Synopsis

In 1933, Aaron Copland introduced Roy Harris to Serge Koussevitzky, the famous conductor of the Boston Symphony in those days. Now, Koussevitzky was one of the great patrons of American music and was always looking for new American music and new American composers. Roy Harris had been described to him as an “American Mussorgsky,” which probably intrigued the Russian-born conductor.

When Koussevitzky learned that Harris had been born in a log cabin in Lincoln County, Oklahoma, on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, no less — well, perhaps he hoped the 41-year old Harris might produce music equally all-American in origin. “Write me a big symphony from the West,” asked Koussevitzky, and Harris responded with a three-movement orchestral work: Symphony, 1933, which had its premiere performance on today’s date in 1934 with the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky’s direction.

Koussevitzky loved it. “I think that nobody has captured in music the essence of American life — its vitality, its greatness, its strength — so well as Roy Harris,” enthused the famous conductor, who recorded the piece at Carnegie Hall in New York just one week after its premiere.

And it was Koussevitzky’s Boston Symphony that would subsequently premiere Harris’s Symphonies No. 2, 3, 5 and 6.

Music Played in Today's Program

Roy Harris (1898-1979): Symphony No. 1 (1933); Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor; Albany 012