Jon Gallant quotes a Mysterious Somebody:

> "Disc 4 starts with music by Roy Harris, whom Copland displaced,
> although Roy never stopped wrapping himself and his music in the
> flag.  Before his death in 1979 he had composed 15 or so symphonies,
> three of which (Nos.  3, 5 and 7) inhabit the perimeter of the
> repertoire.  The best known and arguably the best written, albeit
> flawed, is the single-movement Third, which Bernstein recorded
> twice with the NYP, but conducted with greater urgency in 1957---a
> performance preserved here.  LB couldnt -- nobody ever could --
> make it move inevitably toward a destination; Harris always spun
> his wheels.  But the procession of gestures in this Third Symphony
> are handsome counterfeits of forward motion."

I'd agree with this about Harris at his worst, but the Third is hardly
his worst.  For me, it moves like gangbusters, as do several other
symphonies - 5, 7, 8, and 9 (of the ones I've heard).  I don't know, of
course, in the absence of information, what the writer means by moving
"inevitably toward a destination," but I suspect that Harris's technique
of continual variation seems to require a commitment to attention.  You
can't let your attention wander, as you can, for example, in Beethoven.
You'd miss things, of course, but you can almost always pick up Beethoven's
thread again.   This is less possible with Harris.

Steve Schwartz