The four works collected here span much of Lou Harrison's long career, dating from 1939 to 1987. Interestingly, the oldest and newest pieces are both scored for flute and percussion. The First Concerto for Flute & Percussion, written when Harrison was 22, presciently evokes the aural images of the gamelan that the composer only fully embraced a decade later. The concerto shows the influence of the maverick Henry Cowell, with whom Harrison studied. Its simplicity, made brazenly obvious by the use of only melody and rhythm, ...
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The four works collected here span much of Lou Harrison's long career, dating from 1939 to 1987. Interestingly, the oldest and newest pieces are both scored for flute and percussion. The First Concerto for Flute & Percussion, written when Harrison was 22, presciently evokes the aural images of the gamelan that the composer only fully embraced a decade later. The concerto shows the influence of the maverick Henry Cowell, with whom Harrison studied. Its simplicity, made brazenly obvious by the use of only melody and rhythm, with no significant harmonic component, sets Harrison apart as a visionary. The music's individuality and charming quirkiness are reflected in the composer's interpretive directions, for example, "Earnest, fresh, and fastish," for the first movement. The piece was also remarkable at that time for the extent to which it engaged the performer in the compositional process. Harrison wrote only the pitches and general directions about the mood of each movement, leaving the dynamics,...
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