Harris's 13th

I have written about the Harris 13th many times both here and elsewhere ;D

It is indeed quite excrutiatingly bad. It does not even have the brash, self-confident awfulness of the Khachaturian 3rd(another candidate for the worst symphony ever written).

Khachaturian MAY have written his 3rd slightly tongue-in-cheek and he was composing in a totally different political environment.

Harris seems to have simply almost completely "lost it" towards the end of his life and, having previously attempted to emulate the success of his Third and Fifth by repeating them in later symphonies, tried to write for unusual combinations of forces, including voices.

He would have been better advised to "do a Sibelius" and simply shut up and consign his efforts to a bonfire :(

I am only speculating here.....but I really wonder whether Naxos and/or Marin Alsop, having decided in principle on a Harris cycle, actually looked at the 12th and 13th (for example) and decided that they were too poor to actually record ???