Roy Harris's stature is still a matter for debate. It is difficult to evaluate his achievement when only a tiny portion of his oeuvre is regularly performed and accessible in score and on records. The fault for these situations rests partly with the composer, for he generally promoted only the handful of pieces that were proven successes and, especially in later life, often neglected to prepare works for publication.
Some observers feel that Harris failed to fulfill his early promise, producing a body of work that reveals an arrested technical and stylistic development. Others, conversely, perceive him acquiring a growing sophistication as his career unfolded and believe that because of this the music of his maturity lacks the raw originality, vitality, and intensity of the early pieces. Some observers fault the nationalist attributes, which they feel are out of fashion, while others count these a distinctive strength. There are also those colleagues and former students who, because of Harris's enormous egocentricity and outspokenness, have found it difficult to separate their feelings about the man from those about his music and whose biased opinions have to some extent influenced the general perception of the composer.
Yet, on balance, Roy Harris's position in a seminal generation of native composers, his innate musicality, and the breadth of vision and generosity of impulse that inform his best work would seem to assure him a permanent place as a significant voice in the American music of this century.
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