Michael Harrison's "Revelation" in review

Here is a link for Stuart Isacoff's review of the American Festival of
Microtonal Music's concerts with Joshua Pierce performing Michael Harrison's
"Revelation": http://www.sequenza21.com. Also for your information here is
the schematic for Harrison's "Revelation" just intonation tuning from his
website: http://www.michaelharrison.com/Tunings/tunings.html#schematic. The
review is also copied below for your convenience.
Johnny

Michael Harrison's Revelation
At The American Festival Of Microtonal Music
by Stuart Isacoff

Johnny Reinhard's American Festival of Microtonal Music presented three
performances of Michael Harrison's Revelation: Music for the Harmonically
Tuned Piano in late April and early May, with Joshua Pierce as the formidable
piano soloist. I had heard an early incarnation of this work in a private
recital a couple of years ago, with the composer at the keyboard. Harrison's
approach, which grew partly from his work with composer La Monte Young,
exploits the overtones generated naturally by vibrating strings-the series of
pitches that resonates softly above every "fundamental" tone. For acoustical
reasons these are obscured in the modern piano's usual equal-tempered tuning.
The results here are often surprising and wondrous.

For example, in the midst of clouds of dense clusters rapidly drummed in the
bass end of the instrument, an astute listener can perceive high ghost
tones-sometimes bell-like, at other times vaporous-as if a choir of angels
were singing along. The piece can run as long as 90 minutes, and its sections
build toward a climax during which I would have sworn that Brazilian singer
Milton Nasciemento had entered the room and begun chanting around a high B
Flat. Joshua Pierce's rendering of the score was virtuosic in the best sense:
technically accomplished and emotionally committed in every moment. When the
piece was pensive, he was tender and thoughtful; when it wanted to soar, he
unleashed a torrent of energy.

The intricate textures and remarkable effects of Revelation are the result of
Harrison's desire to "emancipate the comma." This re-working of Schoenberg's
famous phrase about the emancipation of dissonance registers the seriousness
of his goal. A "comma" is the difference between two intervals with same
name-a third, for example, or an octave-arrived at through different tunings
systems. For example, a major third produced in Pythagorean tuning (based on
a series of pure fifths) is wider than one produced by a naturally vibrating
string. Play these two versions of the same third together and the result is
a jarring dissonance. For centuries, musicians sought to avoid these clashes;
Harrison incorporates them into the texture of his music.

In some ways, Harrison's vision represents the philosophical flip side of
Schoenberg's. Schoenberg's revolution in Western music, through which he
broke down conventional harmonic models, was by its nature horizontal:
everything built from rows of tones scrupulously ordered, with no one tone
more important than another. Harrison's approach is vertical: harmony built
on subtle harmony, overtones wrestling or reinforcing each other-producing a
concoction of sound filled with otherworldly resonances. The difference
between these approaches brings to mind an age-old argument, voiced in the
eighteenth century between Rameau and Rousseau, over whether music attains
expressivity through harmony or melody.

Schoenberg dissolved the distinction between consonance and dissonance. In
similar fashion, Harrison rehabilitates the comma into a newly welcome
constituent of the harmonic universe. This gives rise to an exciting and
often moving musical dimension-one that may well be the path toward music's
future.

Stuart Isacoff, a pianist and composer, is founding editor of the magazine
Piano Today, Executive Editor of Sheet Music Magazine and a recipient of the
ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music.