An American composer with an unique tonalist style and a teacher whose book on music theory, Harmony, became an American standard. Piston wrote compositions primarily in an orchestral, tonal style, neo-classical and nationalist in character. We may hear a tune that starts out something like folk music, but soon it stretches off into the eeriest of dark universes, as in Symphony no. 2, or into breadth and lyricism and a blaze of major-key glory, as in Symphony no. 6. Piston's sound is fresh, sometimes on a big landscape and sometimes evoking a feeling of being lost in the woods, much like traveling across the US. ~ Blue Gene Tyranny, Rovi
