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- guardian.co.uk, Friday July 26 2002 14.40 BST
- The Guardian, Friday July 26 2002
There is no shortage of 20th-century American symphonies, but the 13 by Roy Harris (1898-1979) include one of the most distinguished of them; with its fusion of neoclassicism and the organic thematic processes of Sibelius, Harris's single-movement Third Symphony, composed in 1938, is often claimed to be the finest transatlantic example of the genre after Ives.
But the Seventh, from 1952, a single span of music too, is less convincing, less purposeful, while the Ninth takes titles for its three movements from Whitman and the US Constitution, a curious mix that is hardly made more convincing by the inconsequential music.
A short elegy for John F Kennedy separates the two symphonies; performances are adequate, no more.
