# Jeffrey Harrington



## altiste

Jeffrey Harrington was born in 1955 in Forest, Mississippi.

Recently I performed in the premiere of his String Quartet #5, a work that is a great new addition to the string quartet repertoire. Jeffrey Harrington has a large catalogue of works. I look forward to reading your views on his music.


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## Weston

I have heard his music. I downloaded some mp3 files a number of years ago. I find the music interesting if a bit jumpy for my tastes. They were all midi or synth realizations at the time, so maybe they would sound less spiky with a real quartet.

My favorite piece that I have of his is called _Eroica Spettrale. _ This is far more suspended and ethereal than the others. There's nothing wrong with spikiness though, I'm just often not in the mood for it on an ongoing basis. Too much stress at work.

I will say the pieces come up occasionally in my playlist and I do not skip over them.


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## Mirror Image

Never heard of him.


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## altiste

*real live string quartet*



Weston said:


> They were all midi or synth realizations at the time, so maybe they would sound less spiky with a real quartet.


The link above on "String Quartet #5" is to a recording (mp3) of a real string quartet playing the work - I was the violist in it. It is a substantial piece at around 18 minutes. I realise that Jeffrey Harrington has got midi or synth realizations of different works available on his site, however, one of the reasons I decided to start this thread was the availability online of this particular recording.


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## Weston

Well, I didn't think to follow the link! Yes, that is an interesting work. I enjoy what sounds like intermittent blues scales, certainly appropriate for an American composer. He mentions Steve Layton a few times on the site as you scroll down. I am familiar with his work too and have exchanged usenet posts with him some years back. His work is more about tone clusters a la Ligeti I think.

I'm bookmarking the page. I find contemporary work interesting, but I often get a little tired of the incessant insistence on eschewing common practice by contemporary composers in general. Would it kill them to throw in a major triad once in a while? Having said that, I see he has a link to microtonal music and I'm hugely intrigued by that. I can't wait to explore what he has to say about it (as soon as this raucous quartet is done).


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## altiste

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment, Weston. Although "raucous" is not a particularly positive attribute, all feedback is useful, and I hope we didn't contribute too much in the playing to make it such! Perhaps a smoother interpretation will help in the future if it's the writing you are talking about - I'm on the lookout for opportunities to replay this quartet.


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## Weston

I didn't mean "raucous" in a negative way at all. It was not the best choice of words, for sure.


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