Lou Harrison has in his catalog a small but not inconsiderable number of works for string orchestra, and outside of the New First Suite of 1995 the three works featured on this Mode release, Lou Harrison for Strings, represents everything
Harrison originally conceived in this medium that he did not withdraw from public performance. The Concerto for pipa with string orchestra is performed by the redoubtable Wu Man, for whom it was written in 1997. This is possibly
Harrison's finest concerto, with strongly contrasting sections incorporating some traditional gestures characteristic to the pipa without allowing them to become the focus of the whole work. The Suite No. 2 for strings is a 1948 work written right after the composer suffered a major nervous breakdown -- the chaos of his internal world is confined to the discordant and highly contrapuntal middle movement, whereas the outer movements are more typical. The nine-movement Suite for symphonic strings was compiled in 1960 through combining three newly composed movements with six others written from 1936-1952; as a result many facets of
Harrison's somewhat schizoid musical personality are in evidenced in this one work.
This is the first recording of the New Professionals Orchestra, London under
Rebecca Miller, an ensemble that formed in the early 2000s. It does a splendid job in these largely unfamiliar works -- the only previous recording of the Suite No. 2 for strings was made way back in 1952 in a reduced version by the New Music String Quartet and the Suite for symphonic strings, while appearing on recordings twice before, is typically given in a re-arranged form with a movement dropped here and there; on the Mode disc the work is complete. Lou Harrison for Strings can be a very filling meal; the little Suite No. 2 for strings, barely longer than ten minutes, followed by the gigantic Suite for symphonic strings at nearly 40 can be a bit much to take at one sitting. So while it may not be the easiest way to get into the rarefied musical world of
Lou Harrison, already initiated admirers of this composer should expect nothing but pure pleasure from Lou Harrison for Strings.