Henry Cowell / Lou Harrison- Split Release (CRI)

Henry Cowell/Lou Harrison-Split Release (CRI)

Notes excerpted from the back cover (enclosed):

"No other composer of our age has produced a body of work so radical and so normal,so penetrating and comprehensive" wrote Virgil Thomson of Henry Cowell , and his music embraces "a wider range in both expression and technique than that of any other living composer".

In the fall of 1956, Henry Cowell and his wife Shirley Robertson Cowell, set out on a world tour made possible through the cooperation of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Department of State and the United States Information Agency. It was the intention of the Cowell's to bring to people in other countries further knowledge of American music and to collect and study
the music of other cultures as well. Starting in Ireland, they travelled through Germany and on to Turkey,the Near East and finally India and Japan.

At the special invitation of the government of Iran, the Cowells spent the winter in Tehran. Intrigued bt the special qualities of the music he found there, Cowell decided to compose a work which would express something of the characteristic quality of Persian or Iranian music. Though he has long been interested in the folk expression of other countries, Cowell has never incorporated direct quotation into his works.


Lou Harrison's Suite was commisioned by the Ajemian sisters in 1951. P Glanville-Hicks has written ,among notes describing this suite, that "the Harrison Suite is one of the most delicate and lovely American works of recent years. The sheer grace and joyousness of his style - rememiscent of India - both sacred and secular modes - cannot fail to charm all who hear it".
"The opening Overture is an Allegro in a festive mood of rejoicing: the solo violin draws long, clean lines across a backdrop of piano, tack-piano, celesta, tam-tam (gong), and harp, playing in Gamelan style. Formally, this Overture, as indeed all six section=s of this Suite- is quantitative music; rather than climactic, though high tension points are reached by exciting handling of the melodic curve or by elaboration, and sometimes sudden simplification of the instrumentation. Such devices take the place of the constructed musical climax ot traditionl Western musical thought."

The succeeding movements alternate between elegiac pieces of hushed tranquility and more busy movements which Harrison calls "Gamelans". The slow and quiet sections have been compared to "the acute stillness of high altitudes and their utter removal from time and place". The Gamelans are brilliant with jangling sounds and suggestions of Classic Indonesian and Balinese music(...)

Notes by Oliver Daniel


















Henry Cowell - Persian Set (1957) Dedicated to His Excellency Mohamed Hejazi Malidowle
Four Movements for chamber orchestra

1-Moderato
1-Allegretto
3-Lento
4-Rondo

(Leopold Stowkowski and members of his Orchestra)

Lou Harrison - Suite For Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra (1951)

1-Overture;Allegro
2-Elegy;Adagio
3-First Gamelsn;Allegro
4-Aria;Lento espressivo
5-Second Gamelan;Allegro moderato
6-Chorale

(Leopold Stowkowski and his Orchestra
Anahid Ajemian,Violin
Maro Ajemian,Piano)

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