Harry Partch is one of those names you may have come across in a
context of avant-garde music, but you are more likely to have seen
pictures of the composer with his remarkable self-designed and made
musical instruments, rather than to actually have heard his music.
Bitter Music begins with a summary, in which the composer
describes it as “a diary of eight months spent in transient
shelters and camps, hobo jungles, basement rooms, and on the open
road”. The text is a long-lost journal of the Partch’s
travels and experiences at the time of the Great Depression and, told
in John Schneider’s pleasant and gently modulated vocal tones,
and the whole thing is as much a ‘talking book’ as anything
else. The music is sporadic, sometimes fragmentary and on occasion
more extended, appearing as songs from amidst the narrative as it
does in the journal. What we do have are returning themes or motives
both charmingly direct and folk-music like, so that there are some
lovely moments of ritornello familiarity.
Some extracts and drawings from the pages of Bitter Music
are reproduced in the booklet for this release, giving a good impression
of Partch’s remarkable imagination. The entertainment value
in this release may to a certain extent be dictated by your interest
in this American pioneer, but while this recording is not really what
you could call music-heavy, it is certainly a compelling tale, made
up of numerous anecdotal diary entries but together forming a hypnotically
absorbing and coherent narrative. The feeling is one of an intimate
tête a tête, an extended, smoky long evening and night
with a surprising character, a troubadour who has plenty to say, and
quite a few musical tricks up his sleeve.
Framed by a prologue and an epilogue with Partch himself talking about
Bitter Music in 1969, the composer’s words tell of
his travails finding funding, efforts to have his chromatic organ
made, his travels in Europe, including Ireland and an encounter with
W.B. Yeats, via Italy and Malta back to London, converting prices
in various currencies into dollars as he goes. His experiences include
some lively impressions of the different voices of people he encounters
on the way, Schneider enjoying himself but avoiding hamming things
up and playing actor rather than staying in the presence of our hero.
We gain a pretty solid impression of vagrant life in America in 1935,
year of the Dust Bowl and Roosevelt’s dedication of the Hoover
Dam. This is a view on life perhaps more familiar from documentary
photographs of hard times, with some of the acuity of observation
of a writer such as Damon Runyon and at times with a period sense
of humour akin to James Thurber. Harry Partch’s words also have
a poetry all of their own: direct, unpretentious and poignant –
a musical type of speech with all of the rise and fall of melody,
tensions and relaxations of harmony.
Listen
to a sample in advance if you can, but as a 2012 Grammy nominee you’ll
know you won’t have been the only person to have been charmed
by this unique and rather special release.
Volume 2 is the first complete performance of Harry Partch’s
cycle in three parts, Plectra and Percussion Dances. The
original 1953 recording missed three movements from Castor &
Pollux, and Even Wild Horses was performed missing its
tenor saxophone part. The booklet also lists a catechism of other
problems with this live première. The introduction given by
the composer is also included, and I would recommend listening to
this brief but entertaining talk before embarking on the music itself.
The booklet notes are extremely useful in outlining the background,
structure and intent of these pieces. Knowledge is power when it comes
to this kind of project, but impressions of the music are probably
more useful in a review. Partch’s remarkable instruments have
been lovingly recreated, and are expertly performed here by the award
winning ensemble Partch. Harry Partch worked to create an
entirely personal sound world, but used principles of sonority which
won’t sound too strange to listeners today, especially those
who are acquainted with so-called ‘world music’. In eight
dances of almost identical length, Castor & Pollux digs
deep into rhythms made by a variety of marimbas, these woody sounds
decorated with the strings of a Kithara, and Cloud Chamber Bowls.
This is music with a rousing energy and plenty of pulse-driven action,
but the sounds are subtle and full of colour. The more you listen
the more you hear, but you have to engage thoroughly or risk dismissing
the piece as monotonous. Each dance runs directly into the next, and
the work is a kind of set of variations in sound, A Dance for
the Twin Rhythms of Gemini as the subtitle indicates, ending
as it does in a finale which brings together all of the instruments
into something rather spectacular.
Ring Around the Moon is credited as being “one of the
oddest compositions in Partch’s output.” Satirical in
concept, the sliding strings and strange nonsensical contribution
of a singer are both humorous and disturbing. At times the music deflates
like a gramophone record being slowed down, and if images are called
to mind then they might as well be those of a weird cartoon. If America
ever had a Dada moment in music, then this was it.
Without seeking to diminish the previous works, Even Wild Horses
is more substantial and ambitious, its movements defined by recognisable
dance genres such as Samba and Conga, but always viewed through a
lens which renders everything tricky and obscure, without making the
music needlessly aversive. If the title says ‘Happy Birthday
to You’ you can be sure this tune will pop up at some stage,
but never quite as you will have heard it before. Harmonium mixes
with strings, marimba and other subtly dis-tuned percussion create
their strange atmosphere, and the ear is constantly teased to render
the unfamiliar familiar, or to identify with the new and the uniquely
curious. This is compelling stuff but also deeply introverted. Partch
hardly ever delivers an angry note or seeks to shock, and the surprise
and strangeness in this music is top to bottom and in every dimension.
This should be mandatory listening for all of us rooted in the conventions
of Western instrumentation and musical structures. There is a fascinating
timelessness in this music which speaks of ancient lyres and narratives,
while at the same time we are in the American Diner or on the railroad
hearing the wind whistling randomly though the telegraph wires. This
stuff is rich and delicate, seemingly naïve, apparently surrealist,
outwardly uncomplicated but inwardly drenched in cultural reference
and the complexities of the human condition. I’m glad to have
heard Harry Partch’s exotic instrumentarium brought to life,
and especially in this première context.
Dominy Clements
See also A
Just Cause by Paul Serotsky
