Roy Harris (1898-1979) was born in a log cabin, in Lincoln County, OK, on Lincoln’s birthday – albeit 89 years later. If that doesn’t imbue a composer with a sense of destiny, I don’t know what will.
Harris went on to became one of our great American symphonists. In particular, his Symphony No. 3 of 1939 has been much beloved and frequently performed. Unfortunately, we don’t hear all that much of his music anymore. And that’s a damned shame.
Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network, as we celebrate these dual birthdays with a recording of Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 6. Subtitled “Gettysburg,” each of the symphony’s four movements bears a superscription taken from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
I. Awakening (“Fourscore and seven years ago…”);
II. Conflict (“Now we are engaged in a great civil war…”);
III. Dedication (“We are met on a great battlefield of that war…”);
IV. Affirmation (“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…).
Of course, it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t also hear Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” Copland lent Harris a helping hand by putting in a good word for him with his teacher, Nadia Boulanger. The piece is a stirring reminder of a time when America still produced articulate, conscientious, and compassionate statesmen. The great William Warfield will recite Lincoln’s words, from an out-of-print LP on the Mercury label. Warfield always did such a fine job with Copland’s “Old American Songs.”
At 6:00, it’s another “Music from Marlboro,” chamber music performances of works by Beethoven and Louis Spohr. We’ll see what else we can come up with, along the way.
You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. This man’s legs are long enough to reach the ground, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
