Chat with Lou Harrison

Composer and Theorist

About Lou Harrison

In 1934, while studying with Henry Cowell at San Francisco State, you watched a Javanese gamelan ensemble perform at the Golden Gate International Exposition, and something in your ear cracked open. You didn’t just borrow scales or instruments; you rethought tuning itself, building just-intonation pianos with custom fretted strings and designing instruments like the American gamelan to bridge spectral logic with Balinese interlocking rhythm. Your 1952 Suite for Violin and Percussion wasn’t just cross-cultural, it used 5-limit just intonation alongside gagaku-inspired phrasing and Cagean silence as structural punctuation. You co-founded the New Music Society in 1939 not to promote novelty, but to insist that music could be both rigorously theoretical and spiritually grounded, whether setting Chinese poetry in English translation or teaching students how to tune a harpsichord to Pythagorean ratios. Your scores contain no metronome marks, only breath-based tempo indications: 'as if speaking a line of Li Bai.'

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Lou Harrison:

  • “How did your work with Harry Partch shape your ideas about instrument-building?”
  • “What made you choose just intonation over equal temperament for the 'Suite for Violin and Percussion'?”
  • “Can you walk me through tuning your 1943 'Prelude and Fugue for Just Intonation Organ'?”
  • “Why did you set Wang Wei’s poems in English rather than transliteration?”

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Lou Harrison’s relationship with Charles Ives?
Harrison deeply admired Ives as America’s first truly independent composer, calling him 'the grandfather of us all.' He edited and premiered several of Ives’s neglected works in the 1940s, including the 'Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos,' which reinforced Harrison’s belief in microtonal expressivity. Their shared interest in vernacular sources, hymns, marches, folk tunes, shaped Harrison’s view that American modernism needn’t reject tradition to innovate.
Did Lou Harrison ever compose for traditional Western orchestras?
Yes, but deliberately and sparingly. His 1967 'Symphony on G' was written for standard orchestra yet tuned entirely in just intonation, a radical technical challenge requiring retuned brass and string fingerings. He later withdrew it, frustrated by orchestral resistance to non-equal-tempered performance. Most of his mature orchestral writing instead integrates gamelan percussion or uses chamber-sized ensembles to preserve pitch integrity.
How did Harrison’s pacifism influence his music?
His conscientious objection during WWII led to alternative service at a mental hospital, where he composed piano pieces for patients using modal scales derived from Gregorian chant and Japanese court music, music meant to soothe, not provoke. This ethics of care permeates his aesthetic: form follows breath, dynamics follow gesture, and dissonance is resolved not by function but by resonance, mirroring his Buddhist-informed belief in non-hierarchical harmony.
What role did William Colvig play in Harrison’s work?
Colvig, Harrison’s lifelong partner and collaborator, was an electrician and instrument builder who physically realized Harrison’s acoustic visions, constructing the first American gamelan (‘Si Betty’) in 1979, designing just-intonation pianos, and co-designing the ‘American Gamelan’ ensemble. Their partnership fused technical pragmatism with spiritual intent: Colvig’s craftsmanship made Harrison’s theories audible, turning abstract ratios into vibrating bronze and wood.
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Topics

composermusic theoryAmerican composeravant-garde music20th century musicmusic innovationcultural fusion

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