Lasting just over half an hour and cast in four movements, Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto (1983-85) profitably quarries the same stylistic seam so endearingly pursued by his Third Symphony of 1982 (MusicMaster, 5/95), enshrining as it does a personable and intriguing fusion of East and West (born in Portland, Oregon in 1917, Harrison has long regarded himself as a ‘Pacific Rim’ composer). The fluent, undulatory manner of the concerto’s well-proportioned opening Allegro forms a vivid contrast with the thoroughly exhilarating rhythmic swagger which permeates the outer portions of the succeeding ‘Stampede’ (Harrison’s own derivation of the medieval dance-form known as the estampie), the solo part chock full of bracingly dissonant, Ivesian cluster-chords. Next comes the Largo slow movement, an achingly beautiful meditation, memorably serene yet sturdy, too (even at its most contemplative, Harrison’s music always has a backbone as well as an enviable sense of purpose about it). A concise finale rounds off a work as communicative as it is rewarding.
Joanna MacGregor performs with her customary effortless brilliance and blistering commitment to the cause, and she receives enthusiastic, nicely turned support from the Sydney SO under Sian Edwards. The sound is excellent.
I should also add that the catalogue still lists Keith Jarrett’s marginally less polished, but if anything even more charismatic concert performance from 1986 on New World Records. It, too, retails at full price, but comes with a coupling in the shape of the likeable, much earlier Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra from 1951. Over to you!'