Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto

Synopsis

An unusual piano concerto by American composer Lou Harrison had its premiere performance in New York on this day in 1985. Famous jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, for whom it was written, was the soloist.

Now, Harrison’s music was often marked by its eclectic blending of East and West, and on occasion, Harrison employed non-Western or unusual instruments in his scores, including his own home-made Javanese-style gamelan constructed from old brake drums and clay flowerpots. But that wasn’t what made his Piano Concerto so singular.

“I’ve always wanted to write a piano concerto which utilizes two or three pianos on stage, each tuned differently,” Harrison said. “And Keith was willing to try that. But in the end, I decided to use one piano in a tuning I really enjoy.”

In Harrison’s concerto, the piano is not tuned to the “equal temperament” system in use in Western music since Bach’s day. The black keys are tuned to the medieval system of mathematically exact intervals of fourths and fifths, while the white keys reproduce the “just intonation” system common in the Renaissance and Baroque.

And so the familiar instrument has an unfamiliar ring, but one that Keith Jarret loved: “At times in the piece, whole chords sound like bells,” he said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Lou Harrison (1917-2003): Piano Concerto; Keith Jarrett, piano; New Japan Philharmonic; Naoto Otomo, conductor; New World 366