Programme Note
The familiar Civil War tune is here transformed and expanded in an endlessly inventive symphonic essay that tosses the famous melody around the orchestra with joyful aplomb. Harris's Overture was first performed by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Minneapolis Symphony in 1935. From the giddy, strangely foreboding highs of its opening to the more melancholy interpretations by horns and double reeds, Harris incorporates the familiar melody into music that explores a variety of moods and orchestral textures.