Overview

A seminal figure in the development of distinctively American concert music, Roy Harris created a large body of compositions in virtually all media in a career spanning more than fifty years, from the 1920s to the 1970s. His fortunes fluctuated widely with the public and critical community. Eclipsed during the 1960s, when his conservative idiom with its strong nationalistic stance was out of vogue, he and his work have gained increased scholarly, performance, and recording interest in recent decades, which have brought to the fore an entire generation of neglected American composers. Documenting and organizing Harris's complex oeuvre is the essential concern of the present book, and the catalogue of works and performances provides information on instrumentation, premieres, publication, and special aspects of each composition. Like the catalog, the discography is the most thorough ever assembled for Harris, and it also includes commentary on features of the recordings. The extensive annotated bibliography includes reference sources, scholarly works, general works, text sources, folksong sources, writings by Harris, and critical reviews. Works, recordings, and bibliography are carefully enumerated, cross-referenced, and indexed. An opening study of Harris's life, works, and style incorporates gleanings from an oral history collection recently made available. This research tool is an essential companion to any critical study of Harris and will provide a firm base on which future such studies can be developed.

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9780313250798

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?Roy Harris, born on February 12, 1898, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma, seemed at one time destined to be the standard bearer of American musical nationalism in this century. Upon his death in 1979, he left a substantial legacy of compositions, many of which manifest the symbols of Americanism (e.g., American folk tunes, Whitman's poetry, Lincoln's prose). Stehman has objectively drawn together a wealth of material in this well-organized volume based upon long scholarly and personal association with Harris. He has obviously studied carefully the 178 authentic works and brings to light numerous details of their performance history and various musical interrelationships. A lengthy bibliography of critical reviews with excerpts clearly outlines the Harris reception history and suggests that only a few works found essentially unqualified favor in early performances and that Harris's reputation suffered in his later years. Various other bibliographies (including references sources. scholarly writings, and general writings) in addition to a discography, works lists, and three indexes enrich this valuable resource, which is unlikely to be superseded. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections.?-Choice

Author Information

DAN STEHMAN is Professor of Music at Los Angeles Valley College. He has been studying the music of Roy Harris for nearly thirty years. He is author of the analytical work Roy Harris: An American Musical Pioneer, of a multi-volume Ph.D. dissertation on the Harris symphonies, of the Harris entry in the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, and of articles on the composer in various periodicals. He assisted in the founding of, and remains a consultant to, the Roy Harris Collection based at California State University, Los Angeles.

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