2. The Twentieth Century

JLA: We're in a time of extremely rapid change and growth in music, and I remember you once observed that all good things must come to an end... even the 20th century. We're almost there, and I wonder if now (from the vantage point of the eve of the millennium), you might offer some observations on what you feel have been some of the most significant musical developments of the 20th century.

LH: Well, it's been a long century, for one thing. And Bill [Colvig] and I were just thinking the other day (he's 82 now, and I'm going to be next month) that it's extraordinary what's happened during our lifetime. We both remembered hearing the first crystal sets on our block. Now both of our names are on Mars, and that's quite a trajectory from 82 years. We also figured out that during the past 30 years, the population of the Earth has doubled, and we wondered what had happened in the 50 years before our lifetime. Well, it doubled then. So it has had two big doublings since we were born, and that's quite a lot. And what that means is there are that many more composers and that many more ideas, which makes a happy riot of a party, making it ever more fascinating.

Because of that, plus advances in technology, we are in communication all around the planet, which means that we have musical facilities and ideas which would not have occurred to us before. And now they're right here in our laps, which is a very good thing. I think Henry Cowell was right: in order to be a 20th-century composer, or even a future one, you have to know at least one other culture well, other than the one you were raised in. So it's not enough to know just European tradition, or those raised in that tradition, or the Japanese tradition, or whatever. And I think that's very good advice.

JLA: Certainly a uniquely 20th-century perspective.

LH: Well, to a degree. One does remember, of course, that there were exchanges between the Ottoman Empire and Europeans. After all, they told the people that Mozart wrote Turkish marches. Why? Because the advanced part of the Ottoman Empire was at the gates of Vienna.

JLA: I guess it's deep within human nature that we are basically inquisitive and acculturating animals. But it is unprecedented that just in the past 50 years, for the first time, we have had the entire world, and the entire history of human cultures at our fingertips.

LH: Yes, and almost all of it! Of course, new discoveries are happening all the time, and they're utterly fascinating. Theology and archaeology are showing us so much and I absorb as much as I can. Of course, it has dangers, too. We get more dangerous as we accumulate knowledge, and that's both a sadness and something to control, try to learn to live with, make terms with.

JLA: So, relativity, quantum physics, the science of ecology, mass media electronic technology, two World Wars, all of these things in the mix in the 20th century...?

LH: They do affect us. And I think one of the major items has been the discovery that we can, and indeed are, destroying the planet. That's quite a problem. I'm a terrible pessimist... I really don't think we're going to make it. But every so often, there's some little ray of hope. Have you read, for example, about the Colombian village Gaviotas? Isn't that amazing?

JLA: It is indeed.

LH: It's just astonishing to realize that in a country that is most difficult in terms of militaries, paramilitaries, governments, deaths and murders, etc., there is a little village which no one will touch because it's done things right! It's as though some country (I've always thought we could do it) just simply totally disarmed and said: "Here we are, come look!" But there they are, totally disarmed, no one touches them, and they've developed all sorts of useful things for us around the planet. It's astonishing and amazing to realize that some people have got it right. It almost brings tears to my eyes to realize that. Particularly to someone who is so old and grounded in pessimism.

JLA: Well, so perhaps there is hope, after all.

LH: Yes, there is. Let's hope that there's hope!

JLA: So what about the future (assuming there is a future for the human race)? Do you have any predictions to offer about the music of the 21st century? Are there any trends or any composers whose work has a particular significance that you feel will have importance in the next 50 years in shaping the future of the art?

LH: Well, I can't say that, because I think Virgil Thomson was very wise in observing that music changes in movement every 30 years. There's a new kind of music, at least in Western world. I don't think that's true in more stable traditions, such as the Javanese. But it's like an amoebae: it has moving walls that reach out a little bit, crack here, expand there, and so on. Whereas Western music tends to want to do that awful business of destroying before it creates, which I think is ridiculous. I think the Japanese have it right; instead of tearing down something to put up a skyscraper, just put it here-beside the other thing. Just like we managed to save Walt Whitman's birthplace -- it was going to be a service station! I'm certainly opposed to the notion that you have to destroy in order to create-that's ridiculous. Just go about creating.

JLA: And that seems to you to be a particularly Western idea?

LH: I think it is. It's all mixed up with that love and death Business resurrection, afterlife and all that sort of nonsense at least it seems so to me. I don't really know where that came from, but you'll recall that the Romantic period in Europe certainly stressed that sort of thing. And I think we're growing out of that -- (I HOPE SO) -- even in the Western world. And that hasn't even bothered most of the people on the planet, thank heavens.

Continue

Harrison Interview

1.	Overture
2.	The Twentieth Century
3.	Balancing Two Worlds
4.	The Future of Music

Supporting Materials
Biography
Links

Archive Home

Lou Harrison (photo: David Harsany)

Archive Home