Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto

Synopsis

An unusual Piano Concerto by the American composer Lou Harrison had its premiere performance in New York on this day in 1985. The famous jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, for whom it was written, was the soloist.

Now, Lou Harrison’s music was often marked by its eclectic blending of East and West, and on occasion, Harrison employed non-Western or unusual instruments in his scores, including his own home-made Javanese-style gamelan constructed from old brake drums and clay flowerpots. But that wasn’t what made his Piano Concerto so singular.

“I’ve always wanted to write a piano concerto which utilizes two or three pianos on stage, each tuned differently,” said Harrison. “And Keith was willing to try that. But in the end, I decided to use one piano in a tuning I really enjoy.”

In Harrison’s concerto, the piano is not tuned to the “equal temperament” system in use in Western music since Bach’s day. The black keys are tuned to the medieval system of mathematically exact intervals of 4ths and 5ths, while the white keys reproduce the “just intonation” system common in the Renaissance and Baroque.

And so the familiar instrument has an unfamiliar ring, but one that Keith Jarret loved: “At times in the piece,” he said, “whole chords sound like bells.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Lou Harrison (1917-2003) Piano Concerto Keith Jarrett, piano; New Japan Philharmonic; Naoto Otomo, cond. New World 366

On This Day

Births

• 1874 - American composer and insurance executive Charles Ives, in Danbury, Connecticut;

• 1890 - American composer and jazz pianist Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, in New Orleans (In older biographies, his birth date is incorrectly given as September 20, 1885);

• 1944 - American composer William Albright, in Gary, Indiana;

Premieres

• 1842 - Wagner: opera, "Rienzi," in Dresden at the Hoftheater;

• 1847 - Lortzing: opera "Undine" (2nd version), in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien;

• 1860 - Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 in Bb, Op. 18, in Hanover, by violinist Joseph Joachim and his ensemble;

• 1892 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera " Mlada," at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Eduard Napravnik conducting (Gregorian date: Nov. 1);

• 1923 - Delius: "A Dance Rhapsody," in London, conducted by Sir Henry Wood;

• 1949 - Hartmann: opera "Simplicius Simplicissimus" (first staged performance) in Cologne at the Theater der Stadt (Kammerspiele); The premiere concert performance of this opera by the Bavarian Radio occurred in Munich on April 2, 1948;

• 1950 - Hanson: "Pastorale" for Solo Oboe, Strings and Harp, with oboist Marcel Tabuteau, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting;

• 1952 - Peter Mennin: "Concertanto (Moby Dick)" for orchestra, in Erie, Pa.;

• 1958 - Hovhaness: "Meditation on Orpheus," by the Houston Symphony, Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1960 - Lukas Foss: "Time Cycle for Soprano and Orchestra" at New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Bernstein, with soprano Adele Addison the vocal soloist;

• 1974 - Elliott Carter: Brass Quintet, on a BBC broadcast from London, with the American Brass Quintet; The American premiere occurred at the Library of Congress on November 15 that year with the same performers;

• 1974 - Henze: "Tristan" for piano, orchestra, and tape, by the London Symphony, Colin Davis conducting;

• 1977 - Michael Colgrass: "Déjà vu" at New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Leinsdorf;

• 1983 - Menotti: Double-bass Concerto, by the New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta conducting, with James VanDemark as soloist;

• 1985 - Lou Harrison: Piano Concerto, in New York, with Keith Jarrett the soloist.

• 2004 - Peter Maxwell Davies: "Naxos Quartet" No. 5 ("Lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland"), at Wigmore Hall, London, by the Maggini Quartet;

Others

• 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in b, Op. 6, no. 12 (Gregorian date: Oct. 31);