After his return to California,
Harriss music became more polyphonic. In 1933, his first symphonyin response
to an appeal by conductor and champion of new American music Serge Koussevitzky
for a great symphony from the [American] westbrought Harris to national attention,
and Koussevitzky commissioned him to write two subsequent symphonies. The singlemovement
third symphony (1937) became Harriss most popular and frequently performed
work. Harris wrote fifteen symphonies, sometimes calling for a variety of instrumental
forces beyond the standard symphonic instrumentationsuch as West Point Symphony
(1952), which includes a band. Other symphonies have programmatic titles as
well: Gettysburg, San Francisco, and, for his last work, the Bicentennial
Symphony (197576), written as a tribute to Americas 200th birthday. Harris
forged an American idiom by combining folksong melodies and modalities with
European contrapuntal techniques. His open textures and often easygoing quality
have been described as evocative of broad American landscapes and the expanse
of the western plains. It [his music] has the energy of a young country looking
into the future rather than living in past glories, observed the venerable
commentator Milton Cross (best remembered for his hosting of the Saturday afternoon
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts). It has American optimism, enthusiasm
and zest.
Harriss association with folksong
collectors and singers such as John and Alan Lomax and Woody Guthrie resulted
in a number of works based on American folk traditions. His choral oeuvre
includes a dramatic chamber work, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (1953),
based on the poem by Vachel Lindsay, and several religious works, including
a Mass setting for mens voices (1947).
Harris was a professor and composer-in-residence
at U.C.L.A. throughout the 1960s, and he taught at California State University,
Los Angeles, from 1970 until three years before his death.
