute to him. Two days after its completion it was premiered at the Cabrillo Music Festival in Aptos CA
, a two week summer festival highlighting contemporary music.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Oboe, celesta, vibraphone, harp, horn, gong, violin, viola, 2 cellos, contrabass
Date: August 22-24, 1982
Premiere: August 26, 1982: Cabrillo Music Festival, Aptos, CA
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 2.5 minutes
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Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score.
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Piano Concerto with Selected Orchestra
1983
Physical Description: 89 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My
Piano Concerto with Selected Orchestra is so called for the reason that it is composed in my favorite keyboard temperament -- Kirnberger's #2, and this meant that
I wanted only to use such orchestral instruments as could correctly play the tones of this tuning. Thus I had to forgo the
woodwinds and the valved brass. To my pleasure it turns out that the three slide trombones used, because of the majesty of
their tones actually give a rich, full-orchestra sound to the ensemble, and indeed the reduced orchestra has made the piece
accessible to community orchestras, at least to those which can gather a few extra percussion players. I composed the piece
for Keith Jarrett and Dennis Russell Davies (who introduced the two of us) and who first introduced the work in Carnegie with
the American composer's orchestra. The "well temperament" heard has on the white keys an almost perfect C major in just intonation
(only the tone "a" is very slightly high) and then a whole lovely opalescence of intervals as one reaches out to more remote
keys. I have exploited this range of tones in many ways throughout the piece. I am happy, too, that tuners, who nowadays are
mostly condemned to watching electronic cues for tuning equal temperament, are even gathering pictures and comment in newspapers
for tuning something more interesting. In the second movement I have made use of an "octave-bar" which will produce all of
the tones of a full octave at once, while slightly emphasizing the octave interval. I have left the two-octave clusters to
the forearm, as did Henry Cowell. In my second concerto for piano the keyboard is tuned to the tones of a full Javanese gamelan
, both slendro and pelog sections . I doubt that I will write a piano concerto in equal temperament -- I'm not that fond of
it. Keith Jarrett has recorded live this first concerto with Naoto Otomo and the new Japan Philharmonic.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Piano, orchestra (3 trombones, percussion, harp, strings)
Movements: (1) Allegro (2) Stampede: allegro (3) Largo (4) Allegro moderato
Date: Begun May 1983; completed July-August 1985 (Movement I: July 29; Movement II: July 13; Movement III: August 5; Movement IV:
August 9)
Premiere: October 20, 1985, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY: Keith Jarrett, American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
Publisher: Peters, 1985
Length: 29.5 minutes
Cross References: Movement II: heavily revised version of Faust , Movement VIII (1985)
Notes: For Keith Jarrett. Commissioned by Betty Freeman. Piano in Kirnberger's #2 tuning.
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1 page autograph tuning ratios for Kirnberger #2
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Movement I, Allegro: 34 pages autograph score, ink.
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Movement II, Stamped: 39 pages autograph score, ink.
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Movement III, Largo: 6 pages autograph score, ink.
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Movement IV, Allegro moderato: 9 pages autograph score, ink.
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4 pages autograph sketches.
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A Parade for MTT (A Parade for Michael Tilson Thomas)
1995
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
When Michael Tilson Thomas asked me to make a "fanfare" for him to open his season, he actually meant a kind of opener or
festive beginning for his "reign" -- "Use anything you want" he said, "a boys choir, a gamelan, whatever, and of course,
the San Francisco Symphony". Such largesse of means was a bit intimidating, but I finally summoned courage and committed a
little tune. It did not want to be a fanfare but rather a parade march such as I had heard in my youth in San Francisco, splendidly
stepping along with a "bell-lyra" group.
I somehow remember Chinese women playing the hip-borne bell-lyras long ago. This in turn led to a more singing passage and
then my early hearing of Japanese Gagaku in San Francisco emerged. In short, I could see that my San Francisco memories were
passing as a parade and so I celebrated that for Michael's arrival. I found that I needed my great oxygen-tank bells, my three
"ranch triangles" a sweet bell-tree (gentorak), the very large Javanese gong that I myself built for Mills College and for
which the artist Mark Bullwinkle provided the flange, and, of course, my accustomed "octave-cluster-bars" for the piano and
celesta to make brilliance with. I hope that the timpanist will forgive me, but I can't really like the modern tympani, otherwise
I think that I've written for the orchestra in a straight-forward way. I am grateful to the San Francisco Symphony for commissioning
me and rejoice that it has had the wisdom to establish M.T.T. (Michael Tilson Thomas) in his wonderful brilliance, as music
director.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Orchestra (4-4-4-4; 4-4-4-1; 4 or 5 percussion-celesta-piano-organ-harp; strings)
Premiere: September 6, 1995, Davies Hall, San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Date: June 1, 1995
Publisher: Peer, 1995
Length: 6 minutes
Cross References: See also Ser.2 Notebooks: Notebook #26
Notes: Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony.
box-folder 7:14
1 page copy of autograph title page.
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28 pages copy of autograph score with slight pencil additions by composer.
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12 pages copy of additional organ part.
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Ives Transcriptions
undated
Physical Description: 20 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Notes: Transcriptions from Charles Ives manuscripts made for Milton Feist.
box-folder 7:15
Psalm XXV. Folio, 16 pages. 14 pages autograph score.
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Psalm 100. Folio, 4 pages autograph score.
box 8-11
3. Vocal
1939-1992
Physical Description: 21 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
This series includes pieces written for voice and are listed by Choral (chorus or choir) and Solo Voice with a large variety
of instrumental accompaniment.
box-folder 8:1
Mass to St. Anthony
1939-52
Physical Description: 3 folders
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chorus, trumpet, harp, string (original version; Chorus and percussion begun 1939 completed 2001)
Movements: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei
Dates: Begun September 1, 1939; completed March 12, 1952 (percussion for Kyrie and Gloria and all vocal parts completed 1939)
Premiere: January 24, 1954, Carl Fischer Hall, New York, N.Y.: Collegium Musicum and Cantata Singers, Fritz Rikko, conductor
Text: Catholic mass ordinary
Publisher: Peer, 1962 and 1974
Length: 25.5 minutes
Notes: Fromm Music Foundation Award, 1955
box-folder 8:1
Original composer's notebook. Folio, 34 pages. 30 pages autograph score and sketches,
1939.
box-folder 8:1
Published score: Spiral bound, 35 pages, blueprint of autograph,
ca. 1952.
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Revised Kyrie: 8 pages autograph score,
November 11, 2000.
box-folder 8:1
Revised Gloria: 8 pages autograph score,
January 6, 2001.
box-folder 8:1
3 pages sketches,
ca. 2000
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Easter Cantata
1943
Physical Description: 23 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Solo contralto, SATB chorus, 2 trumpets, 2 trombone, glock, chimes, harp, strings.
Movements: (1) Sinfonia: (2) Aubade, Chorale en Rondeau; (3) Mary's Song at the Tomb; (4) Narrative (5) Alleluia.
Date: Begun Summer-Fall 1943; completed 1966.
Premiere: April 3, 1966, Hartnell College: Vahé Aslanian, conductor
Text: Paraphrase of Luke 24
Publisher: Frog Peak
Notes: Commissioned by Hartnell College Student Body Association.
box-folder 8:2
23 pages autograph score, ink. 2 pages autograph title page and movements.
box-folder 8:3
Onward Christian Soldiers
ca. 1945
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Trumpet, organ, unison chorus
Date: ca. 1945
Premiere: United Methodist Church, Bronx, New York, N.Y., ca. 1945
Text: Protestant hymn
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Notes: For Edward McGowan, minister, United Methodist Church, New York, N.Y.
box-folder 8:4
Strict Songs
1950
Physical Description: 4 folios, 58 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: (a) 8 bar (in 2-3 parts), chamber orchestra (2 trombones, pianp, harp, percussion, strings); male chorus approved by composer;
(b) bar solo, SATB [Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass] chorus, chamber orchestra (1992)
Movements: Four untitled movements. Text beginnings: (1) Here is Holiness; (2) Here is Nourishment; (3) Here is Tenderness; (4) Here
is Splendor.
Dates: Movement I begun 1951, completed 1955; Movement II: July 13, 1955; Movement III, undated (1955); Movement IV: June 1,1955
Premiere: Version (a) January 18, 1956, University of Louisville Orchestra, Lousiville, KY, Robert Whitney, conductor; version (b) November
20, 1992, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
Publisher: Association of Music Publishers, 1956
Text:
Joys and Perplexities: Selected Poems of Lou Harrison; Lou Harrison (Winston-Salem: Jargon Society, 1992), 34-35
Length: 19 minutes
Notes: Commissioned by University of Louisville Orchestra. Movement I: revision of "Gloria" from an unfinished mass (1951 - March
18,1954). Movement III dedicated to composer's father. Choreography by Mark Morris, 1987
box-folder 8:4
(1): Folio, 18 pages autograph score, sketches (manuscript originally for an unfinished "Gloria").
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(2): Folio, 4 pages, 3 pages autograph short-score with tuning schema.
Three Folio's 4 pages each. 11 pages autograph sketches with some unrelated material.
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(3): Folio, 12 pages. 8 pages autograph short-score. Folio, 4 pages autograph sketches. 1 page sketches. Folio, 12 pages.
3 pages autograph tuning schema and bar sketches.
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(4): Folio, 4 pages autograph short-score. Folio, 6 pages. 4 pages autograph sketches.
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18 pages autograph and photocopy score for version (b) vocal parts.
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6 pages with 3 pages sketches.
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1 page, photocopy sketches.
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Included in materials is a complete but rejected autograph short-score for Movement II. Folio 12 pages. 8 pages autograph
score and sketches.
box-folder 8:4
21 pages, complete autograph score.
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Peace Pieces
1953-68
Physical Description: 3 folders
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This subseries includes 3 pieces written for peace.
box-folder 8:5
Peace Piece 1: Invocation for the Health of all Beings
1968
Physical Description: 18 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Unison chorus, chamber orchestra (trombone, 3 percussion, 2 harps, reed organ, strings)
Date: March 14, 1968
Premiere: April 7, 1968, First Unitarian Church, Berkeley, CA.
Text: Buddhist Metta Sutta
Publisher: Soundings Press (July-October 1972);
A Lou Harrison Reader, ed. Peter Garland (Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1987)
Length: 6 minutes
Notes: To the memory of Martin Luther King.
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17 pages autograph score including title page with notes.
box-folder 8:5
1 page autograph sketches
box 8:5
Peace Piece 2: Passages 25
ca. 1968
Physical Description: 10 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Tenor, chamber orchestra (3 percussion, 2 harp, strings)
Dates: March 31, 1968
Premiere: April 7, 1968, First Unitarian Church, Berkeley, CA.
Text: Robert Duncan,
Passages 25
Publisher: Soundings 3-4 (July-Oct 1972)
Length: 6.5 minutes
Box 8:5
9 pages autograph score including title page with notes.
Box 8:5
1 page autograph part for strings.
box 8:5
Peace Piece 3: Little Song on the Atom Bomb
1953
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Voice (alto or bartione), 2 violins, viola, harp
Dates: 1953, revised 1968
Premiere: August 17, 1968, Cabrillo Music Festival, Aptos, CA.
Text: Lou Harrison
Publisher: Soundings 3-4 (July-October 1972)
Length: 2 minutes
Notes: See also notebooks
Box 8:5
2 pages autograph parts for viola, harp
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Nak Yang Chun - Spring in Nak Yang [Joint composition with Lee Hye-Ku]
1961
Physical Description: 48 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chorus, 3 flutes, 3 trombones, celesta, harp, piano, 2 percussion, strings
Dates: Late 1961
Text: Translation in
Joys and Perplexities: Selected Poems of Lou Harrison; Lou Harrison (Winston-Salem: Jargon Society, 1992), 99
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Notes: Original Korean work from 960-1279 A.D.; Korean orchestra version survives from notation from the 18th century and later
but original choral parts lost. Restoration of choral parts by Harrison and Lee Hye-Ku and arranged for orchestra of western
instruments.
box-folder 8:6
10 pages autograph score, arranged for European instruments.
box-folder 8:6
8 pages, additional autograph score, arranged for European instruments (in different hand).
box-folder 8:6
13 pages autograph parts for chorus and European instruments.
box-folder 8:6
6 pages autograph parts for Asian instruments.
box-folder 8:6
1 page autograph score for " Melody", "Bells", and "Pak"
box-folder 8:6
2 pages autograph score for Korean Orchestra with notes.
box-folder 8:6
Folio, 8 pages, 2 pages sketches.
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Nova Odo
1961-68
Physical Description: 54 pages, 2 folios
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Male chorus, reciting chorus, orchestra (3-3-3-3; 4-3-3; piano, tack piano, celesta, organ, harp, percussion [includes pak];
strings), 7 p'iris [alternative: English horn, saxophones, clarinets]
Movements: (1) quar=ca.144; (2) Largo, cantabile, solenel (3) quar=132-144
Dates: Parts 1-2 completed 1961-63; part 3: August 10, 1968
Premiere: Parts 1-2: read-through by Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Soeul, Korea, 1962. Completed work: August 17,1968, Cabrillo Music
Festival, Aptos, CA.: Gerhard Samuel, conductor
Text: Lou Harrison, English and Esperanto,
Joys and Perplexities: Selected Poems of Lou Harrison; Lou Harrison (Winston-Salem: Jargon Society, 1992), 115-20
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 20.5 minutes
Notes: To Rockefeller Foundation For Composers' Workshop of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the San Francisco Symphony and
Enrique Jorda.
The
Prelude for P'iri and Reed Organ (1962) from this piece can be performed as an independent work.
box-folder 8:7
Movement I (Part 1): 16 pages autograph score.
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Movement II (Part 2): 21 pages autograph score.
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Movement III (Part 3): 17 pages blueprint of autograph score, 1 page autograph score.
box-folder 8:7
Folio, String bound music lined notebook, 64 pages with approximately 31 pages sketches and notes.
box-folder 8:7
Folio, 6 pages, 4 pages autograph sketches.
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Haiku
1967
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Unison mixed chorus, shiao, harp, wind-chimes, gong
Dates: February 7 - March 14,1967
Text: Kay Davis
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Length: 37 measures
Notes: To William Erlendson.
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La Koro Sutro
1972
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
La Koro Sutro is the official title in Esperanto referring to the
Heart Sutra, which is among the most used and popular basic texts of Buddhism. My
Heart Sutra is a work which comes from many sources. I visited Korea, Taiwan and Japan in the early 60's because of an international
conference about music. I was already enormously interested in Korean and Chinese music and had formed an admiration for Buddhism
which has remained with me since.
Buddhism is not, properly speaking, a religion because it demands no faith in extraterrestrial or any other kind of power.
It is a philosophy, a science of how to be happy if you want to be. Although the formulas for happiness exist, both in Buddhism
and Epicureanism, a surprising number of people still choose not to be happy, but to go on as usual. It is fascinating that
this Buddhist philosophical writing seems to be about contemporary with the same intellectual impulse in the Byzantine world.
The famous mantram "Hail, the Jewel is in the Lotus" is the final line of the
Heart Sutra whose entire text can be printed on a postcard. It is a condensed version of another work, the "Divine Wisdom" or "Hagia
Sophia", which consists of over 100,000 lines.
I began this work in 1972 in response to a request from Cathy Schulze that I help organize a concert at San Francisco State
University for such people as wanted to visit the city after the world Esperanto Conference in Portland. When composing the
Heart Sutra I knew that it deserved a language of wide potential understanding. Western religion and governments have (until recently)
used the archaic and formal Latin language. Rather than using a holy language, Buddhism has always expressed itself in the
vernacular - so I decided to use Esperanto. My friend, Bruce Kennedy, was a master of various Languages (I found out recently
that he also knew sign language!), so I asked him to translate the text of the
Heart Sutra in to Esperanto so that I might use it in composing. He achieved this beautifully by comparing several different language
versions including "Pali".
The first concert of the
Sutra was very well received and has since had a great number of performances. La Koro Sutro was performed in Sapporo, Japan.
The week before our concert there had been a monumental earthquake during which one island was totally destroyed and many
people died. It was a shocking and terrible circumstance. Since we were preparing the
Heart Sutra, and Japan is in many senses a Buddhist country, I asked a friend to translate into Japanese a brief paragraph in which we
dedicated the performance to the memory of those who died and to their survivors.
For this work, my friend and partner, William Colvig, created many instruments. The small tube and slab gamelan, which is
used with other percussion instruments, has become know as "Old Granddad" Gamelan for it is the first of the Western American
Gamelan to employ aluminum tubes and slabs (handsomely resonated with #10 Billy cans collected from back doors of restaurants),
which have since been used in the building of many Gamelan. Bill and I tuned the Gamelan to a perfect Northwest Asian (European)
natural scale; that is to say, much like a C Major would be if you sang it or played it on string instruments, although the
gamelan is actually in D major. It is a joy to sing with because the orchestra tuning is the same as you would use with your
voice. Towards the end, (in the next to the last movement), I needed another key system to contrast the basic scales that
I had been using. I didn't have the heart to ask Bill to create a new set of instruments so I threw in a harp! This has proven
to be a good choice because it works well with the other instruments and provides a pleasant contrast.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: (a) SATB chorus, small organ, harp, American Gamelan; (b) arranged for chorus and orchestra (piano, celesta, 2 harps, 3
percussion, strings) by Kerry Lewis.
Movements: (1) Kunsonoro Kaj Gloro (2)-(8) Paragrafo 1-7 (9) Mantro Kaj Kunsonoro.
Date: July 29, 1972; arranged for string orchestra, ca. 1977
Premiere: August 11, 1972, San Francisco State University, Donald Cobb, conductor.
Text: Esperanto translation of Buddhist
Heart Sutra by Bruce Kennedy
Publisher: Peer
Length: 29 minutes
Cross Reference: For Vahé Aslanian.
box-folder 8:9
Movement I, Kunsonoro Kaj Gloro: 1 page autograph partial sketches for gender and lali.
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2a Paragrafo: 2 pages autograph partial part for gender.
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4a Paragrafo: 5 pages autograph score.
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7th Paragrafo: 1 page autograph sketches for chorus.
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1 page copy of autograph harp part with pencil sketch for new ending.
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2 fragments with new harp ending for 7th Paragrafo with note to Margaret Fisher.
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Mass to St. Cecilia (Mass for St. Cecilia's Day)
1983
Physical Description: 23 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: unisex chorus; optional drone and/or figuration on organ, harp
Movements: (1) Introitus; (2) Kyrie; (3) Gloria; (4) Graduale; (5) Alleluia; (6) Offertory; (7) Sanctus; (8) Agnus Dei; (9) Communion;
(10) Hymn; (11) Ite Missa Est
Date: Kyrie: October 25, 1983; complete mass, 1986
Premiere: Introitus, Gloria, Hymn: November 15, 1987, California State Sacramento, CA: Completed mass: November 18, 1988, Santa Cruz
Chamber Players, Santa Cruz, CA
Text: Catholic mass ordinary and the proper for the Feast of St. Cecilia (November 22).
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 22 minutes
Notes: Monoph mass in Gregorian chant style. For Saint Cecilia Society for the Preservation and Restoration of Gregorian Chant and
the Peking Opera of Santa Cruz, CA.
box-folder 8:10
10 pages autograph score, title page, notes and decorations used to create a composer's limited edition serigraph with Chris
Daubert.
box-folder 8:10
Movement I: Introitus: 2 pages photocopy of autograph sketches (from notebook) with Revisions in pencil. 1 page copy of final
score with slight ink design additions.
box-folder 8:10
Movement II: Kyrie: 1 page photocopy of autograph first version (from notebook).
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Movement IV, Graduale: 1 page photocopy of autograph original sketches with slight revisions in pencil.
box-folder 8:10
Movement V, Alleluia: 2 pages photocopy of autograph original sketches with revisions in pencil and pen and pasteover.
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Movement VI, Offeratory: 1 page photocopy of autograph sketch with slight revisions markings in pencil.
box-folder 8:10
Movement VII, Sanctus: 2 pages photocopy of autograph original sketches with revisions in pencil and ink.
box-folder 8:10
Movement VIII, Agnus Dei: 1 page photocopy of original sketch with slight notes in pencil.
box-folder 8:10
Movement X and Movement XI, Hymn and Ite: 2 pages photocopy of autograph sketches with revisions in pencil.
box-folder 8:10
1 page autograph (William Colvig) percussion accompaniment.
box-folder 8:11
Faust
1985
Physical Description: 51 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Soprano, tenor, bass soloists; chorus; chamber orchestra (4 flutes, trumpet, 4 percussions, piano, 2 harp, organ, strings),
Sundanese gam degung
Movements: (1) Opening scene in heaven; (2) Fire spirit's chant; (3) Easter music; (4) Witch's Song; (5) Wine-Love Song; (6) Three dances
for two harps; (7) Gretchen's Spinning Song; (8) Estampie ("Walpurgisnacht"); (9) Gamelan works: Lagu Pa Undang, Lagu Elang
Yusuf; (1) Miscellaneous percussion interludes.
Dates: Movement I: March 12,1985; Movements II, III, IV, V, VII, IX: undated; Movement VI: March 19,1985
Premiere: May 9,1985, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA.
Text: Adaptation of Goethe's text by Kathy Foley
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Cross References: Movement VII adapted for
The Clays' Quintet, Movement III (1987; same music with different instruments and no text). Movement VIII heavily revised and used in
Piano Concerto, Movement II (1985)
box-folder 8:11
37 pages autograph score, without gamelan pieces.
box-folder 8:11
3 pages photocopy of
Gretchen's Spinning Song with composer's revisions for inclusion to
The Clay's Quintet.
box-folder 8:11
1 page photocopy of
Three Dances for 2 Harps with revisions for inclusion in
The Clay's Quintet.
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Folio, 6 pages autograph score of
Gretchen's Spinning Song, not in composer's hand.
box-folder 8:12
Three songs for Male Chorus
1985
Physical Description: 43 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Male chorus, chamber orchestra (piano, organ, strings, percussion)
Movements: (1) King David's Lament for Jonathan; (2) Oh You Whom I Often and Silently Come; (3) When I Heard at the Close of Day
Dates: (1) October 8, 1941, revised June 18, 1985; (2) 1949, revised June 1985; (3) June 1985
Premiere: September 28, 1985: Portland Gay Men's Chorus, Gilbert Seeley, conductor
Text: (1) II Samuel; (2) and (3) Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass "Calamus")
Publisher: Peer, 1985
Length: 10 minutes
Cross References: Movement I: revised version of 1941 work of same name. Movement II: revised version of
Fragment from Calamus (1946)
box-folder 8:12
Movement I: Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, King David's Lament, 1941. Folio, 4 pages autograph score and sketches,
Lycida's Lament (Milton). Folio, 6 pages, 3 pages autograph score, 1 page sketches.
box-folder 8:12
7 pages autograph score (including title page),
1985.
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1 page autograph vocal part set in Hebrew by Larry Polansky.
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Movement II: 4 pages autograph score,
1985.
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Movement II: 1 page autograph sketches.
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Movement III: 17 pages autograph score,
1985.
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Folio, 8 pages. 6 pages autograph sketches and notes.
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Homage to Pacifica
1991
Physical Description: 25 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Javanese gamelan (slendro and pelog), bassoon, 1 percussion, harp, psaltery, chorus, solo voice, narrator
Movements: (1) Prelude; (2) In Honor of the Divine Mr. Handel; (3) In Honor of Mark Twain; (4) Interlude; (5) Ode; (6) Interlude; (7)
Litany; (8) In Honor of Chief Seattle
Date: 1991
Premiere: October 4, 1991
Text: Movement III: Mark Twain, taken from Howard Zinn,
A People's History of the United States. Movements V and VII:
Joys and Perplexities: Selected Poems of Lou Harrison; Lou Harrison (Winston-Salem: Jargon Society, 1992), 60 and 63; Movement VIII: attributed to Chief Seattle (Chief Sealth)
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 37 minutes
Notes: Commissioned by Gerbode Foundation for inauguration of new building of the Pacifica Foundation. Two movements subsequently
choreographed by Mark Morris in
World Power (premiere: October 27, 1995)
box-folder 8:13
1 page autograph title and movements.
box-folder 8:13
1 page autograph psaltery patterns.
box-folder 8:13
Movement I, Prelude: 2 pages autograph score. Page 1, gamelan. Page 2, harp.
box-folder 8:13
Movement II, In Honor of the Divine Mr. Handel: 5 pages autograph score. Pages 1-2, gamelan. Pages 3-5, harp.
box-folder 8:13
Movement III, In Honor of Mark Twain: 4 pages autograph score. Pages 1-3, gamelan. Page 4, gamelan and chorus.
box-folder 8:13
Movement IV, Interlude: 2 pages autograph score.
box-folder 8:13
Movement VI, Interlude: 1 page autograph score.
box-folder 8:13
Movement VII, Litany: 6 pages autograph and photocopy score (three times 2 pages of recitatives with meter and solo/choral
designations).
box-folder 8:13
Movement VIII, In Honor of Chief Seattle: 3 pages autograph score. Pages 1-2, gamelan. Page 3, harp./
box-folder 8:14
Now Sleep the Mountains All
1992
Physical Description: 11 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chorus, percussion, 2 pianos
Date: February - March 1992
Premiere: April 6, 1992, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA.: Charlene Archibeque, director
Text: Fragment 89 from Alkman, translation Andrew Bowman
Publisher: Unpublished
box-folder 8:14
10 pages autograph score.
box-folder 8:15
White Ashes - Gobunsho
1992
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Chorus, keyboard
Date: March 1992
Text: Buddhist hymn by Rennyo Shonin
Publisher: Shin Buddhist Service Book (Buddhist Churches of America, 1994)
Length: 1.5 minutes
box-folder 9:1
Pied Beauty
1940
Physical Description: 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Baritone, cello, 1 percussion
Date: October 28, 1940
Premiere: October 6, 1963, Old Spaghetti Factory, San Francisco, CA: Robert Hughes et al
Text: Gerard Manley Hopkins
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 2.5 minutes
Notes: For William Brown (later Weaver). See Ser. 2 Notebooks: Notebook #213
box-folder 9:1
1 page autograph part for flute.
box-folder 9:2
Sanctus
1940
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Contralto, piano
Date: 1940
Premiere: November 14, 1940, San Francisco, CA., Museum of Art: Radiana Pazmor
Text: Catholic mass ordinary
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 5.5 minutes
box-folder 9:2
Folio, 8 pages. 7 pages autograph score including title page.
box-folder 9:3
May Rain
1941
Physical Description: 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
May Rain was written for my friend William Weaver to sing. The beautiful poem is one from a sequence titled
From Alba Hill by the wonderful Elsa Gidlow. It first appeared in the very early thirties and currently is printed in her
Sapphic Songs Seventeen to Seventy (Diana Press, 1976). The music was printed in the first issue of Peter Garland's
Soundings.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Baritone, piano, percussion
Date: October 30, 1941
Premiere: February 17, 1963, Sticky Wicket, Aptos, CA.
Text: Elsa Gidlow,
From Alba Hill #3
Publisher: Lou Harrison Reader; Soundings Press 1 (January 1972)
Length: 3 minutes
Notes: For William Weaver.
box-folder 9:3
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score including title page,
1941
box-folder 9:3
1 page autograph score in from later date,
ca. 1963
box-folder 9:4
Fragment from Calamus
1946
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Baritone, piano (originally baritone, string quartet)
Date: 1946
Text: Walt Whitman,
Calamus #43
Publisher: Bomart 1950;
A Lou Harrison Reader, Peter Garland, ed. (Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1987).
Length: 1 minute
Cross References: Revised and orchestrated for
Three Songs for Male Chorus, Movement II (1985)
box-folder 9:4
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score including title page.
box-folder 9:5
Alma Redemptoris Mater
1949-51
Physical Description: 3 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Baritone, violin, trombone, tack piano
Dates: Begun 1949; completed 1951, Black Mountain College, NC.
Premiere: May 20, 1962, Nepenthe, Big Sur, CA.
Text: Catholic liturgy
Publisher: Peer, 1962
Length: 1.5 minutes
box-folder 9:5
3 pages copy of autograph score, with sparse composer's notes.
box-folder 9:6
Holly and Ivy
1951-62
Physical Description: 11 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My song
Holly and Ivy which is actually a Christmas carol, was composed on a text given to me at Reed College in 1948 or 1949. Unfortunately, I
lost the original paper and have asked several poets who were at Reed College whether any one of them gave me the text. So
far no one has said "yes". A composer is in danger who uses a poet's text without permission so I hope that someday the author
will come forward to be recognized and I also hope that he will forgive me!
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Tenor, harp, 2 violins, cello, contrabass (or choral tenors and mezzo-sopranos, harp, string orchestra)
Dates: Begun 1951; completed 1962
Premiere: February 17, 1963: Sticky Wicket, Aptos, CA.
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 2 minutes
box-folder 9:6
6 pages autograph score,
ca. 1962
box-folder 9:6
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph partial score/study,
ca. 1951
box-folder 9:6
1 page sketches,
ca. 1951
box-folder 9:7
Vestiunt Silve
1951-94
Physical Description: 17 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Mezzo soprano, flute, 2 violas, harp
Dates: Begun April 4, 1951, completed July 4, 1994
Premiere: August 18, 1994, Dartington International Summer School and Festival, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon, England
Text: "A Summer Song of Birds": Goliardic song from the Cambridge Songs Manuscripts, ca. 1050. See
The Cambridge Songs, editor, Karl Breul (Cambridge University Press, 1915); for a translation see
The Goliard Poets, translation George F Whicher, 1949.
Publisher:
Music in the United States of America (MUSA), v.8 (Madison: A-R Editions, 1998)
Length: 4 minutes
Notes: For Wilfrid Mellers's 80th birthday.
box-folder 9:7
6 pages autograph score.
ca. 1994
box-folder 9:7
Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches
ca. 1994
box-folder 9:7
Folio 4 pages. 1 page autograph sketches
ca. 1994
box-folder 9:7
1 page autograph sketches
ca. 1951
box 10
Political Primer [incomplete]
1951-59
Physical Description: 225 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Overtures: orch; recitatives (baritone), occasional percussion
Movements: Movements completed: 3 overtures (monarchy, republic, democracy) later used in
Third Symphony and
Elegiac Symphony; 4 recitativess (Movement I: Dedication; Movement V: First Comment, with two timely remarks; Movement IX: Second comment;
and Movement XIII: Last comment with remark and salutation).
Dates: Begun 1951; overtures and recitatives completed 1958.
Premiere: Recitatives only: May 23/24, 1959, University of Buffalo, N.Y., Herbert Beattie, baritone.
Text: Lou Harrison (alternative texts in English and Esperanto), Frog Peak Anthology (Hanover, N.H.: Frog Peak Music, 1992), 77-83.
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript of recitatives and overture 1; remainder: sketches only.
Cross References: Overtures later revised for use as
Elegiac Symphony, Movement I (1975) and
Third Symphony, Movements I and IV (1982).
Notes: Choruses never completed. Recitatives in "Free Style".
box 10
#1: Text in Esperanto. " First Proof": 21 pages typed manuscript with autograph notes and revisions in Esperanto by author/composer
in blue ink. Additional notes and comments by G. Alan Conner, General Secretary of the Esperanto Society of North America,
in red ink and pencil.
box 10
#2: "Revised May 12, 1958": 21 pages typed manuscript with introductory letter from author/composer to G. Alan Conner. Additional
comments and notes in red ink by Conner.
box 10
#3: Text in English. 24 pages autograph manuscript in ink. 3 pages autograph manuscript from earlier version.
box 10
#4: 20 pages blue-print of autograph manuscript with pencil and ink revisions.
box 10
#5: 1 page typed introduction,
1990.
box 10
1 page photo copy of autograph tuning schema and section numbers.
box 10
7 pages typed manuscript (final version)
box 10
#6: Section I, Dedication: Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, pencil.
box 10
1 page autograph score, ink.
box 10
#7: Section II, Overture: Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches, pencil.
box 10
1 pages autograph title page, ink. 27 pages autograph full score, ink.
box 10
34 pages autograph parts, ink, for: Trombones I, II, Celesta, Harp, Piano, Tack piano. I, II, Percussion, Violins I-IV, Viola,
Cello I-III, Contrabass.
box 10
#8: Section V, First Comment with Two Timely Remarks: Five Folio's, 20 pages, 14 pages autograph score, pencil. 16 pages autograph
score, ink.
box 10
#9: Section IX, Second Comment: Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, pencil.
2 pages autograph score, ink./
box 10
#10: Section XIII, Last Comment, with Remark; Salutation.
box 10
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score pencil. 2 pages autograph score, ink.
box 10
1 page autograph sketches with sketches for "1a Ario" on reverse.
box 10
#11: 3 pages, photo copy of letter to Mr. Beattie with tuning explanations for recitatives.
box 10
#12: 2 pages autograph score of Section XI, Overture, ink.
box 10
#13: Blueprint copies of parts for Section II, Overture.
box 10
#14: Blueprint copy of Section II, Overture, with autograph markings in composer's hand. Composer also indicates that this
work is absorbed into the
Elegiac Symphony Movement V, which is incorrect. It is absorbed in to the
Third Symphony Movement IV.
box 10
Autograph sketches in 13 portfolio's comprising 112 pages. Folio's are numbered consecutively. Harrison drew from these materials
which became absorbed in other works. Primarily the
Elegiac Symphony and the
Third Symphony. Where possible identifications are indicated. Other sketch materials not identified at this time.
box 10
Folio #1, 12 pages. 9 pages autograph sketches. Various pages identified as
Third Symphony, Movement IV and
Elegiac Symphony, Movement I.
box 10
Folio #2, 6 pages autograph sketches. Various pages identified as
Third Symphony, Movement IV and
Elegiac Symphony, Movement I.
box 10
Folio #3, 12 pages. 9 pages autograph sketches from Section 10 of the
Political Primer, Overture.
box 10
Folio #4, 14 page autograph sketches currently unidentified.
box 10
Folio #5, 16 pages. 13 pages autograph sketches including fragments of Aria's and comments.
box 10
Folio #6, 12 pages. 11 pages autograph sketches. Various pages identified as
Third Symphony, Movement IV.
box 10
Folio #7, 10 pages. 9 pages autograph sketches. Various pages identified as
Elegiac Symphony, Movement I.
box 10
Folio #8, 4 pages autograph sketches. 1 page identified as
Third Symphony, Movement IV. 1 page identified as from
Cinna.
box 10
Folio #9, 6 pages autograph sketches. Partially identified as
Third Symphony, Movement IV.
box 10
Folio #10, 4 pages autograph sketches. Partially identified as
Third Symphony, Movement IV.
box 10
Folio #11, 6 pages autograph sketches. Fragments of Aria's and 1 page identified as
Elegiac Symphony, Movement I.
box 10
Folio #12, 4 pages autograph sketches. Composer's hand partially identifies
Third Symphony, Movement I.
box 10
Folio #13, 6 pages. 4 pages autograph sketches partially identified as
Third Symphony, Movement I.
box 11
Orpheus - for the Singer to the Dance
1969
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
The work is based on the theme from the Greek myth of Orpheus however; it is dances in the contemporary time and in abstract
style.
Synopsis: The story begins with a praise to Orpheus who represents love and music and praise to Orpheus and his wife, Eurydice.
Orpheus and Eurydice represent perfect love. Eurydice is then killed by a snake and Orpheus is left alone. Orpheus goes to
Hell to get Eurydice and with his beautiful music from his lyre, he convinces the devils to let him take Eurydice back. The
grant is given provided he does not and look at Eurydice as she follows him out. However, the devils trick him and when he
turns back Eurydice disappears. Orpheus, knowing he has lost Eurydice for good, prays to the father for help, transforms himself
into a bird and flies away. In his search for Eurydice, the women of the town condemn and kill him for losing Eurydice. Orpheus
is reborn and begins life anew. He no longer remembers his wife and seeks to find a new love. His new love is a young Greek
boy. The two lovers join the group of dancers, who appear as both sexes. His new love also disappears, as Eurydice had before
and Orpheus is, again, left alone to take his place among the group of dancers.
In 1941 I began a large composition called
Labyrinth for percussion orchestra which was intended to be orchestral, not just a large group of soloists, but with doublings and
couplings which mean orchestra rather than chamber ensembles. At about the halfway point I moved from San Francisco, and,
as life goes, I forget about the work, though somewhere along the line I sent the completed portions to the Philadelphia Free
Library. It was well received in New York during the fifties when Paul Price played it. Gerhard Samuel played it in 1967 at
the Cabrillo Music Festival, and by this time I had already found the poet Robert Duncan's beautiful
Set of Romantic Hymns orphic in nature, and realized that a whole work would result from his verse and my unfinished composition.
Orpheus understood in several possible old and new ways is the subject, so highly meaningful to any musician, and a "sung ballet"
is the result. The sustained two-year labor of achieving this new piece was in large part supported by the Phoebe Ketchum
Thorne Music Fellowship, and the work is dedicated to Francis Thorne, friend and fellow composer, among whose bright ideas
is the award itself, the highest award granted to a composer in the United States.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Ten solo, SATB chorus, 15 percussion
Movements: (1) Sweet tone, vibrant wing (2) Ode (3) Passage thru dreams (4) Fountain of forms (5) Seed (6) The lyre's ablaze (7) In
praise of Orpheus (8) Image in the soil.
Date: Completed 1969, revised 1996
Premiere: May 22, 1969, San Jose State University Percussion Ensemble, San Jose, CA; Anthony Cirone, director; Robert Buchanan, tenor
Text: Robert Duncan,
A Set of Romantic Hymns
Publisher: Unpublished
Length: 38 minutes
Cross References: Expansion of Labyrinth #3 (1941). Movement II is a revised version of Labyrinth, Movement I; Movement III is virtually identical
to Labyrinth, Movement II; Movement V is a revised version of Labyrinth, Movement III; Movement VIII loosely based on Labyrinth,
Movement IV.
Note: To Francis Thorne.
box 11
Movement I, Sweet Tone Vibrant Wing: 10 pages autograph score, ink (1-10)
box 11
Movement II, Ode: 16 pages autograph score (11 - 26)
box 11
Movement III, Passage Thru Dreams: 6 pages autograph score (27 - 32)
box 11
Movement IV, Fountain of Forms: 8 pages autograph score (33-40)
box 11
Movement V, Seed: 21 pages autograph score (41 - 61)
box 11
Movement VI, The Lyre's Ablaze: 4 pages autograph score (62-65)
box 11
3 pages autograph score for voice, glockenspiel, piano, 2 bass drums.
box 11
Movement VII, In Praise of Orpheus: 6 pages autograph score (66-70)
box 11
1 page autograph score, different format.
box 11
Movement VIII, Image in the Soil: 24 pages autograph score ( 71-94)
box 11
23 pages photocopy of autograph with paste-over revisions (all photocopies),
December 26 1996
box 11
Folio, 14 page. 11 pages autograph sketches for choruses and solos.
box 11
Folio, 8 pages. 7 pages various sketches including unrelated transcriptions:
"Ming Idiom" and "Taryung".
box 11
Folio, 6 pages. 5 pages autograph sketches.
box 11
5 loose pages with 8 pages autograph sketches.
box 11
One half page autograph sketches.
box 11
2 pages autograph sketches for chorus.
box 11
1 page autograph sketches for percussion.
box 11
Additional materials: Complete blueprint copy of autograph score with slight
performance markings in pencil. Blueprint copy of Movements VI, VII, VIII, with autograph
revisions and additions in pencil.
box 12-13
4. Western Instrument Ensemble
1934-1999
Physical Description: 29 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
Western Instrument Ensemble works include pieces written for a variety of instrumental groupings. They are divided in this
catalogue as 5 or more, 3-4, and 1-2 players.
box-folder 12:1
Binary Variations on "Oh Sinner Man"
1934-1977
Physical Description: 16 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Renaissance instrument ensemble (soprano/alto/tenor recorders and crumhorns; harpsichord; sackbut; treble/bass viol; alto
shawm; dulcian)
Dates: Begun 1934; completed January 10, 1977
Premiere: February 25, 1977, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA.: independent concert directed by Philip Collins
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Length: 6 minutes
box-folder 12:1
16 pages autograph score. 3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 12:2
String Quartet Set
1940-78
Physical Description: 56 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
I was happy to receive a commission from Canada; Robert Aitkin's "New Music Concerts" of Toronto, along with the Canada Council.
At one point in rehearsal of my
String Quartet Set by the Orford Quartet who premiered the work in Toronto, I had to leave the room (broken up -- tears in the eyes and the
whole bit) because I had not imagined that it could be played so beautifully. My friend the percussionist William Winant pointed
out to me that the English stampede is cognate with the French estampie and really means a general "bru-ha-ha" and excitement.
Fortunately it is a useful and interesting form to compose in and I have made a number of them. For years before my
Variations, I had loved, and composed quintal counterpoint to, the beautiful
Palestinian Song by Walter von der Vogelweide . My
Variations are hard to play, because (contrary to popular belief) the Pythagorean intonation suitable is quite hard to produce on the
violin family, which more easily plays the soft thirds of the "just diatonic".
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: String quartet (string orchestra version in progress)
Movements: (1) Variations on the Song of Palestine by Walther von der Vogelweide (2) Plaint (3) Estampie (4) Rondeau (5) Usul
Dates: (1) Opening sketched in 1940s; completed January 24, 1978; (2) March 24, 1978; (3)-(5)
Premiere: April 28, 1979, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada: Orford Quartet
Publisher: Peer, 1980
Length: 26.5 minutes
box-folder 12:2
Movement I, Variations on Song of Palestine: 7 pages autograph score.
box-folder 12:2
Movement II, Plaint: 5 pages autograph score.
box-folder 12:2
Movement III, Estampie: 12 pages autograph score. Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph sketches/schema.
box-folder 12:2
Movement IV, Rondeau: 10 pages autograph score. Five 4 page folios comprising 9 pages autograph sketches/schema/short-score.
box-folder 12:2
Movement V, Usul: Five 4 page folios comprising 7 pages autograph sketches/schema/short-score.
box-folder 12:2
1 page tuning schema and sketch of title.
box-folder 12:3
Labrynth for oboe, percussion, piano
1940
Physical Description: 21 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Oboe, percussion, piano
Date: 1940 San Francisco, CA
Publisher: Not authorized for performance.
Notes: Harrison reportedly showed the manuscript to Pierre
Monteux in San Francisco who said, "If this was Paris...".
box-folder 12:3
21 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 12:4
Serenade for Three Recorders
1943
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 3 recorders (S, A, T)
Movements: (1) Allegro moderato (2) Largo (3) Gigue and Rondeau
Date: December 25, 1943
Publisher: Laureate Music Press, 1997
Length: 7 minutes
Notes: For Henry and Sidney Cowell
box-folder 12:4
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score for Serenade. 2 pages unidentified short score.
box-folder 12:5
Schoenbergiana
1944-62
Physical Description: 41 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: (a) String quartet; (b) 2 flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn (arranged Robert Hughes)
Movements: Version a: (1) Allegro (2) Siciliana (3) Theme and Variations; Version b: Movements I-II reversed
Dates: (a) Begun May 1944; completed November 17, 1944; (b) 1962
Premiere: Woodwind version: April 1, 1962, Sticky Wicket, Aptos, CA.: Robert Hughes and ensemble
Publisher: String version: unpublished manuscript. Woodwind version: Frog Peak
Notes: Sketches list title as
Second String Quartet.
box-folder 12:5
Movement I, Allegro: 1 page autograph row-chart for
II String Quartet.
box-folder 12:5
2 pages autograph short score sketches.
box-folder 12:5
6 pages autograph score, incomplete.
box-folder 12:5
1 page autograph score through measure #19
box-folder 12:5
Movement II, Siciliana: 1 page autograph short-score and sketches.
box-folder 12:5
Movement III, Theme and Variations: Folio, 16 pages. 11 pages autograph score and sketches. 1 page fragment
Opus 6c.
box-folder 12:5
Movement I, Siciliana: 2 pages autograph score by Robert Hughes,
ca. 1962
box-folder 12:5
Movement III, Theme and Variations: 12 pages autograph score by Robert Hughes.
box-folder 12:6
Trio (String Trio)
1946
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My little
Trio for violin, viola, and cello was first composed as a piano piece in which the cross-rhythms were very complicated. It occurred
to me that the piece might sound well for strings, so I simplified the rhythms so that they might be more easily performed
by cooperating musicians and changed very little else. I included aspects of it for much larger group in my
Suite for Symphonic Strings. All three versions have been performed and recorded (except for the original keyboard one) and several years ago an entire
afternoon was given over to studying and perfecting it and even a computer realization...all this at the wonderful large Musachino
College of Music in Tokyo. The substance of the piece is of course secundal counterpoint, and the impulse was from studying
the more rapturous side of Carl Ruggles. The time span of the evolution of this piece is from the mid-forties in New York
to my settling in Aptos in the mid-fifties.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Violin, viola, cello
Movements: Single movement
Premiere: January 26, 1947, New School for Social Research, New
York, NY: New Music String Quartet
Date: 1946
Publisher: Peters, 1961
Length: 4.5 minutes
Recordings: LP and CD: New World 319 and 382-2: New Musical
Consort
Cross References: Arrangment of
Triphony (1945).
Revised and used in
Suite for Symphonic Strings, Movement V (1960).
box-folder 12:6
3 fold out pages, copy of autograph parts.
box-folder 12:6
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph part for violin.
box-folder 12:6
1 page autograph sketches/short score.
box-folder 12:7
Air in G minor
1947
Physical Description: 13 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This piece was originally written in New York City for the then-famous yacht designer Olin Stephens Jr. who had taken up the
recorder. Its model is of course the tri-partite Elizabethan form with a variation for each part. I attempted for several
years to make an accompaniment for it; homophonic, polyphonic, consonant, complex...and none of them worked. I finally found
that a simple drone was suitable. The
Air has also been played by massed violins (again with drones) but it is clear that the
Air is best heard on horizontal flute with drone. This was a curious problem, and reminded me of a solo dance choreographed in
the thirties by my friend Carol Beals. I made two different scores to it, and found that I at least was unable to either add
or subtract from the work. She danced the work in solo silence from then on. My
Air is, of course, basically a baroque work but with the drone reminds that the baroque turned up in different ways in different
parts of the world and in different ages.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Flute, drone
Dates: 1947; revised 1970
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 4.5 minutes
Cross References: Unused sketch material for this piece later incorporated into
Suite for Cello and Piano (1995)
Notes: Originally for recorder; written for yacht designer, Olin Stevens. Composer originally approved violin or strings in place
of flute, but now approved only flute.
box-folder 12:7
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph sketches/study,
ca. 1947.
box-folder 12:7
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, sketches, notes,
ca.1947.
box-folder 12:7
Folio, 4 pages. 1 page autograph partial score. 1 page unrelated autograph material.
box-folder 12:7
1 page autograph score with notes
ca. 1970
box-folder 12:8
Suite for Cello and Harp
1949
Physical Description: 87 pages, 1 published score
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This piece was composed for Seymour Barab for a concert in New York's Townhall. The third movement was originally composed
for the 'cello alone but Seymour sensibly arranged it in its more usable form. The
Air is an arrangement from the scherzo section of my
Symphony on G and is in serial technique as is the entire Symphony. The Choral and Pastoral are both taken from a score that I composed
at the request of a Time/Life staff member for use in a film about the Lascaux caves. Since the score was not used (recordings
in those days made dubbing-in cheap) I have been able to mine the music in several instances. There is more left but the
Choral and
Pastoral are representative. I must add that the cave art authority, Douglas Mazonowicz, was alerted by Bob Hughes to the cave music
in this suite and he then arranged a slide show to go with the whole suite of paintings from the caves. He even went so far
as to take a fine recording of this work to Lascaux, played it in the caves and re-recorded it with the acoustics of the caves.
What a destiny!
In 1995, the delightful choreographer and my long time friend, Remy Charlip, created a work
Ludwig and Lou which used the Suite as well as Beethoven's
Contra Dances...good company indeed!
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Cello, harp (arranged for string orchestra by Robert Hughes, 1997)
Movements: (1) Chorale; (2) Pastorale; (3) Interlude; (4) Aria; (5) Chorale reprise D Movement IV: completed 1947 (for Symphony on G),
revised 1949 for use in Suite. Other movements completed 1949 (after July). Movement II revised July 1994.
Premiere: April 15, 1950, McMillin Townhall, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.: Seymour Barab, Lucille Lawrence
Publisher: Peer, 1954
Length: 11 minutes
Cross References: Movements I-II taken from sketches for a Time/Life film on Lascaux caves wall paintings which never materialized. Movement
IV taken from short score for
Symphony on G, Movement IIIc (
Song, 1947); revised and orchestrated in 1964 for completion of symphony.
Notes: Composed for Barab and Lawrence. Movement III originally for cello solo; arranged for cello/harp by Barab.
box-folder 12:8
Bound manuscript book, 38 pages. 13 pages autograph score with revisions.
box-folder 12:8
26 pages autograph score with notes and revisions, proof for publication.
box-folder 12:8
Folio, 8 pages. 4 pages, autograph short-score for chamber ensemble, of Movement II (Pastorale). 1 page sketches.
box-folder 12:8
Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches of Movement II (Pastorale).
box-folder 12:8
2 pages autograph sketches.
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Folio, 4 pages autograph cello part with revisions.
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Published score with composer notes on cover.
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5 pages photocopy of autograph Movement II, with revisions.
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Group on a Row the Same
1951
Physical Description: 87 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: (1) Keyboard; (2) vibraphone, trombone (3) voice, viola, piano(4); bassoon
Movements: 3 number movements: (1) Prelude; (2) Poco allegro; (3) Veritas Veritatum; unnumbered 4th movement; additional sketches (for
cembalo).
Dates: Movements I-III: 1951; Movement IV: 1960s.
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
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1 page, photocopy of row-chart (original in the collection of Michael Tilson Thomas).
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Movements I-III: Folio, 8 pages. 6 pages autograph score and sketches (numbered consecutively).
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Folio, 4 pages. Additional autograph sketches for cembalo.
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Serenade for Frank Wigglesworth
1952
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Guitar (harp also approved by composer)
Dates: February 12, 1952
Publisher:
Music for Harp (Salvi, 1978);
Lou Harrison Guitar Book (D. Tanenbaum, ed. Columbia Music, 1994)
Length: 2 minutes
Notes: Written in a letter to Frank Wigglesworth.
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2 pages, photo-copy of original letter to Frank Wigglesworth with score.
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1 page autograph score with revisions,
1952
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1 page autograph score with performance and tuning notes and revisions.
box-folder 12:10
1 page autograph score with tuning schema.
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Praises for the Beauty of Hummingbirds
1952
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: flute, 2 violins, celesta, percussion
Premiere: 1966, Old Spaghetti Factory, San Francisco, CA
Date: April 5, 1952
Publisher: Peer, 1975
Length: 2 minutes
Notes: Title on printed score reads "Praise"; Harrison prefers "Praises"
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1 page autograph score (fragment).
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Simfony in Freestyle
1955
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Specially constructed plastic flutes in Just Intonation, viols with movable or independent frets, harps, tack piano, trombones
Dates: October 8, 1955
Premiere: Never performed as specified; digitally realized by David Doty, 1992
Publisher: Peters, 1977
Length: 4 minutes
Notes: For Henry Allen Moe and the Guggenheim Foundation.
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Folio, 6 pages. 4 pages autograph short-score. 1 page sketches from
Strict Songs. 1 page unidentified sketches.
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1 fragment of tuning schema.
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1 page, blueprint copy with notes and tuning schema.
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Concerto in Slendro
1961
Physical Description: 78 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
The
Concerto in Slendro was mostly composed in 1961 aboard the S. S. New York en route to Japan. It is filled with my eager anticipation of a first
taste of the beauty and bustle of Asia. The title derives from the fine Indonesian theoretical term denoting any five-tone
mode in which the "seconds" are roughly "major" (or large) and the "thirds" "minor' (or small). A complimentary term "pelog"
refers to the opposite kind of mode - "seconds" small and "thirds" wide. This Concerto uses two Slendro type modes only: the
"Prime Pentatonic" (if you will) and its associated "minor". These two modes are perhaps the most common and generally loved
of all modes - the first is practically the "Human Song". I intended that the two modes are in correct "just intonation"
on a general basis 25/24 below A440.
Instrumentation of the
Concerto in Slendro is for specially tuned celesta and two "tack pianos" similarly tuned, with two percussionists playing 6 triangles, 6 gongs,
and 4 galvanized iron garbage cans (an American metal drum). In the slow movement, two keyboard players use claves and iron
pipes, reverting to their keyboards in the final movement.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Solo violin, 2 tack pianos, celesta, 2 percussion
Movements: (1) Allegro vivo; (2) Molto adagio; (3) Allegro, molto vigoroso.
Dates: April 6, 1961; revised 1972
Premiere: January 21, 1962, Santa Cruz, CA.: Zelik Kaufman; Robert Hughes, conductor
Publisher: Peters, 1978
Length: 9.5 minutes
Notes: For Richard Dee
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Folio, 32 pages with autograph sketches and partial score; some unrelated sketches.
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Folio, 8 pages various sketches; some unrelated, including 1 page of
Sonata for Psaltery.
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16 additional pages, sketches.
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Large format published score [copy of composer's autograph] with notes for performance and recording sessions, 22 pages.
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A Majestic Fanfare
1963
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 3 trumpets, 2 percussion
Dates: January 20, 1963 (2:15-3:00 p.m.)
Premiere: March 7, 1963
Publisher: Unpublished
Length: Variable
Notes: For the opening of the Art and Music Department of the San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA. The repeat may be
"ignored, observed or multiplied at pleasure".
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Avalokitshvara
1964
Physical Description: 16 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Harp or grand psaltery, percussion (guitar also approved by composer).
Date: December 29, 1964
Publisher:
Music for Harp (Salvi, 1978) without percussion;
Lou Harrison Guitar Book (D. Tanebaum, ed. Columbia Music, 1994), guitar and percussion parts.
Length: 2 minutes
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Folio, 16 pages. 10 pages autograph score, revisions, tuning schema, sketches.
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Elegy for Harpo Marx
1964
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Harp
Date: October 4, 1964
Premiere: Never performed
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Length: 2.5 minutes
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1 page autograph score, pencil.
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In Memory of Victor Jowers
1967
Physical Description: 6 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My good and jovial friend, Victor Jowers, died pathetically and slowly of blood cancer. He had been made to watch atom bomb
tests in Nevada. Gradually we learn little bits of information about U.S. use of citizens as subjects of lethal experiments.
We will never know all of such done in the past, nor, indeed, of what is presently being committed. It is heartrending to
know this.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Clarinet (or English horn), piano (or harp)
Date: November 1967
Premiere: November 19, 1967, Unitarian Fellowship, Aptos, CA. (for the Jowers memorial service)
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 3.5 minutes
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4 autograph pages: 1 page sketch. 1 page unrelated (
Beverly's Troubadour Piece). 1 page clarinet part. 1 page score.
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Festive Movement
1972
Physical Description: 67 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano
Dates: Begun June 1972; completed October 15, 1972
Premiere: November 13, 1972, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, N.Y.: Aeolian Chamber Players
Publisher: UNPUBLISHED - NOT AUTHORIZED FOR PERFORMANCE
Length: 10.5 minutes
Notes: Premiere: benefit for Francis Thorne Fund 1973
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30 pages autograph sketches, with titles page.
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37 pages autograph score plus title page.
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Jahla for Leopold Stowkowski (Jahla in the Form of a Ductia to Pleasure Leopold Stokowski on his Ninetieth Birthday)
1972
Physical Description: 3 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
A friend of mine alerted me to the fact that the friendly conductor, Leopold Stokowski was about to enjoy his 90th birthday,
and that various composer friends were writing little pieces to play during rehearsals at that time. I very quickly composed
my
Jahla to Pleasure Leopold Stokowski on his Ninetieth Birthday, copied it out in two colors on Whatman paper (when that wonderfully-fine English paper was still available) and quickly
mailed the piece off. I believe it was played, as were the other affectionate tributes, during a rehearsal at about the time
of his birthday.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Harp, percussion (guitar also approved by composer)
Date: March 28, 1972
Publisher:
Music for Harp (Salvi, 1978);
Lou Harrison Guitar Book (D. Tanebaum, ed. Columbia Music, 1994)
Length: 2 minutes
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2 pages: 1 page autograph score and sketches for harp. 1 page autograph score, sketches and notes for percussion ostinato.
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Sonata in Ishartum
1974
Physical Description: 2 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Harp (guitar also approved by composer)
Dates: April 14 ("Easter Sunday"), 1974
Publisher:
Music for Harp (Salvi, 1978);
Lou Harrison Guitar Book (D. Tanebaum, ed. Columbia Music, 1994)
Length: 1.5 minutes
Notes: To Randall Wong. Written in ancient Babylonian mode
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2 pages: 1 page autograph score, with tuning schema. 1 page autograph score before revision.
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Varied Trio
1986
Physical Description: 19 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
During American Music Week of 1986, Bill and I had the happiness to tour in a program entitled "Three
Generations in American Music" with David Abel, Julie Steinberg, and William Winant. As composer, I was
full of admiration for the way in which our friends played my music and we had a wonderful time. Julie
did not hesitate to pick up the African Mbira, David played with accuracy and elegance, intervals not
customarily required, and Willie, expert percussionist that he is, used the second alternative in a
movement of works by Henry Cowell which asks for either porcelain bowls or metal bowls. For that reason,
in the second movement of this piece I have written for a set of porcelain bowls as a kind of substitute
pleasure. Not long before the premiere of
Varied Trio, Bill and I noticed in a kitchen
supply store window, a set of baking tins and both of us said at once, "Those are instruments!" So we
got a set, and they turn up in the final
Dance in this work.
For David and Julie, I have written and ornamented an expressive rhapsody in the
Elegy
, which is the third movement, and the
Rondeau, which is in honor of the great French
painter Fragonard. It was always intended that this work be completed as a trio only for David, Julie,
and Willie, and I left the making of that version to those three capable artists... a version which has
proved very successful and delightful.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Violin, piano, percussion
Movements: (1)Gending; (2)Bowl Bell; (3)Elegy; (4)Rondeau in
honor of Fragonard; (5)Dance
Date: Begun 1986; completed February 4, 1987 (Rondeau)
Premiere: Quintet version (including Harrison and Colvig on harp
and bells): February 28, 1987, Hertz Hall, Berkeley, CA; trio version: May 14, 1987, Mills
College, Oakland, CA: both performed by Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio
Publisher: Frog Peak; projected for MUSA.
Length: 15 minutes
Recordings: CD: NA 015 and 036: Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio.
Notes: Originally a quintet with harp, bells.
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Original version for quintet only:
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Movement I, Gending: 3 pages autograph score.
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Movement II, Bowl Bells: 4 pages autograph score.
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Movement III, Elegy: 1 page autograph score.
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Movement IV, Rondeau: 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement V, Dance: 8 pages autograph score.
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Additional materials: 1 page sketches for virginal Movements I and III.
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Grand Duo
1988
Physical Description: 46 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In a fine Japanese restaurant in Philadelphia one day in 1988 I told Dennis Russell Davies that I was going to compose for
him and his friend Romuald Tecco a polka. We had been talking for a while about my composing for the two of them a largish
concert piece. The polka turned out to be the finale. In Portland Oregon I began a richly rhapsodic section that became Movement
IV, and that consciously, though quite naturally, contains an Ivesian hymn-tune like section which is repeated. I say "consciously",
because when the part appeared out of my material I thought "oh, this is very Ivesian" but saw no reason to abjure it, any
more than I have abjured passages that remind of other composers. Since I was writing for Dennis who is a very dear and long-time
friend, it occurred to me to include, as movement three, a developed version of a "round" that I had composed in his home
in Stuttgart for his two daughters to play on violins. Then I thought to ask Romuald whether he had a tune or melody that
he liked that I could also weave into this composition for two good friends. He suggested the barcarolle from
Tales from Hoffman. This will be found, just the beginning of it, in the opening bass of the first movement. In two movements the pianist needs
to play with a padded bar which exactly depresses all the keys of an octave. It makes for brilliance and gives two tone-colors;
both the white-key set, and the black-key set, thus enriching the texture. Naturally Dennis immediately christened the bar
a "piano-banger". The original artists have recorded the work, many others have played it, and I am happy that the choreographer
Mark Morris has created a massively powerful ballet for it.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Violin, piano
Movements: (1) Prelude: moderato; (2) Stampede: allegro; (3) A Round (Annabelle and April's): molto moderato, generally tender; (4) Air:
slow and sometimes rhapsodically; (5) Polka.
Dates: Movements I-II: 1988. Movement III: begun May 29-31, 1981; completed May 1988. Movement IV: May 5, 1988. Movement V: May 30,
1988.
Premiere: July 28, 1988, Cabrillo Music Festival, Aptos, CA: Romuald Tecco, violin; Dennis Russell Davis, piano.
Publisher:
Lou Harrison: Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937-1994, Leta Miller, ed. In
Music in the United States of America (A-R Editions, 1998)
Length: 35 minutes
Cross References: Opening motive of Movement V related to
Reel:,
Homage to Henry Cowell (1939).
Notes: Commissioned by Cabrillo Music Festival. Movements I, II, III, and V subsequently choreographed by Mark Morris (1993).
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3 pages autograph sketches.
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9 pages autograph score. 1 page autograph partial score, 1st version.
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3 page copy of autograph with revisions in pencil.
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1 page copy of autograph, first version, with pencil revisions. Revisions incorporated into above autograph score.
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2 pages copy of original autograph of Round for violins with pencil revisions for violin and piano.
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5 pages copy of autograph with pencil revisions; 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
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2 pages autograph sketches.
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1 page copy of autograph with small change in dynamic in pencil.
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Piano Trio
1990
Physical Description: 28 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My only piano trio was commissioned in 1989 by the Mirecourt Trio. It is the second of my works commissioned by the group,
the first being the
Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan. The third movement of the work is a little suite of solos for the three musicians...they are again united in the finale.
With the exception of the one chromatic movement which is dedicated to the memory of Virgil Thomson, all of the remaining
movements are modal in character and the entire work is melodic. This was the first work that I composed after triple-bypass
heart surgery, and it was interrupted by a major earthquake and the death of my good friend and mentor, Virgil Thomson...thus,
it has a complex history. The premiere performance took place with the Mirecourt Trio at the Menil Museum in Houston during
the Veneralia of 1990.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Violin, cello, piano
Movements: (1) Molto moderato; (2) Slow; (3) a. Dance, b. Rhapsody, c. Song; (4) Allegro.
Dates: Movement I: September 3, 1989; Movement II: October 6, 1989; Movement III: no date; Movement IV: February 22, 1990
Premiere: April 3, 1990, Da Camera Society, sponsored at the Meril Collection, Houston, TX: Mirecourt Trio.
Publisher: Peters
Length: 23 minutes
Notes: Commissioned by Mirecourt Trio. Movement II dedicated to Virgil Thomson. Several movements subsequently choreographed by Mark
Morris in
Pacific for the San Francisco Ballet
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Movement I: 7 pages autograph score.
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Movement II: 5 pages autograph score.
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B - 3 pages autograph score.
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C - 1 page autograph score.
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Movement IV: 11 pages autograph score.
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Songs in the Forest
1992
Physical Description: 11 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Flute, violin, piano, vibraphone (with narrative)
Movements: (1) Slowish (2) Fastish (3) Largo
Dates: Begun 1951, revised and completed 1992 (before March)
Premiere: March 7, 1992, De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA: Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio.
Text: Lou Harrison,
Joys and Perplexities: Selected Poems of Lou Harrison (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Jargon Society, 1992), 12.
Publisher: Peer
Length: 9.5 minutes
Notes: Revised for Black Mountain College reunion, 1992. Spoken text preceding each movement.
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Movement I: 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement II: 3 pages autograph score.
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2 pages photocopy of autograph score from notebook with pencil revisions.
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2 pages autograph poems (each page consists of all three poems used in performance).
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An Old Times Tune for Merce Cunningham's 75th Birthday
1993
Physical Description: 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: String quartet, piano (arranged for piano solo by Michael Boriskin, approved by composer).
Dates: December 11, 1993 based on sketches from 1952.
Premiere: March 1, 1994, New York Street Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, N.Y.: White Oak Chamber Ensemble,
Piano version: October 22, 1994, Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA: Michael Boriskin.
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 2 minutes
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Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score.
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Suite for Cello and Piano
1995
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My
Suite for Cello and Piano was begun as a request from a good friend who was a music-loving physician. He played piano and wished for a work that he
could play with a colleague doctor who played 'cello. It so happened that my notebooks contained two melodies begun in the
late 40s which were possible, and I began with the use and development of them. At this point, and to our distress, Dr. Robert
Korns died. Thus I composed an elegy in his memory, which became the middle movement of the suite. Dr. John Waters did indeed
play the 'cello part during the memorial service for Robert Korns, a service completely designed and planned, even as to costumes,
several years before, by the good Doctor Korns himself.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Cello, piano (arranged for string orchestra by Robert Hughes, 1997)
Movements: (1) Moderato (2) Elegy (3) Allegro
Dates: May 5, 1995 (Movements 1 and 3 based on sketches from 1947-48).
Premiere: May 13, 1995, All Saints Episcopal Church, Watsonville, CA (memorial service for Robert Korns).
Publisher: Peer
Length: 8 minutes
Cross References: Movement 1 from sketch of a rondeau, ca. 1948; Movement 3 from sketches (1947-48) originally envisioned as part of
Air in G Minor
Notes: In honor of Robert Korns./
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Folio, 4 pages - 3 pages autograph and photocopy sketches, (some unrelated).
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Short Set from Lazarus Laughed
1999
Physical Description: 13 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In 1994 I composed Incidental music to Eugene O'Neill's
Lazarus Laughed at the request of Eric Bauersfeld, Director of Bay Area Radio Drama (BARD) to be used in his full scale production of the
drama. We agreed that my fair amount of music might eventually be constituted as a symphonic suite. Then earlier this year,
I was asked to contribute a piece, with this specific instrumentation, to a memorial concert honoring my good friend Ben Weber
thus, this small set looks toward that.
Here, in the first movement only, I have used the Celesta as a percussion instrument, requiring in the right hand, the use
of a snare-drum stick played upside down on the right hand handle of the Celesta, and, in the left hand, an octave bar playing
on the keyboard.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Flute, cello, celesta
Movements: (1) Caligula's Dance; (2) Miriam; (3) Round Dance.
Date: 1999
Notes: For a concert in honor of Ben Weber.
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Movement I, Caligula's Dance:
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2 pages copy of autograph from original
Lazarus Laughed with autograph revisions.
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2 pages autograph score(1) and autograph part for flute(2).
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Movement III, Round Dance:
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3 pages copy of autograph from original
Lazarus Laughed with autograph sketches and revisions.
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Scenes from Nek Chand
2001-2002
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: National Steel Guitar
Movements: (I) The Leaning Lady; (II) The Rock Garden; (III) The Sinuos
Arcade with Swing in the Arches
Date: 2001-2002
Premiere: ?
Publisher: ?
Length: ?
Notes: See also MS 132 Ser.2 Notebooks: Notebook #28.
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Movement I: 1 page copy of autograph score dated "Xmas Eve, 2001"
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Movement II: 1 page copy of autograph score.
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Movement III: 2 pages autograph score signed and dated "L.H. 2001-2002, Aptos"
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1 page autograph tuning schema.
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1 page photocopy of autograph tuning schema and ending of Movement III "written out, with
best wishes, for Peter Muller from Lou Harrison"
box 14
5. Percussion
1939-1972
Physical Description: 9 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
Percussion works (excluding gamelan) are listed for Large Ensemble, and Pieces for 2-5 players, with one work for solo performer.
This listing includes works for percussion with solo instruments such as organ, violin, and flute.
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First Concerto for Flute and Percussion
1939
Physical Description: 13 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
It was Henry Cowell who first pointed out to me the fact that an enormous amount of the world's music consists of a melody
with some sort of rhythmic support. In this Concerto the percussionists play short ostinati for each movement while the flute,
often "crossing" the rhythms of the accompaniment, makes tune-like music for which only three intervals are used. The outer
movements share the same set of intervals, while the middle movement explores another set.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Flute, 2 percussion
Movements: (1) Earnest, fresh, and fastish (2) Slow and poignant (3) Strong, swinging, and fastish
Date: April 15, 1939
Premiere: August 10, 1941, Bennington College, VT: Otto Luening (flute), Henry Cowell, Frank Wigglesworth (percussion)
Publisher: Peters
Length: 9 minutes
Notes: For Henry Cowell (composer prefers flute part in Movement I transposed up a 4th; in Movement III, up an 8ve).
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Folio, 8 pages. 7 pages autograph score in ink.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score in pencil.
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1 page autograph sketch from
Counterdance in Spring.
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Tributes to Charon: Counterdance in the Spring
1939
Physical Description: 17 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 3 percussion
Date: March 29, 1939
Premiere: May 19, 1939, Cornish School, Seattle: John Cage, conductor
Publisher:
Music in the United States of America (A-R Editions, 1998),
Lou Harrison: Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937-1994, Leta Miller, ed.
Length: 3.5 minutes
Cross References: See
Tributes to Charon(1982)
Notes: Subsequently choreographed by Jean Erdman as
Creature on a Journey(1943)
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Counterdance In the Spring
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Folio, 8 pages. 5 pages autograph score, ink.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph part for player I.
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1 page autograph part for player II.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph part for player III.
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Tributes to Charon: Counterdance in the Spring, Passage through Darkness
1939-82
Physical Description: 19 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Tributes to Charon stands as a fine example of Harrison's pioneering work with the percussion ensemble during the 1930s, and shows as well the
genre's continuing influence on him in later years. One movement (Counterdance in the Spring) was completed in 1939, prompted
by a request from John Cage; the other was not written until 1982, though Harrison envisioned its form and instrumentation
from the start. Although the entire piece is only seven minutes in length, Tributes clearly demonstrates Harrison's interests
in timbral variety, motivic transformation, and formal coherence. Working within the confines of a small ensemble and writing
(in the case of the earlier movement) for a group of most non-professional instrumentalists, he was nevertheless able to achieve
technical virtuosity and a successful coupling of dynamism and melodicism. Although the work was not composed for dance, the
kinetic influence of Harrison's dance training on
Counterdance in the Spring is unmistakable; in fact, this movement has been performed most frequently as the accompaniment for choreography by Jean
Erdman.
In a letter from Cage to Harrison in 1939, Cage told Harrison that he anxiously awaited the companion movement for
Counterdance in the Spring, which Harrison had apparently promised. Harrison already had a title for it, Passage Through Darkness and envisioned the
prominent use of alarm clocks. The two movements were to be linked under the title
Tributes to Charon. (Charon is the mythological boatman of Hades).
Despite Harrison's plans, the opening movement for Tributes did not progress past the conceptual stage until 1982, when he
finally composed it for percussionist William Winant - using both the original title and the alarm clocks.
Instrumentation: 3 percussion
Movements: (1) Passage through Darkness (2) Counterdance in the Spring
Dates: (1) May 6, 1982; (2) March 29, 1939
Premiere: Movement I: May 10, 1982, Mills College, Oakland, CA: William Winant and ensemble; Movement II: May 19, 1939, Cornish School,
Seattle, WA: John Cage and ensemble.
Publisher:
Music in the United States of America (A-R Editions, 1998),
Lou Harrison: Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937-1994, Leta Miller, ed.
Length: 7 minutes
Cross References: See listing for
Counterdance in 1939.
Notes: Movement I (includes title) envisioned in 1939, but not completed until 1982.
Counterdance choreographed by Jean Erdman as
Creature on a Journey (1943).
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Counterdance In the Spring
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Folio, 8 pages. 5 pages autograph score, ink.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph part for player I.
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1 page autograph part for player II.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph part for player III.
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2 pages photocopy of autograph from notebook,
1982
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1 page, photocopy of autograph sketches.
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Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra (Kon-certo por la violono kun perkuta orkestro)
1940-59
Physical Description: 40 pages, 1 score, 3 fragments
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
This work, though it is more immediately a romantic one and was noticeably inspired by the Berg Violin Concerto, nonetheless
finds its solid groundwork and foundation in world music. It is among many of my compositions which follow the pattern of
having a single melodic part accompanied (or enhanced) by rhythmic percussion, whether with or without additional drone. The
model is, of course, world-wide. This is the standard usage in India, in Islam, in Sinitic folk (if not in the cultivated)
music of Africa - and where not else?
The use of a modern European instrument as soloist, the mixture of "junk" instruments with standard ones in the percussion
section, and the employment of romantic concerto form constitute the only novelties, from the world point of view. Quite full
sketches of this
Koncherto (the international language approved by UNESCO ) were made in 1940. In 1959 my friend Anahid Ajemin offered to premiere a
completed version and I succeeded in readying it for her concert of that year. Subsequently the work has had multiple performances
by Eudice Shapiro. For those who share my how-to-do-it interests, allow me to explain the most interesting feature of the
solo part. From the beginning to the end of the composition, the violin plays only three melodic intervals: the minor second,
the major third, and the major sixth - even the beginnings of phrases are connected to their predecessors by one of these
intervals. From any tone, then, the compositional choice was one out of six possible ones. This method of "interval controls"
I first conceived in the middle 1930s and have used in many works. It is, of course, a good way, other than Schoenberg's "12-tone
System" with which to compose predominantly chromatic music.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Violin, 5 percussion
Movements: (1) Allegro maestoso (2) Largo: Cantabile (3) Allegro vigoroso, poco presto
Dates: Begun 1940 or 1941 as
Concerto #5 for Violin; completed 1959; revised 1974
Premiere: November 19, 1959, Carnegie Hall, New York, N.Y.: Anahid Ajemian; Paul Price, conductor
Publisher: Peters, 1961
Length: 20 minutes
Notes: Commissioned by Anahid Ajemian.
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Folio, 20 pages. 14 pages autograph score ink, ca. 1940, with pencil revisions,
ca. 1959
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Folio, 6 pages, autograph sketches,
ca. 1959
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14 pages a, 9.5 x 12.5 inches autograph score ink, ca. 1940 with pencil revisions ca. 1959.
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Published score, accordion fold, with additional autograph notes, sketches and remarks by composer.
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3 fragments autograph percussion list and notes.
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Song of Quetzalcoatl
1941
Physical Description: 11 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In the late 1930s and early 1940s I was, as have been many Californians, enamoured of Mexico. At about this time a small book
of reproductions from Mexican codices, all in color, came into my possession and I immediately wanted to do something on the
life of the culture-hero Quetzalcoatl which was there depicted. It was also a period in which one or two films were made in
which the camera explored a painting in detail with musical accompaniment. Thus I immediately thought of such a thing in connection
with the Mexican codices.
I did not have any access to film at the time, but went ahead enthusiastically to the composition of a score. This must have
been a hint to Eric Marin several years ago, for in his excellent film about me and Bill,
Cherish, Conserve, Consider, Create he made a passage in which part of the score is used with still photos of Mexican architecture and people.
I still believe that a complete film could be made based on my original idea. In any event, the score is played with fair
frequency and I like to think it reminds audiences of the extraordinary and often very beautiful civilization of Mexico and
its pre-Columbian history. The work was first performed at the California Club in San Francisco at a concert given by myself
and John Cage. Included in the concert was
Double Music which John and I composed together, and my
13th Simfony which was chosen by the audience to be recorded.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: 4 percussion
Date: February 6, 1941
Premiere: May 14, 1941, California Club, San Francisco, CA: Lou Harrison, John Cage, et al.
Publisher: Music for Percussion, 1962
Length: 6.5 minutes
Notes: Spelled "Quetzecoatl" on original manuscript
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11 pages, autograph score, ink.
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Canticle #3
1942
Physical Description: 40 pages, 1 notebook
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
During the time during which I composed my
Canticle # 3 I was intensely interested in the history of Mexico, in all its elaborately beautiful arts. I had long since heard and treasured
the wonderful recordings by the great composer Carlos Chavez of his reconstructions of possible pre-Columbian music, replete
with whistles, tongue-drums and the grandeur of blown conch-shells. I had also composed a piece for percussion ensemble which
I hoped might accompany a photographic study of the Quetzalcoatl codex. The latter dream has never come true. The ocarina
in this Canticle is intended to remind of ancient things, of Mexican pyramids and frieze carvings, while the shamelessly strummed
guitar suggests a later, Hispanic mode. The musical texture is composed of a number of small rhythmicles and melodicles woven
together (so to speak) into a form which is roughly a-b-a in shape. As the piece gained power and intensity it occurred to
me that the climax would be a contrast between full silences and full sounds, thus the interruptions in the center. The ending
suggests a kind of procession moving off into the high distance.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Ocarina, 5 percussion, guitar (guitar, ocarina parts may be played by two of the percussionists).
Dates: January-February 1942, revised 1989 (ocarina part ornamented)
Premiere: May 7, 1942, Holloway Playhouse (Fairmont Hotel), San Francisco, CA: Lou Harrison, conductor
Publisher: Music for Percussion, 1960
Length: 15 minutes
Notes: Music for Percussion score (and many subsequent sources) erroneously cite date as 1941. Composer prefers ocarina's 5-note
scale to be "slendro" type: a third between the lowest two pitches and other notes separated by whole steps.
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Spiral bound notebook, 50 pages. 20 pages autograph score with performance cues and introductory notes.
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20 pages autograph parts, mounted with rubber cement to paper. Some with original art sketches on reverse.
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Autograph parts, ink and pencil on paper - 20 pages.
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Fugue for Percussion
1942
Physical Description: 1 notebook, 38 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 4 percussion
Dates: 1942 (before move to Los Angeles in August 1942)
Publisher: Music for Percussion, 1962; republished 1982 with corrections by Gary Kvistad.
Length: 4 minutes
Notes: Harrison Music Primer, and other sources erroneously give date as 1941. Listed on program for New Music Society concert, New
York, NY, May 10, 1951, but replaced by
Canticle #3 at the last minute (review in New York Herald Tribune, May 12, 1951).
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Bound notebook, 58 pages.
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8 pages autograph score, pencil.
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26 pages, sketches for mobile ornaments for Johnny Appleseed, various notes for costumes. Various listings and sketches.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph part for player II.
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph part for player III.
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One page red serigraph of first 11 measures.
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Canticle #5
1942
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 5 percussion
Date: June 10, 1942
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Cross References: Revised and used for
Canticle and Round for Gerhard Samuel's Birthday, Movement I (1993)
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8 pages copy of original score of
Canticle #5 from notebook.
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Canticle and Round in Honor of Gerhard Samuel's Birthday
1942-93
Physical Description: 17 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 3 percussion (Movement I: original 5 percussion; arranged for 3 by Donald Otte, approved by composer).
Movements: (1) Canticle (2) Round
Date: Movement I: June 10, 1942; Movement II: December 17, 1993
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Cross References: Movement I is a reduction of
Canticle #5 (1942) from 5 players to 3.
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Canticle: 8 pages copy of original score of
Canticle #5 from notebook.
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Round: Folio, 8 pages. 4 pages autograph score, pencil, of
Round for Gerhart Samuel.
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One page autograph sketches [11 x 8 inches].
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Recording Piece For Concert Boobams, Talking drums, with other percussion instruments
1955
Physical Description: 21 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 5 percussion
Movements: (1) ca. 108 (2) ca. 120
Dates: July 29, 1955
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Notes: For multiple percussions with instructions about recording and electronic overlay.
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13 pages autograph score and performance instructions, ink.
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Folio, 8 pages sparse sketches.
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Solo for Tony Cirone (For D major tenor bells)
1972
Physical Description: 2 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: D major tenor bells
Date: April 2, 1972
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2 pages autograph score, pencil.
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Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra
1973
Physical Description: 19 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In 1972, I was asked by Philip Simpson, who was then teaching organ at San Jose State University, for a work for his instrument.
Within a day or so I also received a request from Anthony Cirone, director of the San Jose State University Percussion Ensemble,
for a work for his year's concert. The two requests came so closely together that it occurred to me to try combining the two.
It also seemed to me that since the percussion orchestra can make a lot of sound and the pipe organ can make a lot of sound
too, to put them together and see what would happen. The work was premiered in 1973 and is dedicated to Gibson Walters, who
made it possible, and to Anthony Cirone and Philip Simpson who asked for it.
For this work, Bill Colvig made for us some stunning new wooden drums...very large cube-like instruments suspended from a
large rack, and he also added to the set of large gas cylinder bells which we had previously used in my
Heart Sutra. Because the organ is a sustaining tonal instrument, and much of the percussion I wished to use was to be of abstract sound
without specified fixed pitch, I felt that an intermediate group of percussion instruments of fixed pitch ought to be used.
Thus, there is a chorus of piano, glockenspiel, vibraphone, celeste, and tube chimes which bridge between the organ and the
abstract percussion section. My pleasure in the keyboard treatment of Henry Cowell lead me to the use of large sections of
"cluster" writing for which Bill provided felt padded slabs and which require special techniques from the organist.
My feeling in the last movement was originally meant as a kind of homage to those syncopated sections in Caesar Frank. Although
it is composed entirely in an inverted mode from ancient Greece, and is commonly construed by audiences as a sort of jazz
festival, the central largo movement is another of my works using that 8-tone mode which runs half-step, whole-step, half-step,
whole-step, etc...a mode which I always find a pleasure to use.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Organ, 8 percussion, piano, celeste
Movements: (1) Allegro (2) Andante: Siciliana in the Form of a Double Canon (3) Largo (4) Canons and Choruses (5) Allegro: Finale
Date: Movement II: 1951, revised 1973. Rest of work begun 1972, completed 1973.
Premiere: April 30, 1973: San Jose State University, Philip Simpson, organ, Anthony Cirone, director, percussion ensemble
Publisher: Peer, 1978
Length: 23 minutes
Recordings: LP and CD: Crys 858 and CD850: D. Craighead, L.A. Percussion Ensemble; W. Kraft, conductor
Cross References: Movement II is revised version of
Double Canon for Carl Ruggles (1951)
Notes: To Gibson Walters, Anthony Cirone, and Philip Simpson. Partial materials only. Additional materials housed at San Jose State
University, San Jose, CA.
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Movement I: 1 page (page 19) autograph score.
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Movement II: 2 pages copy of autograph score.
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Movement III: 7 pages autograph score. Folio 4 pages. 2 pages autograph part for piano.
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Movement IV: 6 pages autograph score (missing page 1).
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2 pages autograph tempi instructions.
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1 page autograph instrument key for players 6-10.
box 15
6. Gamelan
1972-1997
Physical Description: 2 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
Gamelan works are listed by Javanese, Balinese and American. 'American' refers to pieces written for gamelons built by William
Colvig based on traditional Indonesian instruments.
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Suite for Violin with American Gamelan
1972-97
Physical Description: 126 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
It was in 1972 that our good friends Cathy and Bill Schulze asked us if we might organize a concert for Esperanto speakers
after the International Conference in Seattle. We were happy to do this and I composed my
Heart Sutra for chorus and Bill's first Gamelan. Richard Dee and I then cooperatively composed a "Chaconne" for our violinist friend,
Loren Jakey, with the Gamelan that we had already used in the
Heart Sutra. We felt that the success of the piece warranted going further and so we accepted a commission from the San Francisco Chamber
Music Society for the present Suite which was then part of the Society's Christmas in the next year. I have always enjoyed
working with other composers and my
Double Music with John Cage attests to that, as well as works with Robert Hughes, this one with Richard Dee, and the fact that I have
reconstructed sections of work by Charles Ives and by Henry Cowell...and worked with the latter...and so on. Co-op composition
is fun if the rules are set up and nobody cheats.
Lou Harrison
NOTE: Harrison and Dee jointly composed the 'Chaconne' by " each of us composing a specific number of measures and then handing
them back and forth ... adding on to the previous person's composition". The first performance of the Chaconne was at the
premiere of
La Koro Sutro in October 1972. Harrison and Dee co-wrote the Estampie in a similar way. Sketches in the extant manuscript collection are
marked as to which composer's measures are used. Richard Dee composed, alone, the second Jahla and Harrison composed, alone,
the Threnody as well as the first and third Jahla. Dee is the sole composer of the Air, based on an earlier work, the "Eros"
a section of four settings of Harrison's
Four Saints of the Palestra.
Instrumentation: (a) Solo violin, American Gamelan; (b) arranged for violin and orchestra (piano, celestra, 2 harps, strings) by Kerry Lewis
Movements: (1) Threnody (2) Estampie (3) Air (4) Three Jahlas (Moderato -Allegro poco presto- Adagio) (5) Chaconne
Dates: (a) Movement V: 1972; rest of work completed 1974; (b) 1977 (c) 1997
Premiere: Movement V: October 29, 1972, Hartnell College, Salinas, CA; Complete work, version a: December 9, 1974, Lone Mountain College,
San Francisco, CA: Lauren Jakey, violin, version b: July 17, 1993, Pacific Music Festival, Sapporo, Japan: Chi Yun, violin,
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor.
Publisher: Peer (both versions)
Length: 28 minutes
Notes: Commissioned by San Francisco Chamber Music Society, Norman Fromm Composer's Award.
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3 pages autograph sketches.
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17 pages autograph score.
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6 pages autograph schema. 5 pages in Harrison's hand and 4 pages in Richard Dee's hand.
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49 pages autograph score.
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Movement IV, Three Jahla's:
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2 pages autograph sketches.
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2 pages autograph score for Gamelan.
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1 page autograph sketches and schema in Richard Dee's hand with additional sketches in Harrison's hand.
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2 pages autograph sketches.
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3 pages autograph scores.
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24 pages autograph score.
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Richard Whittington
1980-1982
Physical Description: 1 notebook
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Gamalan, voice, narrator, and puppets.
Movements: Incidental music for narrative to the text by John Masefield (1931).
Date: 1980-1982
Premiere: December 9, 1982 at Mills College, Oakland, CA.
Publisher: Unpublished
Notes: Not authorized for performance. Manuscript is a compilation of gamelon works with vocal parts.
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See Ser.2 Notebooks: Notebook #
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Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Gamelan
1981-82
Physical Description: 2 notebooks
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In 1981 and 1982 I composed my
Double Concerto especially for Kenneth Goldsmith, violin, and Terry King, cello, of the Mirecourt Trio. The symphonic nature of a large Javanese
Gamelan suggested to me that it might take a similar role to a Western orchestra as co-operative accompaniment in a concerto.
I had already composed my
Scenes from Cavafy for a Western-style operatic baritone with Javanese Gamelan, and it was clear that these combinations of Western instrument
with Gamelan would be attractive. Indeed, I had also composed a work for Western viola and a work for Western French horn
with the smaller west-Javanese Gamelan Degung. The work for French horn with Gamelan Degung is titled Main Bersama-sama, which
means "playing together" and is the term used when an instrument from another culture plays with an Indonesian Gamelan. It
is of course a wonderful idea....playing together...and some of that spirit entered into my composition of the
Concerto. Naturally, I such combination both traditions manifest themselves, so that in the first movement of the
Concerto, a kind of Brahms-and Bach sound happens in the soloist, which combines suitably with the heroic style of the Gamelan in
that particular mode. More recently I have composed a concerto for piano with Javanese Gamelan, and I wondered a little when
I had completed it why the piano (although fully tuned to the [pitches of the Gamelan ) so frequently sounded like Hayden
or Schubert. It dawned on me of course that in working with Javanese Gamelan one is involved in a truly classic kind of art.
And so I was not then so surprised to realize that the presence of the Gamelan had invoked at least some form of classicism
in the piano. To return to the
Double Concerto... I was much worried about the problem of intonation between the strings and the Gamelan. The occasion arose to try two
movements of it in a concert at the University of California at Los Angeles, making use of the gamelan Kyai Mendung, imported
early on by our foremost Javanese music scholar Mantle Hood. To my delight, it seemed that the piece would work. Since I had
treated the two soloists rather as the Javanese would, fairly simply in the other two movements, I wrote a virtuosic middle
movement in the "half step-whole step" mode frequently used by Rimsky-Korsakov, Oliver Messaien, and others. It has the advantage
of sounding chromatic although it uses only eight tones, which would provide a distinct difference from the traditional tunings
of the outer movements, and still not allow a full encampment of Westernism in the central section. I used only two kendang,
beduk, and gong ageng to support the soloists in the movement, and indeed they do their traditional function of marking off
the various sections of the movement. The
Concerto received its premiere in a handsome birthday concert given me by Mills College in May of 1982, and it was recorded (with
the Mills Gamelan....Si Darius and Si Madelaine...built by William Colvig ) during the rehearsals.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Solo violin, solo cello, Javanese gamelan (pelog and slendro)
Movements: (1) Ladrang Epikuros (2)Stampede: Allegro molto, vigoroso (3) Gending Hephaestus
Date: Movements I and III: gamalan part, March 3, 10, 1981; violin/cello parts added before May 1982; Movement II: April 1982
Premiere: May 10, 1982, Mills College, Oakland, CA: Kenneth Goldsmith, violin; Terry King, cello; Mills College Gamelan, Oakland, CA.
Publisher: American Gamelan Institute
Length: 23 minutes
Cross Reference: Ladrang Epikuros and Gending Hephaestus (separate gamelan works, 1981) used as gamalan part in Movements I and III of
Double Concerto.
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96 page spiral bound music notebook with autograph score and sketches. Notebook also includes the work
Richard Whittington.
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32 page spiral bound music notebook with autograph score and parts including sketches for other various gamelan works and
2 pages sketches of Movement III,
Piano Concerto with Selected Orchestra.
See Ser.2 Notebooks: Notebook #65.
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Gending in Honor of Aphrodite
1982
Physical Description: 7 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My
Gending in Honor of Aphrodite is not in the classic Javanese for such a work, but rather, written in a kind of free verse balance of phrases. I first used
it in a theater work which I have since disbanded and then decoded to use the work as such. My friend, Mantle Hood, suggested
that the work would be properly completed with the addition of voices, so I wrote the vocal sections. My words reflect the
anguish of our daily threat in its appeal to Aphrodite to send the full strength of her powerful son, Eros, to help us with
"unstrict affection".....unstructured by nationality, class, social ritual, and all those terrible hazards which may lead
to the end....if simple accident doesn't. The words are congested with meaning, but I couldn't help it at the time!
Bright Lady, bird-drawn in the sky of light
Oh move us all to unstrict affection
Oh love of the great and broken smithy
Send the full blood of your beautiful Son
Against this Mars-worn, suiciding world.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Chorus, harp, Javanese gamelan (pelog)
Date: Gamelan part: October 11, 1982. Harp part added June 10, 1986
Text: Lou Harrison,
Joys and Perplexities: Selected Poems of Lou Harrison (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Jargon Society, 1992)
Score: American Gamelan Institute
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Harp part. 3 pages autograph and copy of autograph with pencil additions.
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Chorus. 2 pages autograph sketches.
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Gamelan. 2 pages autograph and copy of autograph score and sketches.
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Gamelan with Western Instrument (Philemon and Baukis)
1985
Physical Description: 7 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Philemon and Baukis, the old loving couple who offered hospitality to Zeus and Hermes, are the subjects of many literary,
musical, and visual works. The beautiful paintings by Adam Elsheimer and David Ligare concerning two different episodes of
the legend are particularly dear to me.
My friend Kathy Foley several years ago kindly asked me to compose a score for her very imaginative production of the entirety
of Goethe's Faust. Towards the end of part II Goethe's disgusting episode about Philemon and Baukis caused me to compose a
classic melody for Rebab and Sundanese Gamelan to sound as memory of the myth in direct contradiction to the violence of the
events of the play. In the following year, I used this melody in more developed form for a dance choreographed by Remy Charlip
for Tandy Beal. At the end of the dance her two male attendants needed a short episode and I built a faster melody directly
on the same bass.
My friend Dan Kobialka offered to play in a 70th Birthday concert in my honor presented by the Santa Cruz New Music Works
and I seized the opportunity to complete for him the full version of my Philemon and Baukis, the beauty of his violin leading
me on. The Javanese Gamelan with its rich methods supports the soloist throughout.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Violin, Javanese gamelan (slendro)
Date: Begun 1985, completed 1987
Premiere: May 17, 1987: All Saints Episcopal, Watsonville, CA: Dan Kobialka, violin, Gamelan Si Betty, Trish Nielson, director
Publisher: American Gamelan Institute
Length: 12.5 minutes
Notes: For Daniel Kobialka
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1 page autograph gamelan and violin schema/score
ca. 1985-1986
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3 pages autograph score
ca. 1987
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1 page autograph sketches
ca. 1987
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1 page autograph title page
undated
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1 page autograph program note sketch
undated
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A Soedjatmoko Set
1989
Physical Description: 10 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Unison chorus, solo voice, Javanese gamelan (pelog)
Movements: (1) untitled; (2) Isna's Song; (3) untitled
Dates: December 1989
Premiere: January 13-14, 1990, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR.:
The Venerable Showers of Beauty gamelan
Publisher: Frog Peak
Notes: Commissioned by Peter J. Poole as an offering to the Soedjatmoko family of Indonesia.
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10 pages autograph score. Gamelan protocols, gamelan parts, and voices.
box 16
7. Non-Western Instruments
1940-1992
Physical Description: 12 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
This series contains pieces played with non-western instruments. Asian ensemble, Asian, African and Western combinations,
followed by solo Asian instrument further divide Non-Western Instrument works.
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Air for Violin, Ya Cheng, and Gender
1940
Physical Description: 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Violin, ya cheng, gender
Dates: Undated (begun 1940, revised 1970s)
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
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4 pages. 2 pages autograph score.
ca. 1970
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1 page autograph sketch.
ca. 1940
ca. 1970
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Moogunkwha, Se Tang Ak (Sharonrose, a New Song in the Old Style or A New Tang Melody)
1961
Physical Description: 26 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Korean court orchestra (cross-flutes, double reeds, viols, psalteries, percussion)
Date: June 1961
Premiere: Read-through by students at Korean National Classical Music Institute in Seoul, Korea, 1961 or 1962.
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
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Folio, 12 pages. 11 pages autograph score, 1 page autograph sketches (pencil).
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10 pages autograph score with title page and notes, (ink).
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Prelude for Piri and Reed Organ
1961
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: P'iri, organ
Dates: Between August and November 1961
Premiere: November 12, 1961, Sticky Wicket, Aptos, CA: Lou Harrison
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Cross References: Used in
Nova Odo, Movement II (1968) and
Homage to Messaien (1996).
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2 pages. 1 page autograph score (ink) - 1 page autograph sketch for
Political Primer (not related), pencil.
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Folio, 4 pages 3 pages autograph sketches.
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Quintal Taryung
1961-62
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: (a) 2 Korean flutes, optional changgo (b) alto and tenor recorders, optional snareless drum
Date: Between September 1961 and June 1962
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Notes: For Robert Hughes
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Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score with introductory notes.
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Sonata for Psaltery
1961-62
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Great psaltery (or cheng)
Dates: October 1961, revised 1962
Premiere: November 12, 1961, Sticky Wicket, Aptos, CA: Lou Harrison
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 2.5 minutes
Notes: For Liang Tsai Ping.
These four pages numbered consecutively
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1 page autograph score with revisions (Western notation).
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2 pages autograph notes, tuning schema, score ("Pan Sinitic" notation).
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1 page photocopy of autograph score and sketch.
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Pacifika Rondo
1963
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Flute, trombone, organ, celesta, piano, vibraphone, percussion, strings; p'iris, sheng, psalteries, cheng, kayageum, pak,
jahlataranga
Movements: (1) Family of the Court; (2) A Play of Dolphins; (3) Lotus; (4) In Sequoia's Shade; (5) Netzahualcoyotl Builds a Pyramid
(Homage to Carlos Chávez); (6) A Hatred of the Filthy Bomb; (7) From the Dragon Pool
Date: May 1963
Premiere: May 26, 1963, University of Hawaii, Manoa, HI
Publisher: Peer
Notes: Commissioned by East-West Center, University of Hawaii. Dedicated to his parents.
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1 page autograph title page Movement II, in Esperanto with tuning schema.
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The Garden at One and a Quarter Moons
1964
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Great psaltery (or cheng)
Dates: December 21, 1964; revised November 9, 1966
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 2.5 minutes
Notes: For Robert Hughes
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Folio, 4 pages. 1 page title. 1 page score ("Pan-Sinitic" notation).
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Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score with tuning schema and notes ("Pan-Sinitic" and Western notation).
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Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score with revisions (Western notation).
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Wesak Sonata
1964
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Cheng
Movements: (1) Grave (2) Allegro
Dates: Movement I: April - May 1964; work completed, June 1964
Premiere: November 15, 1964, Old Spaghetti Factory, San Francisco, CA: Margaret Fabrizio
Publisher: Author's private edition
Notes: For Wesak day (April 8). "Author's Private Edition" used for limited serigraph edition.
box-folder 16:8
4 pages autograph score with tuning schema and introductory notes.
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Music for Violin with Various Instruments, European, Asian, and African
1967
Physical Description: 17 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My
Music for Violin with Various Instruments was written for Gary Beswick's graduation recital from San Jose State University. I was determined not to write a violin
piece with piano accompaniment. Since I was collecting instruments for demonstrations and presentations for my World Music
class, I chose a set to form the accompanying ensemble for the solo violin work. There are three movements. The first is called
ductia and that is a form derived from a European form which resembles the
estampie but differs from the latter in that it is rhythmically free and is generally of fewer strophes. Though it does preserve the
idea of a theme followed by a half-cadence and then a repeat of the theme followed by a full cadence. In this movement I chose
for accompaniment a reed-organ (Army leftover from World War II) which had been tuned in just Pythagorean tunings especially
for the use which I put it here, droning.
The psaltery here is a very large one of my own design which was based on the general principals of the Chinese cheng. It
was built to my specifications by Morris Reynolds in 1961. In this instance the size is such that the instrument has its own
"leg system", and the strings are so far apart that the use of octave and fifth chords in the accompaniment needed to be accomplished
by the making of a plectrum holding three wires which project down to the strings and produce the required tones. The drums
are of ordinary tom-tom kind.
Movement II uses the reed organ drone on the tonic, the 2nd degree, the 5th degree and the octave above the tonic. It sustains
this chord through the 1st and last portions of the piece while reducing forces in the middle section. I have not hesitated
here, because the organ is correctly tuned, to ask of the violinist correctly played 7th and 11th overtones. The effect of
the violin with the organ in this movement suggests the sound of Japanese gagaku.
I was fortunate in my World Music class to have an African student who was able to build for me a group of mbiras - 2 for
the upper register and 2 for the lower tones. The 1st mbira player plays the tune along with the violin but adding those sounds
that an mbira player usually adds; slapping the back of the instrument and stomping his foot on the strong beats. Mbira's
2, 3, and 4, play the scales up and down in such a way that the more steadily progressing mbira 2 is supported by rich tonal
brocade. All of the instruments play in the correctly tuned mode that they share with the violin. The form of the piece is
generally antiphonal. The solo violin and mbira player #1 consorting together and then the entire ensemble resounding with
harmonious support.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Solo violin, reed organ in Pythagorean tuning, 1 percussion, psaltery (alternative: tack piano or harpsichord), 4 mbiras (alternative:
harp or marimba).
Movements: (1) Allegro vigoroso (2) Largo (3) Allegro moderato
Dates: 1967, revised 1969
Premiere: May 1, 1967, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA: Gary Beswick, violin.
Publisher: Peer 1972
Length: 10.5 minutes
Notes: For Gary Beswick.
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12 pages autograph score (ink).
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5 pages autograph sketches (pencil).
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A Phrase for Arion's Leap
1974
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 3 ya chengs (bowed psalteries), 2 harps, percussion
Dates: December 15, 1974
Publisher: [West coast] Ear 1 (Berkeley,CA; no date); Xenharmonikon 2 #1 (Spring 1975)
Length: 5 minutes
Notes: In Free Style. For Charles Shere.
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Folio, 4 pages. 1 page autograph score.
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Folio, 4 pages. 1 page autograph sketches. 2 pages unrelated sketches.
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Suite for Four Haisho
1992
Physical Description: 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 4 haisho (Japanese panpipes), percussion, narrator
Movements: (1) qu= ca. 60 (2) qu= ca. 104 (3) Slow and free
Dates: Movements I, II: October - November 1992; Movement III: December 22, 1992
Premiere: January 14, 1993
Text: Lou Harrison, "Journeys" (
Reed Magazine, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA; v.47, 1993)
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 21 minutes
Notes: Movement II is a kit with 10 phrases for haisho and 10 for percussion that can be rearranged, repeated, or omitted at will.
Texts, to be spoken in Noh drama style, inserted between movements.
box-folder 16:11
Movement I: 1 page autograph score.
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Movement II: 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement III: 2 pages autograph score. Note: 1 page for Haisho solo is marked IIII. All pages numbered consecutively , 1-5.
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Suite for Sangen
1996
Physical Description: pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Shamisen
Movements: (1) Prelude (2) Estampie (3) Adagio (4) Round
Date: October 31, 1996
Premiere: December 6, 1996
Publisher: Frog Prak
Length: 18.5 minutes
Notes: For Akiko Nishigata.
When Akiko Nishigata came to San Francisco to ask me to compose a work for her for sangen, I was at once delighted and frightened.
At first I thought of writing for one or two other instruments along with her own, but then decided to try an outright solo
--- a single melody without even "double stops". My memory fetched up hearing the instrument onstage with the marvelous Japanese
puppet theater as well as in theater works both in Tokyo and New York. Miss Nishigata sent me splendid recordings of her own
wonderful performances on the instrument, along with basic information about tunings, range, and possibilities. Meanwhile
the images of long-lutes from elegant old Egyptian paintings, from Persian miniatures and other global sources rose in my
mind. Lately I have been fascinated by six-tone modes, and in this suite of four movements, I composed three of the movements
in six-toned modes, the remaining section being chromatic and aria-like over drones on the open strings of the sangen. The
second movement I wrote in the form of an estampie, the medieval instrumental, or even dance form, of which I am very fond.
The adagio, which follows, is the chromatic piece that allows the melody to move by only three intervals, the minor second,
the major third, and the perfect fifth. The work opens with a free=form prelude, and concludes with a dance-like and cheerful
allegro.
Lou Harrison
box-folder 16:12
Movement I: 1 page autograph sketches.
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Movement II: 1 pages autograph sketches.
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Movement III: 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement IV: 5 pages autograph sketches and copy of autograph score.
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8. Keyboard
1934-1996
Physical Description: 23 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
This series contains works listed for "Piano" and "Other" including organ, cembalo, and harpsichord.
box-folder 16:13
Six Sonatas for Cembalo
1934-43
Physical Description: 29 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Along with my
Mass and one or two other works, my
Six Sonatas for Cembalo are Mission-style pieces. They were directly stimulated by my studies about and feelings for the land, peoples, and history
of California. Indeed, they are part of the "Regionalist" school of thought that was so prevalent and, for a young person,
stimulating in the 1930s. These
Six Sonatas reflect the romance and geometry of impassioned Spain, as well as the pastoral Indian imagery of native America in its Western
life. The artistic model was, of course, Scarlatti and Manuel de Falla. The collection was first published by Henry Cowell's
wondrous New Music Edition. Either in part or entire these sonatas have been played by Sylvia Marlowe, Ralph Kirkpatrick,
and a number of other harpsichordists including Linda Burman-Hall who has recorded them on a Musical Heritage Society CD.
--Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Harpsichord or piano
Movements: (1) Moderato (2) Allegro (3) Moderato (4) Allegro (5) Moderato (6) Allegro
Dates: Begun 1934, completed 1943
Premiere: Of the entire set: January 24, 1944, Evenings on the Roof, Los Angeles, CA: Frances Mullen
Publisher: New Music Quarterly XVII/1, October 1943; new edition (with suggested ornamentation by Susan Summerfield): Peer, 1990
Length: 29 minutes
Notes:
Sonata I used for Esther Ballou,
Variations, Scherzo and Fugue on a Theme by Lou Harrison, 1959.
box-folder 16:13
Folio, 16 pages. Original publication of New Music Quarterly, October 1943 (copy of autograph) inscribed to family for Christmas.
1944
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11 pages, autograph score in ink.
ca. 1990
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2 pages, autograph sketches for preparation.
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Ground in E Minor
1936
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: September 5, 1936; revised 1970
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Length: 2 minutes
Cross References: Revised and used as
A Summerfield Set, Movement II (1988).
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Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score, 1936, with revision markings.
1970
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Large Ostinato
1937
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Dates: January 15, 1937; revised 1970
Publisher: Unpublished manuscript
Length: 4.5 minutes
Notes: Original manuscript says "piano or orchestra" but there is no orchestration from this period.
For John Dobson.
box-folder 16:15
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, including title page, 1937, with later pencil revisions.
ca. 1970
box-folder 16:15
4 pages autograph revised score.
ca. 1970
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Prelude for Grandpiano
1937
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: Completed September 16, 1937
Publisher:
New Music Quarterly XI/4, July 1938
Length: 6.5 minutes
Notes: For Henry Cowell
box-folder 16:16
Folio, 12 pages. Original publication,
New Music Quarterly 1938, inscribed "For Mother because of everything".
1938
box-folder 16:17
Saraband
1937
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: Completed May 24, 1937
Publisher:
New Music Quarterly, XI/4, July 1938
Length: 4 minutes
box-folder 16:17
Folio, 12 pages. Original publication,
New Music Quarterly, inscribed to "For Mother because of everything".
1938
box-folder 16:18
Third Piano Sonata
1938
Physical Description: 26 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My
Third Piano Sonata was composed in San Francisco in 1938. I edited the work in 1970. Technically, it expounds a method of composing which I
have used many, many times. I separate out, say, three intervals, and compose the melodies using only those three intervals.
I may also select three other intervals (the remaining ones if you consider there are really only six, all the others being
inversions) and use the latter for harmonic purposes. The result in this sonata is a continuous fabric of minor seconds and
major thirds in the melody and major seconds and fourths in the chords. The chords are thick in the second movement, and I
described it as "fistfuls of notes". The first movement is declamatory in style, the second fast and excited, and the last
movement a valedictory in nature.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Piano
Movements: (1) Slowish and singing (2) Fast and rugged (3) Very slow, very singing and solemn
Dates: 1938; edited December 3, 1970
Premiere: Radio performance, 1938: Lou Harrison
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 10.5 minutes
Notes: For Douglas Thompson.
box-folder 16:18
Folio, 18 pages. 15 pages autograph score/sketches, pencil.
ca. 1938
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8 pages autograph score, ink.
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Reel to Henry Cowell (Reel: Homage to Henry Cowell)
1939
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Dates: 1939
Publisher:
12 x 11: Piano Music in Twentieth Century America, Maurice Hinson, Editor (Chapel Hill: Hinshaw Music, 1979)
Length: 4 minutes
Cross References: Revised and orchestrated for use as
Third Symphony, Movement IIa (1982). Also related to "Polka" from
Grand Duo (1988)
Notes: Von Gunden,
Music of Lou Harrison, gives 1936 for this work, based on Neil Rutman's thesis. However, the date of 1939 appears on the manuscript and is also
given in Leslie Celso's San Jose State University master's thesis on the piano music, prepared under the composer's supervision.
box-folder 16:19
4 pages, copy of autograph with sparse revision markings.
ca. 1982
box-folder 16:19
4 pages, copy of published score with orchestration markings.
ca. 1982
box-folder 16:20
Suite for Piano
1943
Physical Description: 21 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
In 1942-43 I was working as a musician and teacher in the Dance Department of the University of California at Los Angeles
and had indeed gone there in hopes that I might study, even a little, with Schoenberg. It proved that he was conducting a
small seminar on one afternoon each week. I gathered up my courage and applied to his then assistant, Harold Halma, who took
me directly to Schoenberg in his study. He had evidently been in deep concentration, and must have been startled, for he physically
twitched during the introduction. I was relieved, though, to be accepted. I was told that he refused to examine any work
in "12-tone technique". Firstly, then, I took my
Saraband and also my
Prelude for Grand Piano and played those for him. He said, in obvious pleasure, "This is music I understand," and, turning, asked my fellow seminarians,
"Why do you not bring to me such music?" Meanwhile, I had been introduced by the lovely dancer Melissa Blake to Peter Yates
and his wife, Frances Mullen. We shared intently many musical pleasures and, upon discovering that Frances Mullen was a fine
concert pianist and sympathetic to new music, I began to concentrate on this
Suite for Piano, to give her. I had composed much of it, and then found that I was composing myself into a corner in III, the Conductus.
Emboldened by Schoenberg's own kindnesses, I arrived one afternoon with the work. I supposed that, for my bringing in a 12-tone
work he might throw the three or four of us "out" permanently (as I was told he had done once or twice before in exasperation)
- or that he might throw out at least me. I played the Prelude. There was a rather long silence, and then he asked me, thoughtfully,
"Is it a 12-tone?" I simply said, "Yes." he reached for the page, saying, "It is good! It is good!" (What a relief! I was
not going to be thrown out! ) He asked me to continue, and I played Movement II. Again, "It is good! It is good!" He seemed
fascinated by the very wide soft spacing in measures 4-8. By the time I had played to the point of my blockage in Movement
III, he plunged directly in, already aware of my structure, and, with splendid illuminating instructions, permanently disposed
of for me not only that particular difficulty but also any of the kind that I might ever encounter. Many years ago I wrote
a sentence, in a paper for the East-West Music Encounter in Tokyo, which suggests something of what I felt he was telling
me about: "... that deft, light musicality which to us (as musicians) is the very happiest conjunction of our intellect and
senses."
If, as I sometimes suspect, I was being "spoofed" about Arnold Schoenberg's patience, then I am nonetheless grateful for that,
too, for obvious reasons. He was a lovely and delicate man, very nervous when airplanes flew over U.C.L.A.; who once hushed
us, too, in order to hear a bird outside. There was more, and much of musical interest. When I was about to leave for New
York, he asked me why I was going there and I replied that I did not really know. "I know why you are going," he said. " You
are going for fame and fortune. Good luck! And, do not study anymore - only Mozart!"
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Piano
Movements: (1) Prelude (2) Aria (3) Conductus (4) Interlude (5) Rondo
Date: May 1943
Premiere: May 8, 1944: Evenings on the Roof, Los Angeles, CA: Frances Mullen.
Publisher: Peters, 1964
Length: 16.5 minutes
Notes: For Frances Mullen Yates
box-folder 16:20
21 pages accordion fold copy of autograph score. There are slight autograph markings/revisions in Movement III.
box-folder 16:21
Serenade in C
1944
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: (a) piano (b) woodwind quintet (arranged Robert Hughes)
Dates: 1944 (Woodwinds arranged 1962)
Premiere: (a) Never performed (b) April 15, 1962, Sticky Wicket, Aptos, CA: Robert Hughes and ensemble.
Publisher: Version b: Frog Peak
box-folder 16:21
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score. Inscribed "For Sonia's Birthday 1944, with love, Lou".
1944
box-folder 16:22
A 12-Tone Morning After to Amuse Henry
ca. 1944-45
Physical Description: 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Dates: ca. 1944-45
Premiere: March 25, 1997, 92nd St. 'Y' (Young Men's & Women's Hebrew Association), New York, NY: Michael Barrett
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: ca. 2 minutes
box-folder 16:22
4 pages. 2 pages autograph score with note to Henry Cowell.
box-folder 16:22
1 page with partial "Row Chart" and some unrelated sketches.
box-folder 16:23
New York Waltzes
1944-51
Physical Description: 8 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Movements: (1) Waltz in C (2) Hesitation Waltz (3) Waltz in A
Dates: (1) September 16, 1945 (2) Fall 1951 (3) September 14, 1944
Premiere: October 22, 1994, Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA: Michael Boriskin.
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 4 minutes
Notes: For Edward McGowan.
box-folder 16:23
Waltz in C, 1 page autograph score.
box-folder 16:23
Hesitation Waltz, 1 page autograph score.
box-folder 16:23
Waltz in A, 1 page autograph score.
box-folder 16:23
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score in ink.
ca. 1994
box-folder 16:24
Two Unused Pieces for Jose Limón
1945
Physical Description: 9 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Movements: (1) Polka (2) Allegro alla Jarabe
Date: December 6, 1945
Premiere: Scheduled April 28, 1997, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, NY: Michael Boriskin.
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 5 minutes
Notes: These 2 movements were originally Movements V-VI of a longer composition; other movements are lost.
box-folder 16:24
Polka: Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph.
box-folder 16:24
1 page photocopy with slight revisions in red ink.
box-folder 16:24
Jarabe: Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score.
box-folder 16:25
Triphony
1945
Physical Description: 7 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: December 6,1945 William Masselos, date unknown
Publisher: Peters
Length: 4.5 minutes
Cross References: Arranged as
String Trio (1946). Revised and used in
Suite for Symphony Strings , Movement V (1960).
Notes: See also Series 2: Notebooks - notebook no. 53 and notebook in file for
Alleluia (Chamber Orchestra) which includes autograph sketches for
Triphony.
box-folder 16:25
5 pages copy of autograph score
ca. 1945
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2 pages autograph score
ca. 1994
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Praises for Michael the Archangel
1946
Physical Description: 1 score and 5 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Organ
Date: Begun January 1946; completed January 15, 1947
Publisher: Score -
Music in the United States of America; Lou Harrison: Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937-1944, Leta Miller, editor
Length: 7 minutes
Cross References: Revised for use in
Elegiac Symphony, Movement IV (1975)
box-folder 16:26
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 16:27
Homage to Milhaud
1948
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: September 31, 1948
Publisher:
12 x 11: Piano Music in Twentieth Century America, Maurice Hinson, Editor (Chapel Hill: Hinshaw Music, 1979)
Length: 5 minutes
box-folder 16:27
1 page, copy of autograph score with autograph signature.
box-folder 16:28
Little Suite for Piano
1949
Physical Description: 7 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Movements: (1) Pastorale (2) Quadrille (3) Chorale
Date: November 8, 1949
Publisher: E.B. Marks, American Composers of Today, 1965
Length: 2.5 minutes
Notes: For Remy Charlip
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4 pages. 3 pages autograph sketches.
ca. 1949
box-folder 16:28
3 pages autograph score in ink.
ca. 1949
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Double Canon for Carl Ruggles
1951
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Date: 1951
Publisher: Unpublished
Length: 1.5 minutes
Cross References: Revised and used in
Concert for Organ with Percussion Orchestra, Movement II (1973)
box-folder 16:29
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages, autograph score with revisions in pencil
ca. 1951
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Festival Dance
1951
Physical Description: 12 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: 2 pianos
Dates: 1951, revised 1996
Premiere: March 18, 1997, Cooper Union College, New York, NY: Aki Takahashi, Sarah Cahill
Publisher: Unpublished
box-folder 16:30
4 pages autograph score in ink.
1951
box-folder 16:30
8 pages, blueprint copies of autograph with sparse notes by composer.
1951
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4 pages photocopy of autograph with revisions.
1996
box-folder 16:31
Fugue for David Tudor
1952
Physical Description: 4 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Piano
Dates: Begun 1947; completed 1952
Premiere: February 10, 1952, Cherry Lane Theater, New York, N.Y.: David Tudor
Publisher: Unpublished
Length: 3.5 minutes
Cross References: Orchestra for Suite for Symphony Strings, Movement VII (1960)
box-folder 16:31
4 pages, copy of autograph score
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A Summerfield Set
1988
Physical Description: 11 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
My friend Susan Summerfield offered to play a new work in a concert at Mills College. It was to be realized by almost any
combination of two harpsichords and/or two organs played by two musicians. I chose to write in such a way that the score could
be played in a number of different ways. The first movement developed from my love for the beautiful Hymn to Venus which opens
Lucretius' De Rarumm Naturum. The image of an exhausted and tortured Lord of War seeking sympathy and solace from the Lady
of Love is the basis of the movement. The Ground which follows evolved over a number of years and has a clear origin in the
lovely
Ground by Henry Purcell. The
Round for the Triumph of Alexander in this quasi-classical context is often assumed to have to do with Alexander the Great. Well, we hope that he will be great
for it was written for my namesake Alexander Harrison Summerfield in celebration of his growing up joyously.
Lou Harrison
Instrumentation: Piano or other keyboard instrument
Movements: (1) Sonata (2) Ground (3) Round for the Triumph of Alexander
Dates: Movement I: January 1, 1988; Movement II: September 5, 1936, revised 1970; Movement III: January 12, 1988
Premiere: February 28, 1988, Mills College, Oakland, CA: Susan Summerfield
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 11 minutes
Cross References: Movement II revision of
Ground in E Minor (1936; revised 1970; further revised for
A Summerfield Set)
Notes: For Susan Summerfield
box-folder 16:32
7 pages autograph score.
1988
box-folder 16:32
1 page autograph, revised version of
Ground in E Minor.
1936
1970
box-folder 16:32
3 pages copies of autograph sketches.
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Pedal Sonata for Organ
1989
Physical Description: 9 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Organ (pedals only)
Movements: (1) Chorale (2) As fast as possible (3) Jahla: Fast
Date: February 1989
Premiere: March 17, 1989, Central United Methodist Church, Stockton, CA: Fred Tulan
Publisher: Frog Peak
Length: 7 minutes
box-folder 16:33
6 pages: 1 page copy of autograph title page. 2 pages autograph score.
box-folder 16:33
3 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 16:34
Homage to Messaien
1996
Physical Description: 1 page
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Organ
Notes: Arrangment of
Prelude for Piri and Reed Organ (1962) with added text by Harrison.
box-folder 16:35
Sonata for Harpsichord [Sonata for Keyboard]
1999
Physical Description: 6 pages
Subseries Scope and Content Summary
Instrumentation: Keyboard
Movements: (1) Allegro moderato (2) Adagio (3) Estampie
Date: December 1999
Premiere: December 31, 1999
Publisher: Score: Peer
Notes: For Linda Burman-Hall. See also Ser.2 Notebooks: Notebook #28.
The
Sonata for Harpsichord was composed by Harrison for Linda Burman-Hall to play on the eve of year 2000. It offers three contrasting moods based on
modal scales: a bustling energetic opening with inner-voice trills, a warmly lyrical central meditation, and a flamenco-tinged
"Estampie" dance accented by exuberant cluster chords. Harrison planned the work for the Baroque well-temperament Kirnberger
II, which he also used to compose his
Concerto for Piano with Selected Orchestra [1985]
box-folder 16:35
Movement II: 2 pages autograph score.
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Movement III: 4 pages autograph score. 1 page autograph sketches.
box 19
9. Etcetera
undated
Physical Description: 43 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
Sketches, studies, unfinished works, and small pieces gifted to friends.
Manuscripts in this series contain unfinished works, sketches, teaching examples and studies. Examples of small gifted pieces
include birthday melodies and
pastorals. Also within this series are pieces written in collaboration with Bob Hughes that are not included in the Harrison Catalogue
and small works by others and gifted to Harrison.
Note: This pieces in this series are arranged alphabetically by title.
box-folder 19:1
3 Hour Sketch for Orchestra,
undated
box-folder 19:1
Folio, 8 pages. 5 pages autograph sketches, titled by composer
box-folder 19:2
3 Tone Song, New York
undated
Note
Note: "Like a race the negro boy said, and I wasn't sure I heard
What race?
He said it clear, gathering into his attention the auction inside.
The room too hot, the seats theatre soft.
His foot, the instant it crossed the threshold, as his voice, drawing the whites eyes of the silver set
New Yorkers, passed along the rows for weight, feel the weight, leading summer idling evening fold to bid
up dollar by dollar, I beside him in the door."
box-folder 19:3
12-tone sketch for glockenspiel, celesta, piano, harp, prepared piano
undated
box-folder 19:3
1 page autograph sketches with row chart
box-folder 19:4
1 page autograph music examples used to teach a class at Black Mountain College
box-folder 19:5
2 pages autograph short-score, 44 measures
box-folder 19:6
An Aborted Exquisite Corpse
undated
box-folder 19:6
Folio 4 pages. 1 page autograph sketches described by Harrison in
title.
box-folder 19:6
2 pages autograph sketches for a Mass.
box-folder 19:6
1 page unidentified autograph rhythmic structures not in
Harrison's hand.
box-folder 19:7
Concerto for Tenor Violin
undated
Note
Note:Not authorized for performance.
box-folder 19:7
Folio, 12 pages. 9 pages autograph sketches of incomplete Concerto.
box-folder 19:8
Double Fanfare by Bob Hughes and Charles Shere - For clarinet, viola, cello,
bassoon
5/15/1977
Note
Double Fanfare equally distributed among the twelve tones for Lou Harrison
box-folder 19:9
Duet by Jim Cleghorn
undated
Note
Note: Cleghorn was a friend of Harrison's in San Francisco, ca. 1935.
box-folder 19:9
1 page autograph score in Cleghorn's hand with note on reverse " Been here and gone, Jim Cleghorn".
box-folder 19:10
Just Intonation Sketches
undated
Note
Note: "Sketches toward a large work in
Just Intonation"
box-folder 19:10
Folio 15 pages. 8 pages autograph sketches with comment by composer: "The world gets out of
touch with me every so often. What does it want? Recognition? If so, it had best begin to behave
properly!"
box-folder 19:11
Mass sketch -"Beginning of a Mass in the style of Stravinsky"
undated
box-folder 19:12
2 pages autograph sketches. 1 page titled
Nocturne.
box-folder 19:13
Pastoral, Saraband, Pastorale, for Remy Charlip
ca. 1951
box-folder 19:13
1 page color photocopy of
Pastoral and
Saraband with note from Remy Charlip.
box-folder 19:13
1 page aluminum plate etching score of
Pastorale to Remy Charlip "for strings preferably viols".
box-folder 19:14
Percussion score
1930-1939
Note
Note: Composer states "... from Percussion Concert at Mills
College in 30's?"
box-folder 19:14
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score and sketches.
box-folder 19:15
Ritmicas (Homago al Roldan)
undated
Note
Note: "Double music by Lou Harrison and Robert Hughes"
box-folder 19:15
3 pages autograph score (incomplete Movement I) in Hughes' hand.
box-folder 19:15
3 pages autograph score, moderato, in Hughes' hand.
box-folder 19:15
Folio, 4 pages autograph sketches in Harrison's hand.
box-folder 19:16
2 pages unidentified autograph row charts
box-folder 19:17
A sample used for experiment, at Asilomar, in "body sounds" on string instruments, under
ASOL sponsorship.
box-folder 19:17
1 page autograph autograph score/sample.
box-folder 19:18
Seven Tone Sketch - 7-tone = temp. serial piece
undated
box-folder 19:18
1 page autograph sketches and row chart for the beginning of a 7-tone equal temperament
serial piece.
box-folder 19:19
Shining Trumpets by Rudy Blesch
undated
Note
Note:Blues and jazz sketches by Harrison used for musical examples
in book.
box-folder 19:19
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:20
18 pages folio and loose pages. 11 pages autograph sketches for unfinished sonata.
box-folder 19:22
Three Poems of Lou Harrison (Poems by Lou Harrison, music by Robert Hughes)
undated
Note
Instrumentation: Voice and piano.
Movements: I: To Hades; II: To Persephone; III: About Tiresias.
box-folder 19:22
7 pages blueprint copy of autograph score in Hughes' hand.
box-folder 19:23
Happy Birthday Garrick
undated
box-folder 19:23
1 page copy of autograph score with note to Julian Beck.
box-folder 19:24
Three short movements for percussion
undated
box-folder 19:24
2 pages autograph score (Fast, Slow, Fast).
box-folder 19:25
Ductia for Soprano Recorder
undated
box-folder 19:26
"A Cowell Monument"
undated
box-folder 19:26
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:27
2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:28
"Agonies over the Bomb"
undated
box-folder 19:28
1 page autograph sketches and words.
box-folder 19:30
Air by Richard Dee and Mass sketch by Lou Harrison
undated
box-folder 19:30
2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:31
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:32
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:33
"For a Dance N.Y.C."
undated
box-folder 19:33
1 page autograph sketches
box-folder 19:34
Estampie for Serenade
undated
box-folder 19:34
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:35
A Fibonaci Mode/Fogliano, Just Meantone
undated
box-folder 19:35
2 pages autograph tuning schema's.
box-folder 19:37
2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:38
3 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:40
2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:41
2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 19:43
Fantasia on a Theme by Lou Harrison by Anatole Sipin
undated
box-folder 19:43
6 pages copy of autograph score for violin, viola, and cello.
box 20
10. Juvenilia
Undated
Physical Description: 33 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
Harrison's first compositions date from 1927, when he was ten years old. The
Elegie was to become the first of many pieces memorializing friends, colleagues and people that were influential (
Threnody to Oliver Daniel,
Elegy for Harpo Marx,
Homage to Milhaud,
In Memory of Victor Jowers,
At the Tomb of Charles Ives ... to name a few).
This first
Elegie was dedicated to Helen Johnson a friend of the Harrison family. Much later in his life, Harrison discovered that he had "got
the wrong one". It was Helen's sister who died in 1927.
Harrison became extremely prolific in his years in San Francisco. From 1934 through 1939 there are well over one hundred identified
completed works which are housed at Mills College where Harrison worked from 1937 through 1940. The copies of works in this
series are meant to be studied as examples of compositional progression and are not authorized for performance.
box-folder 20:1
Elegie: Dedicated to Helen Johnson
undated
box-folder 20:1
2 pages autograph score for piano. Signed "Lou Silver Harrison, 10 years old"
box-folder 20:1
1 page with title and abstract watercolor
box-folder 20:2
Folio, 8 pages. 7 pages autograph score for piano with 1 page "notes"
box-folder 20:3
Sonata No.I in C
January 25, 1932
box-folder 20:3
Folio, 8 pages. 7 pages autograph score for piano.
box-folder 20:4
Sonatina No. IV in A major
1932
Note
Dates: Completed April 29, 1932; Andante completed May 6, 1932.
box-folder 20:4
2 pages autograph score for piano.
box-folder 20:5
Organ Sonata No.I Opus
1932
box-folder 20:5
Hand bound folio, 12 pages.
box-folder 20:5
3 pages autograph score (unfinished).
box-folder 20:6
Pianoforte Sonata No. VII Opus - (Sonata No. VII in B flat major)
May 14,1932
box-folder 20:6
Hand bound folio, 10 pages. 5 pages autograph score. 1 title page.
box-folder 20:7
Prelude in C No. II/Prelude No. III in A major
May 23, 1932
box-folder 20:7
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score for piano.
box-folder 20:8
Sonata for Piano
May 30, 1932
Note
Note: Harrison titled and signed this work at a much later date (
ca. 1970) in his recognizable calligraphic hand.
box-folder 20:8
Hand bound folio, 14 pages. 9 pages autograph score. 1 title page.
box-folder 20:9
Psalm Sonata in C# minor
ca. 1932
box-folder 20:9
Folio, 8 pages. 5 pages autograph score for piano.
box-folder 20:10
Gothic Piece
ca. 1934
Note
Instrumentation: Harpsichord
box-folder 20:10
1 page copy of autograph.
box-folder 20:11
Aubade for Gabriel
1935-36
Note
Instrumentation: Percussion, Strings, and Voices
box-folder 20:11
13 pages copy of autograph score
box-folder 20:12
Moderato
1935-36
Note
Instrumentation: Strings, Piano, Percussion, Voices
box-folder 20:12
13 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:13
Movement for Two Horns and Strings with Piano
1935
box-folder 20:13
4 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:14
Music for Handel in Heaven
1935
Note
Instrumentation: Violin, Viola, Cello
box-folder 20:14
6 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:15
Slowish and Serene
ca. 1935
box-folder 20:15
2 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:16
Song: Pastoral night-piece; or
A Request
ca. 1935
Note
Instrumentation: Fiddle and Voice
box-folder 20:16
1 page copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:17
The Geography of the Soul: Song, Excursion in Other Landscapes; Song, Unity in
Strength; A Little Girl Walked
ca. 1935
box-folder 20:17
8 pages copy of autograph score for voice and piano, voice and string quartet, voice and harmonium.
box-folder 20:18
Three Dances of Conflict for Carol Beals
1935-36
box-folder 20:18
13 pages copy of autograph score for piano.
box-folder 20:19
Project No.2 for Piano
May 1936
box-folder 20:19
Folio, 8 pages. 4 pages autograph score plus small inscription and title page.
box-folder 20:20
2 pieces and a letter to Henry Cowell
ca. 1936
box-folder 20:20
1 page copy of autograph letter to Henry Cowell.
box-folder 20:20
3 pages copy of autograph score;
Apples (for piano).
box-folder 20:20
7 pages copy of autograph score; (untitled piece for small ensemble).
box-folder 20:21
Allegro Maestoso
ca. 1936
box-folder 20:21
11 pages copy of autograph score for piano.
box-folder 20:22
Midnoon
1936
Note
Instrumentation: Violin, Viola, Cello, Harp
Date: April 1936
box-folder 20:22
5 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:22
7 pages copy of autograph parts.
box-folder 20:23
Overture for a Tragic Heroic Drama ("such as certain Greek and Chinese
classics")
1936
Note
Instrumentation: Piano, strings, percussion
box-folder 20:23
6 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:24
Piece for 2 players at a piano
ca. 1936
box-folder 20:24
1 page copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:25
Second Suite for Solo Violin
ca. 1936
Note
Note: To Sherry Slayback [Sherman]
box-folder 20:25
1 page copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:26
Suite for Solo Violin
ca. 1936
Note
Note: To Mervin Levy
box-folder 20:26
1 page copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:27
Dance accompaniment for Eleanor Lauer
ca. 1937
box-folder 20:27
1 page copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:28
Last Music
1937
Note
Instrumentation: Contralto, strings, organ, harp, flute, and clarinet
Date: January 23, 1937
Note: "To J.D. as always"
box-folder 20:28
4 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:29
Uneasy Rapture
ca. 1937
Note
Instrumentation: Piano, percussion
Note
Choregrapher: Marion Van Tuyl
box-folder 20:29
5 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:29
2 pages copy of autograph percussion part.
box-folder 20:30
Electra(Incidental music)
ca. 1938
Note
Note: Mills College, Oakland, CA
box-folder 20:30
13 pages copy of autograph score and parts for various instruments.
box-folder 20:31
R.A.H. - for dance
ca. 1938
box-folder 20:31
4 pages copy of autograph score including
Rah's Extatic Moment and
Rah's Group Dance.
box-folder 20:32
Tribunal (Piano 4 hands)
Spring 1938
box-folder 20:32
11 pages copy of autograph score.
box-folder 20:33
Exposition of a Cause
May 14, 1941
Note
Instrumentation: Piano
box-folder 20:33
11 pages copy of autograph score to accompany dance.
box-folder 20:34
Suite for Recorder and Lute: Almar; Pavan; and Bouree
January 21, 1941
Note
Note: To Eileen McCall Washington
box-folder 20:34
5 pages copy of autograph score and parts.
box 21
11. Asian Transcriptions and works by others for Asian instruments
undated
Physical Description: 46 titles
Series Scope and Content Summary
After returning from his first visit to Asia in 1961 and his stay in Taiwan with Liang Tsai-Ping, Lou sought out students
to learn the
cheng (Chinese psaltery). He first taught Richard Dee who took to the instrument immediately. Richard Dee and Lou played concerts
of Chinese music at such places as the Nepenthe resort in Big Sur and the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Francisco. They both
wrote original compositions for the instruments and integrated them with traditional pieces.
Later Bill Colvig and Lily Chin joined the ensemble and the instrumentation expanded. Richard, Bill, and Lily (and sometimes
Lou) played hundreds of Young Audiences concerts over 8 years in every imaginable school system with such instruments as the
sheng (mouth organ),
erh-hu (a stringed instrument),
ya-cheng (bowed psaltery), and various flute-like instruments.
The following manuscripts represent these concerts as well as a variety of pieces by friends and colleagues.
Note: This pieces in this series are arranged alphabetically by title.
box-folder 21:1
100 Birds Court the Phoenix
undated
box-folder 21:1
1 page blueprint copy of autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:1
1 page autograph transcript, siao part.
box-folder 21:3
3 pages (three copies) autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:4
Ascending from the Tower
undated
box-folder 21:4
1 page blueprint copy of autograph score.
box-folder 21:5
At the Make-Up Stand
undated
box-folder 21:5
7 pages autograph and copy of autograph score.
box-folder 21:6
Beautiful Fan Lady
undated
box-folder 21:6
7 pages copy of autograph text for narration.
box-folder 21:7
2 pages autograph and copy of autograph score and sketches.
box-folder 21:8
Celebrating the South - Chinese
undated
box-folder 21:8
1 page autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:9
The Chapter of Practicing the Tao by Fuchou
undated
box-folder 21:9
2 pages autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:10
Chinese Workshop Materials
1968
box-folder 21:10
9 pages materials from workshop with notes by Lou Harrison and William Colvig.
box-folder 21:11
2 pages (2 copies) autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:12
Dragon Dance by Lily Chin
undated
box-folder 21:12
4 page folio with 1 page autograph score and 2 inserted pages of Chinese characters.
box-folder 21:13
Faraway Land, Bamboo Pole, Tea Picker, Flower Drum Song
undated
box-folder 21:14
1 page autograph transcription by William Colvig.
box-folder 21:15
Five Gloria's to the Buddha
undated
Note
Note: "... based on such knowledge as could be had of art and life in the much earlier Chon Dynasty, which by Ming times held aureate
nostalgia for all. An example of this style is here presented, in a transcription by William Colvig, of an Allegro phrase
from the popular
Five Gloria's to the Buddha. It should be mentioned that present practice on the Sheng also allows (at will) the playing of single tones melodically
(without organum)".
box-folder 21:15
6 page folio with 3 pages autograph score/sketch (transcription).
box-folder 21:15
4-page folio with 2 pages autograph score (transcription). 1 page transcription by
William Colvig. 1 page autograph writing by Lou Harrison.
box-folder 21:16
Heavenly Happiness - Ming Dynasty
undated
box-folder 21:16
1 page autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:17
Hyi Mun (from the Civil Homage)
undated
box-folder 21:17
6 pages autograph and copy of autograph score.
box-folder 21:18
In the Autumn Night; Deer Park Hermitage, Through the Yang Tsze Gorge, Song at Wei-Cheng, The Gold Threaded Robe
undated
box-folder 21:18
2 pages copy of score with autograph notes.
box-folder 21:19
Instructional Compilations
undated
box-folder 21:19
2 bound copies of traditional pieces with autograph notes by Harrison and Colvig.
box-folder 21:20
1 page autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:21
Lantern Dance for 2 chengs
undated
box-folder 21:21
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, not in Harrison's hand.
box-folder 21:22
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 21:23
Liu Tien Wha's Soliloquy
undated
box-folder 21:23
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:24
1 page autograph sketches.
box-folder 21:25
Moonlight Fantasy
undated
box-folder 21:25
Folio, 4 pages. 3 pages autograph score, not in Harrison's hand, with sparse notes in
Harrison's hand.
box-folder 21:26
Night Rain on Plantain Leaves - arranged by Ming Yueh Liang
undated
box-folder 21:26
1 page blueprint copy of transcription.
box-folder 21:27
Piece for Fang Hsiang in E minor
undated
box-folder 21:29
Sa li Hung Ba - Chinese Folk Song
undated
box-folder 21:29
2 copies of score used for Young Audiences Concerts.
box-folder 21:30
Sang Youngsan, Jang Youngsan, Se Youngsan, Garag Diori, Sangyan Dodori, Yumbal
Dodori, Taryung, Gunak
undated
box-folder 21:30
Folio, 16 pages autograph score and sketches.
box-folder 21:31
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph sketches.
box-folder 21:32
4 page folio with 3 pages autograph score.
box-folder 21:33
Sinitic Concert Programs
undated
box-folder 21:33
8 pages. Concert program titles and short address to Young Audiences.
box-folder 21:34
Six Instrumental pieces which are used in the Kuan Opera
undated
box-folder 21:34
Folio, 12 pages autograph scores for:
Old Six Beat,
Celebrating the Southern Branch,
Buddhist Chant
box-folder 21:34
Minor Preliminaries:
Mourning for Heaven, and
The Grand Opening.
box-folder 21:34
9 pages blueprint copies of pieces.
box-folder 21:35
1 page autograph score with additional sketches on reverse.
box-folder 21:36
Song of the Four Seasons
undated
box-folder 21:37
Song of the Tea Picker - Taiwan
undated
box-folder 21:37
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph transcription, not in Harrison's hand.
box-folder 21:38
Spring Dance - Canton 16th Century
undated
box-folder 21:39
Sprouting Mushrooms - by William Colvig
undated
box-folder 21:40
Folio, 6 pages. 3 pages autograph transcription.
box-folder 21:41
The Dawn - by Ed Clamenco
undated
box-folder 21:41
1 page copy of autograph score.
box-folder 21:42
The White Snake Lady
undated
box-folder 21:42
7 pages copy of autograph score with text.
box-folder 21:43
Universal Peace
undated
Note
Note:Rearranged by Jung hsen Tung. "For Lou and Bill" from
Tsai-Ping Liang, February, 1969.
box-folder 21:43
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph score
box-folder 21:44
West Wind
undated
Note
Note: Arranged by Ming Yueh Liang
box-folder 21:45
Yang Kwan San Tieh
undated
box-folder 21:45
Folio, 4 pages. 2 pages autograph transcriptions.
box-folder 21:46
1 page autograph transcription.
