• Roy Harris
  • Symphony No. 3 (1938)

  • Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
  • 3332/4332/2timp.perc.vib.xyl/str
  • 18 min

Programme Note

Composer Note
Section I: Tragic — bow string sonorities.

Section II: Lyric — strings, horns, and woodwinds.

Section III: Pastoral — emphasizing woodwind color.

Section IV: Fugue — dramatic.
A. Brass — percussion predominating.
B. Canonic development of Section II material constituting background for further development of Fugue.
C. Brass Climax. Rhythmic motif derived from Fugue subject.

Section V: Dramatic — Tragic.
Restatement of Violin Theme Section I. Tutti strings in canon with tutti woodwinds. Brass and percussion develop rhythmic motif from climax of Section IV.

Materials
1. Melodic Contours — Diatonic — Polytonal.
2. Harmonic Textures — Consonance — Polytonal.

— Roy Harris

Media

Symphony No. 3

Scores

Reviews

…indisputably a “short symphony”, and a real discovery – the third of Roy Harris’s 18 symphonies. It is a strikingly original piece from 1939 whose continuous five-section structure seems to be modelled on that of Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony (while adding a touch of the unclouded modal string writing that opens his Sixth Symphony, too), yet is unmistakably American in its rangy themes with their tinge of yearning new deal optimism. It’s a taut, muscular and fiercely concentrated work…

Andrew Clements, The Guardian
4th March 2024

Discography

Title Unavailable
  • Label
    DGG
  • Catalogue Number
    DGG 419 780-2

More Info