John Adams will be visiting Disney Hall tomorrow; he’ll be conducting an all-American program that will include his recent concerto, After the Fall. Perhaps even more notable is the inclusion of the Third Symphony by Roy Harris.

For decades after its premiere in 1939, Harris’ Third was hailed as the great American symphony; its impact similar to the one Thomas Wolfe made in literature with his Look Homeward, Angel. The latter half of the 20th century saw a reversal of fortunes significant enough that the symphony — and its composer — can now be fairly described as semi-obscure, at least to a non-specialist audience. The latest edition of The Grove provides context:

Widely acclaimed in the 1930s and 1940s, Harris’ stature is still a matter for debate[…] Some observers believe he failed to fulfill his early promise, suffering an arrested technical and stylistic development, while others perceive an increasing mastery of technique and a growing sophistication (sometimes at the expense of raw originality and vitality of the earlier works) as his career unfolded.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic only played the Harris Third a handful of times in the final decades of the last century: conducted by David Zinman in 1976, Garcia Navarro in 1984, Erich Leinsdorf in 1990, and Esa-Pekka Salonen in 1995. The last time the work was heard in the region seems to be Jorge Mester’s 1998 performance with the Pasadena Symphony.

For the Harris performance alone, tomorrow’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert promises to be an interesting one.