Just one piece of music tonight -
Lou Harrison,Symphony No.2 ("Elegiac")Published on Jan 4, 2014
The second symphony by Lou Harrison was completed in 1988 although the first sketches for it date back to 1942.It is the deaths of both his mother and his close friend and fellow composer Harry Partch in 1974 that really inform the emotional tone of this work, which incorporates materials from different phases of his career. It can be considered a summing up of his work and influences. The mixture of personal grief and Eastern spirituality that runs through the work is reflected in these comments he wrote about it, explaining the titles of the movements: "The angel of music, Israfel ('whose heartstrings are a lute' - Edgar Allan Poe') stands with his feet in the earth and his head in the sun. He will blow the last trumpet. Six times daily he looks down into hell and is so convulsed with grief that his tears would inundate the earth if Allah did not stop their flow."
BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Edwin Outwater.
