LOU HARRISON New World Records 80366 Piano Concerto

Lou Harrison likes to reminisce about his student days in San Francisco around 1935 and the music he heard there, which set him on the course he has followed throughout his lifetime. He had moved down from his native Portland, Ore., primarily to study composition with Henry Cowell. After formal classes were finished for the day, he went on his own musical explorations, often accompanied by fellow student John Cage. "Chinatown was a significant part of the city's cultural life, " he remembers. "It was impossible to shop there without hearing Chinese instruments being played in the streets, and of course this was vastly intriguing. After dinner we'd go to the Cantonese opera, walked in off the street for a quarter. This was very beautiful, just one aria or duet after another. If you could stay to the end, about 1 a.m., you'd see this beautiful turquoise silk descend onto the stage, with embroidered phoenixes and the name Alka Seltzer in sequins; the company had donated the curtain. By the time I was an adult, I had heard much more Chinese opera than the Western variety." Along with Cage, the young Harrison based his entire musical outlook on his first encounters with non-Western music. "Henry Cowell was our influence, of course. If you look through our scores you'll find no snare drum and no timpani; that's simply because we never had those particular instruments. We'