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The following summer he moved to New York and reconnected with Cowell as well as with John Cage, with whom he had staged high-profile percussion concerts in the San Francisco area in 1939–41. In 1942 Harrison left San Francisco for Los Angeles, where he studied with Arnold Schoenberg and composed highly complex works in dissonant counterpoint. He was determined to allow the performer to choose between these very different options in the firm belief that the result would be more musically convincing. When asked during the recording session whether he preferred a particular note played as a pick-up to the next phrase or a release from the preceding one, Harrison steadfastly refused to make a decision. No dynamics are given, nor are phrasing and slurring indicated. Harrison considered the performer a partner in the realization of his scores. On this recording, produced under his supervision, the speed is deliberately broad, enhancing the pleading quality of the winding flute line and the strategically placed dramatic leaps. The intervening movement of the concerto is marked “Slow and poignant.” Here Harrison features bells and gongs supporting a supple and flexible melodic line.

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The final movement features a series of measures in 4/8, 6/8, 3/8, and 5/8 repeated throughout the movement in all parts, balancing internal irregularity with the solidity of macroscopic pattern repetition. Thus the downbeats in the ostinato intersect those in the solo line only once every twelve beats. In the first movement this ostinato (played on drums and rattles) consists of three measures of 4/8, while the flute part is written in 6/8. The two percussionists play ostinato figures repeated in each movement without variation. In the case of the flute concerto, the restriction was one he called “interval control,” a simple, yet rigorous, limitation that he continued to use as late as the 1980s: Only three melodic intervals are permitted-in this case, the major second, minor third, and major seventh (ascending or descending). As he developed each work, he treated these controls like rules in a game of solitaire and he never allowed himself to cheat. Harrison always began his compositional process by devising a set of “controls” that served as restraints on his seemingly limitless imagination.

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The apparent simplicity of the concerto is deceptive: Harrison has built in subtle complexities such as an intricate interlock between melody and percussion lines, and has taken full advantage of the flute's range, repeatedly calling for the instrument's highest notes. Despite its early origin, this short composition has remained one of Harrison’s most frequently performed and recorded works. The flute concerto was premiered on August 10, 1941, at Bennington College by Otto Luening, with Henry Cowell and Frank Wigglesworth on percussion. Thereafter, Harrison studied privately with Henry Cowell, composed for modern dancers, and (beginning in 1937) worked as an accompanist for the dance department at Mills College.

He had begun college work at San Francisco State University in January 1935, but dropped out after two years. The earliest piece on the recording, the First Concerto for Flute and Percussion, dates from 1939, only four years after Harrison graduated from Burlingame High School near San Francisco. On the present disc, which includes works from 1939 to 1987, all of these characteristics are in evidence. Although the compositional style of Lou Harrison (1917–2003) evolved and matured during his long and productive life, he held fast to a number of basic aesthetic principles: a devotion to beautiful melody the foregrounding of rhythm, melody, and counterpoint over harmony a preference for just-intonation tuning systems and the integration of influences from diverse world musics.

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