Varied Trio

American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003) grew up in San Francisco, and after spending many years in the East—living in New York City, studying avant-garde atonal theory, then teaching alongside John Cage at Black Mountain, NC—he returned to the West Coast. This marked a return in spirit to the pluralistic, free-ranging musical influences that he received in his earliest years. That pluralism was largely the result of San Francisco’s amazing ethnic diversity starting in the 1920’s and 30’s. Harrison’s personal musical connections reached across the spectrum, from Cage to Schoenberg to Ives, all of whom helped shape his eclecticism. The work on tonight’s program, Varied Trio, stems directly from Harrison’s friendship with noted percussionist William Winant, who was a longtime friend and student of Harrison’s. They worked together to build a gamelan at Mills College in 1980. Eastern influences run deep in the music he was writing at that time. One reviewer felt Varied Trio marked a peak in Harrison’s career: “Deceptively accessible, it flaunts the elegance of simplicity. Ever-humble, it rises to eloquence” (Daniel Cariaga, LA Times, May 4 1988). There is also a strong element of “art as play”—one of Harrison’s deepest personal beliefs—as well as an interest in “found” music. Alongside Cage, Harrison would scour antique and junk stores for anything that would ping, pop, ring, or make some kind of intriguing sound.
The opening movement, titled “Gending” (which simply means “Piece” in the Javanese gamelan tradition), is opulent and atmospheric to an extreme. Technically speaking, the movement is structured around a recurring five-note pitch pattern that appears at various rhythmic levels, thus condensed or expanded according to the composer’s whim. The pentatonic color will remind many of Debussy and musical impressionism, a musical style similarly drawn to the Far East. The second movement turns to India for one of Harrison’s most inventive uses of percussion. Here the “Bowl Bells” are eight rice bowls precisely tuned by adding different amounts of water to them; they are to be struck with bamboo sticks. Only the composer and performers may be aware of the complex, shifting rhythmic patterns at work here. As listeners, we are encouraged to “buy in” to the ever-changing kaleidoscope of pulses and textures. After an Elegy for solo cello and an homage to French painter Fragonard (both omitted from tonight’s performance), Trio closes with a modal and energetic “Dance.” The movement conjures up Bernstein and is athletic and tacitly choreographed. It borders on contemporary pop music with its focus on catchy melodic riffs. On one hand, it was inspired by the truly mundane: Harrison saw a set of pots hanging in a kitchen supply store in Santa Cruz and bought them to use in a percussive dance. On the other hand, “Dance” aptly expresses his most basic belief that music, at its core, is simply “melody with rhythmic support.”

(c) Jason Stell