American composer Roy Harris (1898-1979) wrote his Third Symphony in the
late 1930s. When it was first performed in 1939, it was judged by many to
be the most important symphonic work ever produced in the U.S. Some saw in
it a reflection of the American West, of the vast horizons and open
landscapes that have so little in common with the more European-flavored
American music of the East coast establishment. Leonard Bernstein was one
of the first musicians to hail the work as a great stroke of genius and,
reviewing the first performance in February 1939 by the Boston Symphony
Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky, he wrote in "Modern Music" that the
symphony was "mature in every sense, beautifully proportioned, eloquent,
restrained, and affecting."
This performance with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein
was recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1976.
