When working on a piece of music, says Roy Harris, "the composer must have hold of something that concerns him above all else. It must bug him, must wake him up at 3 in the morning." What bugged Harris as he was writing his Eleventh Symphony was "the restlessness, apprehension, frustration, anger, hate that permeate our world the sense that a new era is upon us. It is hard to describe in words."
Unfortunately, it is also hard to describe in music. Harris' symphony, given its world première in Manhattan last week...
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