Word: harbisons
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Every successful composer comes to a point when his career reaches a critical mass, when the awards, commissions and appointments snowball and the transformation from obscure academic to mainstream professional is complete. That time has arrived for John Harbison. The New Jersey native's reputation has been growing steadily, but two recent events should serve to give him greater recognition. Last month Harbison, 48, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music; this month his Symphony No. 2 received its world premiere in San Francisco. Prestigious as it is, the prize only certifies what many in musical circles were already aware...
...Harbison. His music is approachably tonal without being obvious; a Harbison tune is less a hummable melody than a strongly profiled motif designed to forward the musical argument, not seduce the ear. His structures are sturdy,his orchestration is crisp and clean. Yet this is not the dread "Princeton School" music of baleful repute, the arid note spinning that often characterizes the works of Ivy League composers like Milton Babbitt. Harbison, who as a teenager played jazz piano and who at Harvard led the Bach Society Orchestra, is an academic with a heart...
...piece, commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony for its 75th anniversary, is a 20-minute essay divided into four movements, each with a quotidian title: "Dawn," "Daylight," "Dusk" and "Darkness." Such tone painting is not surprising, for Harbison's music generally contains a strong theatrical element, reflected in his predilection for opera and song cycle. The symphony, however, is not some Americanized La Mer (whose first movement is titled "From Dawn to Noon on the Sea"); the sun may come up and the sun may go down, but it never sets on his cool rational spirit...
REPORTER- RESEARCHERS: Rosemary Byrnes, Ursula Nadasdy de Gallo, Brigid O' Hara- Forster, Victoria Sales (Department Heads); Audrey Ball, Bernard Baumohl, Peggy T. Berman, Val Castronovo, Nancy McD. Chase, Oscar Chiang, Georgia Harbison, Michael P. Harris, Anne Hopkins, Naushad S. Mehta, Nancy Newman, Jeanne- Marie North, Susan M. Reed, Elizabeth Rudulph, Alain L. Sanders, Zona Sparks, William Tynan, Susanne Washburn (Senior Staff); Wilmer Ames Jr., David Bjerklie, Elizabeth L. Bland, Kathleen Brady, Robert I. Burger, Howard G. Chua- Eoan, Tom Curry, Nelida Gonzalez Cutler, Sally B. Donnelly, Andrea Dorfman, Helen Sen Doyle, David Ellis, Kathryn Jackson Fallon, Mary McC. Fernandez, Cassie...
REPORTER- RESEARCHERS: Rosemary Byrnes, Ursula Nadasdy de Gallo, Brigid O' Hara- Forster, Victoria Sales (Department Heads); Audrey Ball, Bernard Baumohl, Peggy T. Berman, Val Castronovo, Nancy McD. Chase, Oscar Chiang, Georgia Harbison, Michael P. Harris, Anne Hopkins, Naushad S. Mehta, Nancy Newman, Jeanne- Marie North, Susan M. Reed, Elizabeth Rudulph, Alain L. Sanders, Zona Sparks, William Tynan, Susanne Washburn (Senior Staff); Wilmer Ames Jr., David Bjerklie, Elizabeth L. Bland, Kathleen Brady, Robert I. Burger, Howard G. Chua- Eoan, Tom Curry, Nelida Gonzalez Cutler, Sally B. Donnelly, Andrea Dorfman, Helen Sen Doyle, David Ellis, Kathryn Jackson Fallon, Mary McC. Fernandez, Cassie...