During Summer79, Harris suffered a fall in his studio either caused by or resulting in a pelvic fracture. Although he appeared to be making progress toward recovery from the injury itself, his general condition deteriorated rapidly and he was moved to a rest home in Santa Monica, CA, where he died on 10/1/79. The long-term principal cause of death was listed as atherosclerotic coronary vascular disease. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea off the southern California coast in a private family ceremony.
Harris's personality was a potent mixture of great earthiness, charm, bluntness, social boldness, and enormous drive and vision, the whole presided over and powered at virtually every turn by a colossal, but by no means blind, egocentricity. Although there is no denying his great musical gifts and the substantial accomplishments resulting from them, he appeared (to me, at least) as being fundamentally of an entrepreneurial nature, this quality manifested in the enormous stocks of energy he expended on organizing festivals and other activities, devising curricula for educational institutions, working out plans for reorganizing performing organizations, attempting over several decades to realize the goal of creating a school for composers, and devising the often labyrinthine schemes to relieve his financial needs. Although he had no real hobbies, the composer possessed genuine passions for sports and, most especially, automobiles, to the acquisition of which, both new and used, he applied very nearly as much steam and enthusiasm as he expended on his creative work. He was also seized at various times to avid pursuit, if only for short periods, of interests outside music that struck his fancy {e.g., new ideas proposed by colleagues in the physical and social sciences).
He was powerfully affected by the natural environment: although possessing the ability to adapt to widely differing geographies and regional cultural variations, he often suffered both emotional and physical distress (the latter through bronchial allergies) in inhospitable climates (as, for example, eventually proved to be the case with the Pittsburgh sojourn). He far preferred rural surroundings with broad vistas and large expanses of, preferably friable, land; in fact, perhaps as a way of recapturing the seminal experiences of his youth, he liked to play the gentleman farmer in his mature years, although this, as with so many things, turned with the passing of time from reality toward a litany of talk. It was the procreative, regenerative aspect of nature that appeared to strike an especially strong response, not only for the sense of constant renewal it represented but also as a symbol of his deep concern with and respect for sexual vigor, which, for him, was strongly allied with the juices of artistic creation. He was also permeated by a general restlessness coupled with what might be regarded as a "grass is greener" syndrome, this potent combination fueling most of the numerous changes of venue that marked his career from the 1930s to the mid60s. In this and other ways, he sometimes seemed indifferent to the needs (especially the emotional ones) of various members of his family, though he generally did his best to see that wherever they settled they had spacious, comfortable living quarters with numerous amenities (a requirement that received a serious setback, at least in the views of the composer and some of the children, in the move to Puerto Rico). He was also capable of great generosity with both his time and, occasionally, money: even when deeply involved in composition, he was known to interrupt work to counsel aspiring composers, console bereaved friends and colleagues, and deliver talks to academic and social organizations, often for only a nominal honorarium (if that). But his frankness in venturing criticism, his vigorous and sometimes tactless assertiveness in expressing strong opinions, and his occasional thoughtlessness in making precipitous decisions frequently offended even reasonably hardened individuals. As a public figure, though, Harris maintained a largely untarnished image, his chief setback in this respect occurring during Iate52-early53 as the result of hysterical McCarthy era judicial meddling in the matter of his 1943 dedication of the Fifth Symphony, which was given at the Pittsburgh International Contemporary Music Festival to the people of the USSR.
