BARBARA HARBACH

• Barbara Harbach: The Soul of Ra

Selected by Bob Briggs of MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL as a RECORDING OF THE YEAR 2009

Selected by the PYTHEAS CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC as the Featured Recording for November 2009

Classics of Contemporary Art Music [October 2009]
MUSOC.ORG 2009 

"Barbara Harbach identifies herself as 'an American voice,' and that capsule description holds true for most of the music here. Without access to a score, I won’t try to explain how her melodic and harmonic tendencies could be construed as American except to refer to her appreciation of folk music and a superficial resemblance to Copland and others of similar bent. Transformations for string orchestra—inspired by Making an American Citizen, a silent film directed by Alice Guy Blanche in 1912—exemplifies her approach to our national idiom. The opening “Pastorale” is lyrical, perhaps emphasizing the gentler side of a bucolic early America. There’s a transition to a rhythmically pronounced or dance-like theme before the movement subsides. “Towards Liberty” is more assertive, but optimistic strains are followed by “Restrain,” in which dramatic intensity and darker harmony imply struggle, no doubt correlated to episodes in the film. “Commandment” combines the lyrical “Pastorale” element and the striving implicit in “Towards Liberty.” All told, the eight movements continue in the same vein as these first four, encapsulating, in the composer’s words, “moods . . . from nostalgia to agitation to resolution.” It’s not uncommon for composers of film scores to compile suites to allow their music to be heard in the concert hall—Harbach has done so herself in Echoes from Tomorrow for chamber orchestra, adapting material she wrote for another silent film, Simon Judit—so, reversing that procedure, I suspect Harbach’s music would provide a moving and meaningful accompaniment for Making an American Citizen. Echoes, compared to Transformations, shows the same hand at work, insofar as the melodies and harmonies sound familiar, but the instrumental color is more diverse, as it’s scored for piano, winds, and solo strings (violin, viola, cello). There also seems to be more interplay among the instruments. The opening movement, intended to portray “the joy and exuberance of young love,” pulses with buoyant “Anticipation.” The spare violin and piano that begin “Changes” introduce a vaguely anxious motif that alternates with happier, dance-like episodes and a sweetly nostalgic violin solo—the fluctuating form is no doubt an attempt to convey the central character’s confusion and sorrow in the midst of life-changing circumstances. While sometimes bittersweet, the music doesn’t dwell on the film’s tragedy. Harbach, as her notes reveal, is more interested in the central character’s psychological evolution, and she finds hope even in a darkly oppressive story. “Transitions” alternates between major and minor and between themes implying struggle as well as cheerfulness, while “Remembrances” is reflective, sad perhaps but not somber—the price of hard-won wisdom? Harbach’s wind quintet, Freeing the Caged Bird, opens with a jaunty theme that could be heard as an introductory fanfare. Each of the four movements is named for the literary woman who inspired it: “Maya Angelou,” “Sara Teasdale,” “Kate Chopin,” and “Emily Hahn.” Teasdale’s adagio follows Angelou’s allegro, with Chopin and Hahn’s flowing allegrettos comprising the last two movements. Hahn is a trifle spicier than Chopin is, but also partakes of Harbach’s considerable lyricism (I only use the Italian terms as a convenient reference for readers as such tempo indications aren’t listed on the CD). The quintet’s prevailing mood is sunny, even though the subjects’ lives were hardly free from struggle, depression, or opprobrium. Although I fundamentally agree with Harbach that she’s immediately recognizable as an American composer, oddly enough, I thought of Mahler when I heard Soul of Ra’s second subject; it’s “a soaring melody of hope and heart’s ease” that closely follows an elegy, “In Memoriam,” intended to honor “all our lost love, loved ones and the many war dead.” Soul of Ra’s energetic second movement, “Phoenix Rising,” “personifies the indomitable human spirit that transcends loss and this world’s suffering.” The composer symbolically repeats themes from the first movement to stress that even “Amidst our joy there is always a reminder of ‘In Memoriam’ and the gentle ache of remembrances past.” The final track, Harbach’s delightful transcription for wind quintet of Kate Chopin’s Lilia Polka for piano, provides a whiff of ragtime and 19th-century Americana to end the CD. Conductor Kirk Trevor, the Bratislava Woodwind Quintet, the Bratislava Chamber Orchestra, and the Ensemble Istropolis play Harbach’s music in direct, communicative ways that never compromise the music’s integrity with uncalled-for tempo alterations or interpretive distortion of any kind. This is a fine disc of appealing music by a talented composer."

Fanfare [November / December 2009]

"[Barbara Harbach's] heart and soul is thoroughly American and romantic in the tradition started in the 1930s by Roy Harris, Howard Hanson, and continued into the 1940s by Aaron Copland. Her strengths lie in her melodic ideas and how she lets them evolve...  I love her strings; I love the way she allows her ideas to expand across a wide range of instruments... The dates above show that this is very recent music, but it’ll remind you of what Americans have always been good at: strong melodies, sweeping gestures, and heartbreaking moments of sheer beauty. All performances are quite good, and the sound has considerable warmth to it. Don’t let the music of this woman pass you by."

American Record Guide [November / December 2009]

“This is Volume 4 of Barbara Harbach’s music and most welcome it is. This is a different Harbach to the one presented on the previous discs. One of the most appealing things about Harbach’s music is her very American-ness. Her music speaks of wide open places, the prairie, homespun Americana... There’s real heart-felt lyricism here, of the kind seldom encountered in contemporary music. Kirk Trevor achieves a performance of great passion and tension. This is wonderful music. You’ll agree with me. It would be impossible to disagree... Splendid stuff... This is essential listening.

Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International [October 2009]

“Barbara Harbach has distinguished herself as one of the preeminent American composers of any generation.”

All Music Guide [December 2007]

American composer BARBARA HARBACH has a large catalog of works, including symphonies, works for chamber ensemble, string orchestra, organ, harpsichord, musicals, choral anthems, film scores, modern ballets, and many arrangements for brass and organ of various Baroque works. She is also involved in the research, editing and publication of manuscripts of eighteenth-century keyboard composers as well as historical and contemporary women composers. Her works are available in both recorded and published form through labels including MSR Classics, Naxos, Gasparo Records, Kingdom Records, Albany Records and Northeastern Records, and publishers including Hester Park, Robert King, Elkan-Vogel, Augsburg Publishing, Agape Music and Vivace Press.

Harbach has toured extensively as both a concert organist and harpsichordist, and her lively performances and recordings have captured the imagination of many American composers. The body of work written for and dedicated to Harbach is substantial. Musical America has called her "nothing short of brilliant," and Gramophone has cited her as an "acknowledged interpreter – and, indeed, muse – of modern harpsichord music." She was host of the weekly television music series Palouse Performance seen throughout the Inland Northwest.

Currently professor of music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Harbach holds academic degrees from Pennsylvania State University (BA), Yale University (MMA), Musikhochschule (Konzertdiplom) in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Eastman School of Music (DMA). In 2002, she received an honorary doctorate in music, honoris causa, from Wilmington College, Ohio for her lifetime achievement as a composer, performer, editor and publisher. Harbach is also the editor of Women of Note Quarterly.

Barbara Harbach initiated Women in the Arts-St. Louis, a celebration of the achievements of women creators. The more than 850 events by various cultural organizations in the St. Louis region provided audiences with new and historical examples of the work of women writers, composers and artists. She was the 2006 recipient of the Arts Education Award from the Missouri Arts Council for her work Women in the Arts – St. Louis as well as the Yellow Rose Award from the Zonta International Club of St. Louis, 2006, Faculty Excellence Award, 2006 from the College of Fine Arts and Communication, University of Missouri-St. Louis and Hellenic Spirit Foundation Award-St. Louis in 2007. THE SOUL OF RA for String Orchestra (2005/2006)

FREEING THE CAGED BIRD for Woodwind Quintet (2006/2007)
I. Maya Angelou
II. Sara Teasdale
III. Kate Chopin
IV. Emily Hahn

TRANSFORMATIONS for String Orchestra (2004)

ECHOES FROM TOMORROW for Chamber Ensemble (2006)

LILIA POLKA (Kate Chopin) for Woodwind Quintet (2007)



MSR Classics