(b nr Chandler, OK, 12 Feb 1898; dSanta Monica, CA, 1 Oct 1979). American composer. He was one of the most important figures in the establishment of an American symphonic music. His works reflect a broad historical and international frame of reference and, through the influence and occasional use of Anglo-American folktunes and other materials relating to the American ethos, convey a strong nationalist element as well.
DAN STEHMAN
Harris was reared under primitive conditions on land claimed in one of the rushes on the Oklahoma Panhandle. In 1930 the family moved to the San Gabriel (California) Valley, where Harris farmed with his father, eventually earning his own land. During his teens he shortened his given name to Roy. His first music instruction, on the piano, was from his mother; later he took up the clarinet. Harris recalled being profoundly affected by the sounds of nature and by train whistles echoing in the valley.
After graduating from high school in 1916, Harris studied at what is now UCLA (1917) and the University of California at Berkeley (1918, 1921), where he first attempted large-scale composition. During 1924–5 he studied with Arthur Farwell, who encouraged him to explore music from a fresh viewpoint and introduced him to Walt Whitman’s poetry, of which he later made numerous settings. Among his other early teachers and advisers were Clifford Demorest, Ernest Douglas, Alec Anderson, Fannie Charles Dillon, Henry Schoenfeld, Modeste Altschuler and Arthur Bliss. In 1926 he travelled east for the première of his Andante for orchestra, staying at the MacDowell Colony, where he met Copland, who encouraged him to study with Boulanger. He did so from 1926 to 1929, with financial assistance from Alma Wertheim and, in 1927 and 1929, Guggenheim fellowships (he received a third in 1975). Under Boulanger’s tutelage, he wrote the Concerto for piano, clarinet and string quartet, whose première in Paris established him as one of the more promising young American composers. The figures to whom he acknowledged the greatest debt during these years were Bach, Beethoven, and some of the great Renaissance polyphonists.
In 1929 he injured his spine in a fall and returned to the USA. Immobilized following surgery, he learned to compose away from the piano, refining his concepts of melody, harmony and texture. After convalescing he taught at Mills College and received a creative fellowship from the Pasadena Music and Art Association (both 1931–2). His first national recognition came through Koussevitzky, for whom he wrote his first symphony, the ‘Symphony 1933’. In 1934 he joined the Juilliard summer faculty and met Beula Duffey, a young Canadian pianist and faculty colleague. They were married in October 1936 (Harris had had three previous marriages, the first producing a daughter, Jean, and an extramarital liaison resulting in a son, Phillip Barrett). The composer renamed his bride Johana, after J.S. Bach. The couple had five children between 1943 and 1957.
Johana often served as technical consultant on her husband’s piano writing, assisting in rendering it more idiomatic and, in the case of a very few works, even suggesting keyboard textures or expanding on designs established by the composer (e.g. in the American Ballads and the Fantasy for organ, brass and timpani). She also contributed valuable help in revisions of piano parts. However, Louise Spizizen's claims (1993) that her contributions went further, to the point of composing under her husband's name, are unsupported by stylistic evidence or by the considerable body of materials that has so far come to light.
Harris taught briefly at Mills College (1933). Following his association with Mills College, Harris held positions at the Westminster Choir School (later College; 1934–38) and Juilliard (summers only, 1934–38). He also held positions with Cornell University (1941–43), the Colorado College (1943–8), the Utah State Agricultural College (1948–9), the Peabody College for Teachers (1949–50), Pennsylvania College for Women [Chatham College] (1951–6), Southern Illinois University (1956–7), Indiana University (1957–60), the Universidad Interamerican de Puerto Rico (San Germán, 1960–61), UCLA (1961–70), the University of the Pacific (1963–4) and California State University, Los Angeles (1970–76). Among his best known pupils were William Schuman and Peter Schickele. His teaching was idiosyncratic, involving adaptations of the church modes and examinations of individual compositions, including his own work in progress.
Besides teaching, he supported the Composers’ Forum-Laboratory (established 1935) and organized numerous music festivals, the most ambitious being the 1952 Pittsburgh International Festival of Contemporary Music. He also founded the International Congress of Strings in 1959, served as chief of music programming for the overseas branch of the Office of War Information (1945–8), and visited the USSR in a delegation of American composers sponsored by the US State Department (1958).
Harris was assertive, bold and earthy in temperament, capable of both great anger and robust humour. His behaviour was also sometimes erratic and some who knew him saw marked mood swings. This has led a few observers to conclude that he suffered from bipolar disorder. While a member of the family was indeed treated for this ailment, the composer himself was never officially examined for or diagnosed with it, and such claims must remain unproven.
Although Harris’s popularity declined during the 1950s and 1960s, interest in him revived during his last years. In 1973, the Roy Harris Archive was established at California State University, Los Angeles, and in 1979 a Roy Harris Society was formed to promote performances, recordings, publications and research, achieving success in some of these areas during its short life.
Harris composed over 200 works in a wide variety of genres, but his symphonies and chamber music have earned the highest regard. Characterized by broad, at times rhetorical, gestures and visionary aspiration, these works contain some of his most striking music as well as characteristic flaws.
Possibly Harris’s most significant contribution to the symphonic literature was his exploration of the single-movement form. Four of his symphonies (nos. 3, 7, 8 and 11) employ this design, most containing recurring melodic ideas that help create unity. In his multi-movement symphonies the tempos and characters of the individual movements sometimes correspond with those of the Classical model, though the forms often differ. The Third Symphony is the best known, but nos. 4, 6, 7 and 8 are, in their individual ways, of equal or superior stature. Nearly all the shorter orchestral and band works bear descriptive titles. They are uneven in quality, but the finest, such as Chorale for strings, Epilogue to Profiles in Courage–JFK, Kentucky Spring, Memories of a Child’s Sunday, Ode to Friendship, Symphonic Epigram, Time Suite and When Johnny Comes Marching Home, contain many felicities and skilful craftsmanship.
Harris’s chamber compositions tend to be more intensively polyphonic than the orchestral works, with greater characterization of the individual parts. Most are for strings, from which the composer sometimes demanded an almost orchestral sonority. The most substantial works include the Piano Quintet, the String Quartets nos.2 and 3, the Violin and Violoncello Sonatas, and Soliloquy and Dance for viola and piano. The Quintet, in three interconnected movements based largely on a single theme, has an expansive breadth of architecture and great intensity of expression; the Third Quartet, a set of preludes and fugues on modal subjects, exemplifies Harris’s individual approaches to modality and traditional counterpoint.
In his concertante works Harris did not always fully exploit the idiomatic resources of the solo instruments; nevertheless, he sometimes created works of depth and polish, such as the Fantasy for piano and orchestra and the Two-Piano Concerto, sometimes using a one-movement form incorporating variation procedures. His small number of solo piano works includes a group of folksong arrangements, American Ballads. The Piano Sonata (1928) exhibits the lean textures, angular lines, rhythmic complexity and grandeur that mark his early works.
Choral compositions form an important part of Harris’s output. His early efforts are somewhat instrumental in nature, with occasionally awkward prosody, but many of the pieces written as he matured reveal sensitivity and practicality gained from experience in writing for both amateur and professional groups. Notable are the Symphony for Voices and the ‘Folksong’ Symphony (no.4); the former features some affecting onomatopoetic writing and one of the great 20th century choral fugues, while the latter reveals a high level of technical skill and demonstrates colourful variety in its symphonic treatment of ethnically diverse folksong materials. The vocal works also comprise a few exquisitely crafted and deeply expressive songs (notably a setting of Sandburg’s Fog) and some substantial solo cantatas. Of these, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight and Give me the Splendid Silent Sun’, (fig.2) represent a peak in his creativity, craftsmanship (especially in the integration of contrasts within gradually unfolding large structures) and handling of prosody.
Harris showed little affinity with the theatre or film, finding it difficult to reconcile his autogenetic technique with sudden changes of scene and character or the musical depiction of specific actions. But the ballet From this Earth and the film score One-Tenth of a Nation contain many distinctive ideas and textures, and amplify the emotional resonance of the underlying drama affectingly.
Harris’s melodies, in their contours, modality and flexibility of phrase structure, owe a debt to monophonic chant, Renaissance choral polyphony, Anglo-American folk music, African-American spirituals and early Protestant hymnody. He employed a ‘polytonal’ adaptation of the church modes, in which melodic phrases are often based on a combination of different modes built on the same tonic, this providing varying ‘inflections’ of scale degrees.
His harmonic idiom is based on the overtone series. The most important intervals were for him the perfect 4th and 5th (his ‘organum’ sonorities). The earliest surviving compositions, however, at times suggest the influence of Franck and Skryabin, possibly owing to his studies in France. During the 1930s he pared his vocabulary to the major and minor triads, from the mid-1940s these generally being used in polychords for which he developed a classification within a harmonic spectrum ranging from ‘savage dark’ to ‘savage bright’. He ranked the harmonies on the spectrum according to the degrees to which the notes of the upper polychordal member are reinforced by the overtones of the lowest note of the lower member, and also used the overtone series to rank the three positions of a triad. His chord movement is founded on an extended set of relationships derived from the dominant and subdominant areas of a given tonal centre by means of common-tone connections. Root movement is often by 3rds, though 4ths, 5ths and 2nds also appear, particularly at cadences. He believed that ‘harmony should represent what is in the melody, without being enslaved by the tonality in which the melody lies’. Thus one sometimes experiences a tension between the harmonic implications of the melody, with its prevailing modal mixtures, and the supporting chords. Harris also regarded harmony as having three functions: in the archictecture of tonalities, for the delineation of melodies and for dynamic resonance.
In Harris’s rhythmic style, slow, lyrical passages generally begin with long notes and gradually introduce smaller values, which eventually prevail; fast music usually features a more even distribution of note-values within phrases and sometimes employs asymmetrical metres. Phrase length is fluid.
The fundamental formal principle in Harris’s music is autogenesis, by which a melody is generated by a seed motif out of which the first phrase grows, each succeeding phrase either germinating in like fashion or launching itself from a figure in the last bars of the preceding phrase. His aim was to produce an effect of gradual organic growth, and thus the music often unfolds additively in blocks of gradually differing textures. Though some of the livelier music contains sharp contrasts, these are difficult to manage within the principles of his formal aesthetics, and occasionally seem awkward and unsupported by strong musical logic. Other forms and procedures Harris used are theme and variations, fugue (often a hybrid fugue-variation type) and ternary form (either ABA or ABC), these designs reconciled with his autogenetic precepts.
In the treatment of polyphony, the early works, indebted to traditional practice, sometimes seem contrived, producing awkward harmonic results. In his mature idiom, the counterpoint emerges from a clearer harmonic background. However, he sometimes succumbed to the use of bland arpeggiations in creating his lines and did not always succeed in achieving a sense of rhythmic independence among the parts.
Harris’s orchestration is clear, even lean in his early scores, with little doubling of parts. Motifs and figurations are idiomatically conceived for the instruments. His layout is generally conventional, but in some scores from the 1940s on he used saxophones, baritone horn and a grouping of piano, harp, chimes and vibraphone that provided a bell-like chordal punctuation. In addition to his orchestral achievements, Harris was a pioneer in exploring the resources of the concert band. Overall, he preferred to score in discrete choirs. He treated the strings especially flexibly, allotting them both extensive melodic and accompanimental functions, usually with a complete harmonic texture. An increasing use of divisi during the 1940s and 1950s imparts a growing lushness to the sound. In his brass writing, he often liked to play off the ‘sharp-tone’ instruments (trumpets and trombones) against the ‘round-tone’ ones (horns, baritone horn, tuba).
In addition to his use of folktunes in arrangements and as thematic materials, other Americanist traits in Harris’s music are his employment of popular dance rhythms and elements of jazz, and his partiality to such figures as Whitman and Lincoln. Many of his compositions are programmatic, based on folk legends, the American social scene, or celebrating patriotic occasions; for much of his career he tended to depict in such music an idealized vision of America, but later he tempered this with a great awareness of contemporary problems, sometimes engaging in biting social commentary to express his commitment to racial equality and justice.
He was a prodigious reviser and self-borrower, reworking themes, even entire compositions, in creating new pieces. This resulted from a sometimes wavering technique and a lack of firm self-criticism when composing (though he could be ruthless once a work was finished). His music reveals a dual nature: there is the extrovert, ‘civic’ composer whose music suggests, especially through its steady, organic growth, a visionary aspiration marked by large gestures and great thematic expanses. There is also the miniaturist: here Harris is sometimes more successful than in his larger efforts; in many of the unaccompanied choral pieces and short piano compositions, his technique appears more assured, the means more concise than elsewhere.
Harris’s stature is still a matter for debate. He is difficult to evaluate when only a tiny portion of his music is performed and the scores of most of his works are not readily accessible, though an increase in recording activity in recent years has begun to remedy this. Some observers believe he failed to fulfil his early promise, suffering an arrested technical and stylistic development, while others perceive an increasing mastery of technique and a growing sophistication (sometimes at the expense of raw originality and vitality of the earlier works) as his career unfolded. No doubt controversy will continue, for the musicality, breadth of vision and generosity of impulse that form his best music assure him long-term recognition.
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One-Tenth of a Nation (film score), A, chbr ens, 1940; rec. New York, cAug 1940 |
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From this Earth (ballet, 5 scenes), chbr en, 1941; Colorado Springs, 7 Aug 1941 |
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Namesake (A Theatre Dance) (ballet, 9 scenes), vn, pf, 1942; Colorado Springs, 8 Aug 1942, 4 movts pubd as 4 Charming Little Pieces, vn, pf |
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What so Proudly we Hail (Dance Suite Based on American Folk Songs) (ballet, 5 scenes), wordless vv, str, pf, 1942, scene 4 lost; Colorado Springs, 8 Aug 1942 |
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Ballet on the Subject of War [? = Walt Whitman Suite, seechoral] |
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Turn on the Night (Crocodile Smile) (incid music, J. Lawrence, R.E. Lee), chbr ens, 1961; Philadelphia, 7 Aug 1961 |
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Andante 1925, rev. 1926 [for projected sym. ‘Our Heritage’]; American Portrait 1929, sym., 1929, rev. 1931; Concert Piece, 1930 or 1932; Andantino, 1931, rev. 1932; Toccata 1931; Ov. ‘From the Gayety and Sadness of the American Scene’, 1932; Sym. 1933 (Sym. no.1), 1933; Sym. no.2, 1934; When Johnny Comes Marching Home (An American Ov., 1934, rev.; Farewell to Pioneers: a Sym. Elegy, 1935; Prelude and Fugue, 1936, rev.; Time Suite, 1937, movts 2–4 extracted as 3 Sym. Essays; Sym no.3, 1938, rev. 1938; American Sym., 1938, inc.; Prelude and Fugue, 4 tpt, 1939 [arr. of Prelude and Fugue no.1 from Str Qt no.3] |
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American Creed, 1940; Acceleration, 1941, rev. 1941; Ode to Truth, 1941; 3 Pieces, 1941 [nos. 1 and 3 from Folksong Sym.], no.2 extracted as Evening Piece; Work, 1941; Fanfare for the Forces, c1942; Folk Rhythms of Today, 1942; Sym. no.5, 1942, rev.; March in Time of War, 1943; Sym. no.6 ‘Gettysburg’, 1944 |
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Chorale, 1944; Ode to Friendship, 1944, rev. c1945; Memories of a Child’s Sunday, 1945, rev.; Mirage, 1945; Variation on a Theme by Goossens, 1945 [Variation 7 of 10, each by a different composer]; Children’s Hour, 1946; Celebration Variations on a Timp Theme from Howard Hanson’s Third Sym., 1946; Melody, 1946; Radio Piece, pf, orch, 1946; The Quest, 1947; Kentucky Spring, 1949; Cumberland Conc. for Orch, 1951; Sym. no.7, 1952, rev. 1955; Sym. Epigram, 1954; Sym. Fantasy, 1954; Ode to Consonance, 1956; Elegy and Dance, 1958, rev.; Sym. no.8 ‘San Francisco’, 1962; Sym. no.9, 1962; These Times, pf, small orch, 1963; Epilogue to Profiles in Courage–JFK, 1964, rev. 1964 |
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Horn of Plenty, 1964; Salute to Youth, 1964; Rhythms and Spaces, 1965 [arr. of 3 Vars. on a Theme (Str Qt no.2)]; Sym. no.11, 1967 |
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Sad Song, jazz band [mvt 2 of inc. American Sym., perf. independently], 1938; Cimarron, sym. ov., 1941; When Johnny Comes Marching Home, 1941; Rhythms of Today, 1942, rev., arr. L. Intravaia), c1946; Conflict (War Piece), 1944; Sun and Stars, 1944; Fruit of Gold, 1949; Dark Devotion, 1950; Kentucky Jazz Piece, 1950; Sym. ‘West Point’, 1952; Ad majorem gloriam Universitatis Illinorum, tone poem, 1958; Bicentennial Aspirations, 1976, inc. |
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Conc., pf, str, 1936 [arr. of Pf Qnt]; Conc. V, 1938, scoring inc., withdrawn; Conc., pf, band, 1942; Chorale, org, brass, 1943; Fantasia, band, pf, 1943; Conc no.1, pf, 1944; Toccata, org, brass, 1944; Conc., 2 pf, orch, 1946; Theme and Vars., acc, orch, 1947; Elegy and Paean, va, orch, 1948; Vn Conc., 1949; Fantasy, pf, ‘Pops’ orch, c1951; Conc. no.2, pf, 1953; Fantasy, orch, pf, 1954; Fantasy, org, brass, tim, 1964; Conc. amp pf, brass, dbs per 1968; movt 1 lost, movts 2-3 released as Concert Piece |
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With orch/band: Challenge 1940 (Harris, US Constitution), Bar, SATB, orch, 1940; Folksong Sym. (Sym. no.4) (US trad., P.S. Gilmore [L. Lambert]), 1940, 1942; Railroad Man’s Ballad (T.L. Siebert, after ragtime ballad Casey Jones), SATB, orch, 1941; Freedom’s Land (A. MacLeish), Bar, SATB, orch, 1941, also for male vv, band, 2 versions, 1942; Sammy’s Fighting Sons (Harris), unison vv, orch, 1942, pubd as Sons of Uncle Sam, unison vv, pf; Rock of Ages (trad.), SATB, orch, 1944; Take the Sun and Keep the Stars (Harris), unison vv, band, 1944, arr. band, 1944, fs lost [Official Battle Anthem of the Second Army Air Force] |
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Blow the Man Down (US trad., A. Tennyson), Ct, Bar, SATB, orch, 1946; Red Cross Hymn (Harris), chorus, band, c1951; The Hustle with the Muscle (Harris), male vv, band, 1957; Sym. no.10 ‘Abraham Lincoln’ (Harris, Lincoln), speaker, SATB, brass, 2 pf, perc, 1965, movts 1-3 rev. unison vv, pf, 1965, rev., SATB, orch, 1967, lost; The Brotherhood of Man (Declaration of Independence, Lincoln), SATB, orch, 1966; Whether this Nation (Harris, S. Harris, MacLeish), SATB, band, 1971; America, We Love your People (Harris), SATB, band, 1975; Bicentennial Sym. 1976 (Sym. no.13) (US Constitution, Harris, Lincoln), SATB, orch, 1975–6 |
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With insts: Fantasy (Sp.-Amer. trad.), SATB, str trio, c1925, lost; Song Cycle (W. Whitman), female vv, 2 pf, 1927; Freedom’s Land (MacLeish), unison vv/1v, pf, 1941; Our Fighting Sons (Harris), unison vv, brass, pf, org, timp, c1943–4; Walt Whitman Suite, SATB, str qt, pf, 1944; Alleluia (Motet for Easter), SATB, brass, org, 1945, rev. SATB, org, 1946, rev. SATB, str, org, 1947; Mic chomocho (Moshe uvnay Yisroel) (Bible), T/Bar, SATB, org, 1946 |
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They say that Susan has no heart for learning (Harris), SSA, pf, 1947, rev. Bar, SSA, pf, 1953; Mass (Ordinarium Missum) male vv, org, 1948; Remember November (Election Day is Action Day) (F. Shorring), unison vv, pf 4 hands, 1952, rev. Bar/spr, male vv, pf, 1952; Pep Song (R. Zetler), unison vv, pf, 1955, lost; Each Hand has Need (?Harris), SATB/SATB, org, c1956 |
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Folk Fantasy for Festivals (Bible, Ainsworth Psalter, US trad., Harris), folk singers, solo vv, spks, SSAATTBB, pf, 1956; Our Tense and Wintry Minds (H. Carruth), unison vv, org, 1956; Read, Sweet, how Others Strove (E. Dickinson), SATB, org, 1956; Jubilate for Worship (Alleluia, single-word text) SATB, brass, pf, perc, 1964; Peace and Goodwill to All (Peace and Goodwill to All: single-phrase text), SATB, brass, org, perc, 1970 |
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Unacc.: A Song for Occupations (Whitman), 1934; Sym. for Voices (Whitman), 1935; Sanctus, 1937; When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Gilmore [Lambert]), 1937; He’s gone away (US trad.), 1938; Whitman Triptych, 1938; A Red-Bird in a Green Tree (trad.), 1940; Choral Fanfare (G. Taggard), 1939; Ps xxxii, harmonized late 1930s, rev. G. Lynn as Gethsemane (W. Wilcox), 1933; To Thee, Old Cause (Whitman), 1941; year that Trembled (Whitman), 1941; Freedom’s Land (MacLeish), male vv/female vv, pf/org ad lib/SATB, 1941 |
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Freedom, Toleration (The Open Air I Sing) (Whitman), 1941; The Bird’s Courting Song (US trad.), 1942; Work Song (railroad work song), B-Bar, SATB, 1943; A War Song of Democracy (Harris), unison vv, c1942, lost; Li’l boy named David (spiritual), 1943; Cindy (US trad.), 1949; If I had a ribbon bow (US trad.), 1949; Ps cl, 1957 |
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Impressions of a Rainy Day, str qt, 1925, lost; Conc., pf, cl, str qt, 1926; str qt no.1, 1929; Conc., 2 vn, 2 va, 2 vc, 1932; Fantasy, wind int, pf, 1932; Three Vars. on a Theme (Str Qt no.2), 1933; 4 Minutes–20 Seconds, fl, str qt, 1934; Pf Trio, 1934; Poem, vn, pf, 1935, lost |
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Pf Qnt 1936; Str qt no.3 (4 Preludes and Fugues), 1937; Soliloquy and Dance, va, pf, 1938; Str Qnt, 1940; 4 Charming Little Pieces, vn, pf 1942 [from ballet Namesake]; Sonata, vn, pf, 1941; Lyric Studies, solo ww, pf, 1950; Sonata vc, pf, 1964, rev. 1968, rev. as Duo, 1975; Childhood Memories of Ocean Moods, pf, str qt, db, 1966, rev. 1967 |
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Evening Song (Tennyson), 1v, pf, 1940; La Primavera (Sp.-Amer. trad.), 1v, pf, 1940; Freedom’s Land (MacLeish), 1v/unison vv, pf, 1941, [alsochoral]; ‘Waitin’ (Harris), 1v, pf, 1941; Lamentation (textless), S, va, pf, 1944; Take the Sun and the Stars (Official Battle Anthem of the Second Army Air Force) (Harris), 1v, pf, 1944; Fog (Sandburg), 1v pf, 1945; Wedding Song (K. Gibran), B, str trio, org, 1947 |
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Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (cant., V. Lindsay), Mez, pf trio, 1954; Give me the Splendid Silent Sun (cant., Whitman), Bar, orch, 1955, rev. 1956; Canticle of the Sun (cant., St Francis), S, 11 isnts, 1961; Sweet and Low (Tennyson), 1v, pf, 1962; Sym. no.12 ‘Pere Marquette’ (Lat. mass, Bible), T/spr, orch, 1968, rev. 1969; Cantata to Life (K. Gibran), S, wind, perc, db, 1973; Rejoice and Sing (Bible, Whitman), B, str qt, pf, 1976, arr. Mez, str qt, pf, 1977 |
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Pf: Sonata, 1928, rev.; Little suite, 1938; Suite in 3 Movts, 1939–c1942; American Ballads, 2 sets, 1942–5; True Love Don’t Weep (Vars. on an Amer. Folk Song), c1944; Toccata, 1949 [based on withdrawn 1939 Toccata] |
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Org: Chorale, 1946 [arr. G. Lynn from Conc., str sextet, 1938; F. Tulon, 1964; ?J. Kirkpatrick, pf 4 hands]; Alleluia (Motet for Easter), arr. 1946; Etudes for Pedals, 1964, rev. 1972 |
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J.S. Bach: The art of the Fugue, str qt, 1934, collab. M.D.H. Norton [omits canons and 2 fugues] |
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J.S. Bach: 5 Chorales: Bestir Thyself, 2 In dulci jubilo, 3 Joyful Sing, 4 O God, Thou Holy God, 5 O God Enthroned, chorus, band, early 1940s |
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J.S. Bach: Organ Preludes: 1 Komm, Gott, Schöpfer, heiliger Geist, 2 Christ lag in Todesbanden, 3 Das alte Jahr vergangen ist, 4 Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, 5 In dulci jubilo, pf, collab. J. Harris, c1946 |
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J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugues532, pf, collab. J. Harris |
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J.S. Bach: Fl Sonata no.1: Largo, wind qnt, 1932, lost |
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J.S. Bach: ‘48’, i: Prelude and Fugue no 16, small orch 1932 |
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F. Couperin: 4 Pieces, wind qnt, 1932, lost |
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S. Foster: Old Black Joe, SATB, c1938 |
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J.B. Lully: 2 operatic numbers, S, str orch, pf, 1934 |
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J.J. Niles: The Story of Norah, SATB, 1933 |
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J.S. Smith: The Star-Spangled Banner, str qt, 1941–2 |
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M.J. Hill: Happy Birthday, 1951 [for Mary Zimbalist] |
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J. Sweelinck: Fantasia, d, orch, mid-1930s |
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4 songs orchd for Shaun Harris Record Album, 1973 |
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MSS in US-LAcs, Wc, NYpl |
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Principal publishers: Associated, Belwin-Mills, C. Fischer, Golden, T. Presser, G. Schirmer, Shawnee, Warner, EMI |
R. Harris and J. Evanson, eds.: Singing Through the Ages (New York, 1940) [anthology]
Various edns of choral works by P. Dumonte, H. Hassler, R. Lahmer, C. LeJeune, A. Lotti, G. Lynn, G. Pitoni, I. Strom, J. Sweelinck, G. Verdi, c1935–45, some lost
P. Rosenfeld: An Hour with American Music (Philadelphia, 1929), 117–25
A. Farwell: ‘Roy Harris’, MQ, xviii (1932), 18–32
H. Cowell: ‘Roy Harris’, American Composers on American Music: a Symposium (New York, 1933/R), 64–9
W. Piston: ‘Roy Harris’, MM, xii (1934–5), 73–83
P.H. Reed: ‘Roy Harris: American Composer’, American Music Lover, iii (1938), 406–10
R. Harris: ‘Perspectives at Forty’, Magazine of Art, xxxii (1939), 638–9, 667–71
R. Harris: ‘Folksong: American Big Business’, MM, xviii (1940–41), 8–11; repr. in E. Schwartz and B. Childs, eds.: Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music (New York, 1967), 160–64
A. Copland: The New Music (New York, 1941, rev. 2/1968 as Our New Music), 118–26
R. Evett: ‘The Harmonic Idiom of Roy Harris’, MM, xxiii (1946), 100–07
N. Slonimsky: ‘Roy Harris’, MQ, xxxiii (1947), 17–37
N. Slonimsky: Roy Harris: Cimarron Composer (MS, CLU-MUS, 1951)
R. Harris: ‘Composing: an Art and a Living’, Music Journal, xi/1 (1953), 31, 78
G. Chase: America’s Music: from the Pilgrims to the Present (New York, 1955, rev. 3/1987), 570–71, 574–8
R. Sabin: ‘Roy Harris: Still Buoyant as Composer and Teacher’, Musical America, lxxvii/2 (1957), 17, 24–5
M. Evans: Dialogues I and II (MS, CLS, c1968) [interviews]
P. Ashley: ‘Roy Harris’, Stereo Review, xxi/6 (1968), 63
D. Stehman: The Symphonies of Roy Harris: an Analysis of the Linear Materials and of Related Works (diss., U. of Southern California, 1973)
L.C. Gibbs and D. Stehman: ‘The Roy Harris Revival’, American Record Guide, xlii (1979), no.7, p.8; no.8, p.4
Roy Harris: a Life in Music, BBC documentary, dir. P. Bartlett (1980)
H. Gleason and W. Becker: ‘Roy Harris’, 20th-Century American Composers, Music Literature Outlines, ser. iv (Bloomington, IN, rev. 2/1981), 92 [incl. further bibliography]
W.D. Curtis: ‘Roy Harris (1898–1979): a Discography’, Journal [Association for Recorded Sound Collections], xiii/3 (1982), 60–79; repr. and rev. in D. Stehman: Roy Harris: a Bio-Bibliography (New York, 1991)
D. Stehman: Roy Harris: an American Musical Pioneer (Boston, 1984)
D. Stehman and L.C. Gibbs: ‘Roy Harris’, Ovation v/6 (1984–5), 14–19
D. Stehman: Roy Harris: a Bio-Bibliography (New York, 1991)
L. Spizizen: ‘Johana and Roy Harris: Marrying a Real Composer’, MQ, xxvii (1993), 579–606; see also response by D. Stehman, MQ, lxxviii (1994), 637–9
American Creed: the Art of Roy Harris, radio documentary, produced E. Blair (Washington DC, 1998)