What follows is perhaps not so much a review as a discussion
- of aspects of Partch’s philosophy and its dramatic
fruit - that happens to incorporate a CD review. I make
no apology for this, except to you who say, “Yes, I already
know about that. I just want to know if this set is worth
buying!” The short answer to that is “yes”, so you can
now take your leave and dash off to your nearest CD e-shop.
Others, if they are at all intrigued, can settle down
to a good, long and - I hope! - reasonably edifying read
...
You know how it is: you meet someone, eventually you
get talking about matters musical, and inevitably you start
to “trade names” of composers you particularly like. On
such occasions, I am wont to toss in the name of Harry
Partch. Almost invariably, I get one of two responses -
either, “Who the hell is Harry Partch?” or, “Wasn’t he
the bloke who wrote music in a 43-note scale, or something?” As
it happens, in respect of the latter question the answer
is, “Well, he is - and he isn’t!” The reason becomes apparent
if you listen to Disc A, track 9 (5:26 onwards) of this Enclosure
5. There you’ll hear Partch himself, recorded in 1954,
bluntly dismissing that notion as being “about
a one-tenth truth, perhaps”,
and affirming that, “If I have
ever emphasised the number, I certainly have not done so
for a long, long time.” Hmm. That depends on what
you mean by “a
long time”. In
his book, Genesis of a Music, first published
just five years earlier, Partch had managed to give the
overwhelming impression that his 43-tone monophony was the cornerstone
of his entire life’s work!
So, did Partch have a communication problem between,
on the one hand, his left hand and on the other, his right?
Believe it or not, the answer is “He does - and he doesn’t!” It’s
certainly true that his 43-tone monophony was indeed the
fundamental tool of his trade, but, as is the way with
all fundamental tools, it was only the beginning of what
he was about. His fundamental tool, by its very nature,
incorporated all the musical scales known to man,
barring only the Johnny-come-lately tempered ones. He based
his monophony on 43 simply because that was the level in
the justly-intoned hierarchy broadly corresponding to the
human ear’s capability to resolve tones and intervals.
By a similar token, the 43-tone monophony encapsulated
all the musical tones inherent in human speech. At rock
bottom, Partch’s development of the 43-tone monophony was
a direct result of his early preoccupation with “speech-music”,
which is the central subject of Enclosure 2 (see review).
Otherwise, the “43” had about as much deep significance
as the marking “1 m.” at the end of a one-metre rule: you
aren’t limited to measuring only things that are 1 m. long
- you can measure things that are shorter or even, with
a bit of juggling, things that are longer. As Partch explains
in the track, he sometimes used more than 43 notes to the
octave and sometimes fewer - for example, 19, 5, 4 or,
for that matter, even 8. Most importantly he emphasises
that his music does not, nay can not, sound the
way it does because it is written in 43 notes to the octave: “I am
the guilty party, not 43 tones.” Nor, I should add,
can we try to lay the blame at the feet of his unique instruments
- even when one of his works is adapted for conventional
forces, such as the string quartet version of US Highball (Kronos
Quartet on Nonesuch, see review),
the qualities that define “Partch” persist, as surely as
those of JSB survive the tender ministrations of Leopold
Stokowski, the Swingle Singers or Walter/Wendy Carlos!
Having scotched Everyman’s Easy Answer to what Partch
was “about”, the question remains: just what was Partch’s “trade”,
what philosophy defined his art and guided him towards
his goals? That can be summed up in one word: corporealism.
In purely practical terms, his idea of corporeality corresponds
pretty well to the OED definition: physical, material,
of the “here and now”, as opposed to spiritual, ephemeral,
of the “ivory tower”. In Partch’s philosophy music, for
example, is not something rarefied that drifts mysteriously
out of the ćther to slip, without touching the sides, directly
into our cognitive cortices. No - music is an integral
part of an immediate, dramatic, visceral experience.
However, as a philosophy, Partch also implicitly imbues
his idea of corporeality with rather more meaning than
does the OED! Again in Disc A, track 9, Partch makes an
attempt to enlighten us. Basically, he’s saying that, whereas
(for example) balletomanes will declare the dance as being
the most important aspect of ballet, and opera buffs will
pronounce singing as paramount in opera, in a corporeal
production all the artistic elements - words, dance,
music, costumes, sets, lighting (have I missed any?) -
are of equal importance.
However, they are of equal importance because they are
of “lesser” importance! In Partch’s philosophy, “drama” is
more than just a synonym for “a play” - in effect, “Drama” with
a Capital “D” is the Lord of the Arts, to which each subordinate
Art pays tribute in equal measure. This turns what might
otherwise have been a fine distinction into a world of
difference. Again taking the musical perspective, Partch’s
corporeality for instance requires that the musicians and
their instruments, far from being safely tucked away in
their cosy pit, will be up there on the stage. In passing,
that’s partly why Partch gave his instruments imposing
stage presence. However, his is no common or garden “on-stage
band”: the instruments are actually - and often hazardously!
- part of the dramatic territory through which move actors
and dancers, whilst the musicians themselves are in costume, enacting their
music, playing dramatic rôles as well as instruments .
And so it runs, right across the board, although first
among equals necessarily comes “the word”. As words are
the most potent purveyors of explicit meaning, the corporeal
rule is: words must be intelligible. Partch frequently
indulged in diatribes about the way words are used in classical
forms like opera and oratorio where, entirely subservient
to music, they are invariably twisted, more often than
not out of all recognition. Although he was by no means
unique in this respect, Partch was perhaps the most successful
at melding words and music - simply because he made music
not just subservient to words, but entirely subservient
to words. For the most part Partch regarded singing as
an instrumental process - so, when he wanted a voice
to sing he would, typically, leave out the words.
If there seems to be an odour of Ancient Greece in all
this, that’s because there is. His study of Helmholtz’s On
the Sensation of Tone ignited and fuelled his antipathy
towards the “impurity” of tonal temperament, and led directly
to his Speech-Music. Another significant fascination was
the Arts of Ancient Greece, in which he found the “pure”,
inclusive dramatic philosophy to complement his tonal desires.
Gradually the two converged, becoming as peaches and cream,
and evolving into his particular brand of corporealism.
Yet, Partch was most definitely not in the business
of trying to recreate “authentic” ancient Greek drama;
quite the contrary, like any other artist worth his salt
he wanted to express his own times and his own experiences.
The main works in Enclosure 5 - King Oedipus, The Bewitched, and Revelation in the Courthouse
Park - illustrate what could be called his “middle
period”, where the relatively intimate, monophony-based
buds of Speech-Music, fertilised by the burgeoning Ancient
Greek influence, begin to blossom into fully-fledged
corporeality. Immediately, as listeners, we have a problem:
inherently a sound recording, to use Partch’s description, “lacks
half the take”. Strictly speaking, we cannot have a “corporeal
experience” unless we are there, in the living
presence of the performers - and, let’s face it, to some
extent this is true of any performance, otherwise why
would any of us bother to go to a concert hall or theatre?
So, if a film (or DVD) is but a shadow of corporeality
flickering on the screen of an AV system, then is not
an audio-only recording nothing more than a shadow of
a shadow? Well, yes! - but the fabled “bottom line” is
that “half the take” is better than no “take” at all,
and even a shadow of a shadow is always an improvement
on utter, unremitting darkness.
In his thoroughly informative booklet essay, Philip
Blackburn tells us that Partch had hankered after setting
W.B. Yeats’s translation of King Oedipus ever since
1933. In 1934 Partch had met Yeats and demonstrated his
Speech-Music to the poet. Yeats was ecstatic - it turned
out that this subtle union of words and music was something
he had been dreaming about for years. Not surprisingly,
then, he was all for Partch’s suggestion of a Speech-Music
setting of King Oedipus. This was to have been for
ptolemy (Partch’s prototype microtonal reed-organ), viola,
guitar and double-bass. However, for various reasons -
including wandering homeless as a hobo - Partch didn’t
get round to King Oedipus until the beginning of
the 1950s. By this time, sadly, Yeats had been dead for
a dozen years, but happily Partch had come on by leaps
and bounds, having completed and written up his theoretical
work, and developed a substantial number of instruments.
In the end, he did Yeats proud, scoring the work for a
much-expanded ensemble combining eight of his own unique
instruments with clarinet, soprano saxophone, microtonal
cello and microtonal string bass. Whether these last two
were physically “adapted” I’m not sure - Partch’s physical “adaptations”,
for example of guitar and viola, were pretty drastic!
Philip Blackburn gives us a clear indication that the
resulting drama was nevertheless very much a transitional
work, effectively a “Speech-Music play” through which Partch
was starting to feel his way towards his ultimate, corporeal
goal. This is something that resonates through Partch’s
absorbing programme note for the original production, a
note which is substantially reproduced in the CD booklet. King
Oedipus gives you a strong impression of this evolution
at work. At the start, the Speech-Music style predominates,
but gradually, as the drama approaches its devastating
climax and in a manner broadly similar to Bitter Music (see Enclosure
2), the musical content takes over - presumably this
is what Partch meant by the music being “conceived as emotional
saturation”. A really neat example is CD A track 12, which
starts with intense choral/instrumental music over which
an actor speaks. This immediately rams home, far more effectively
than any amount of explanation and argument, exactly what
Partch got so right and Schoenberg, comparatively speaking,
got so wrong.
Clearly, though, the speech cannot be entirely natural:
the actors and musicians must observe some common rhythmic
reference, otherwise words and music would decline disastrously
into waffle and muddle. In this recording, this “baseline” seems
to surface through a tendency towards rigidity of line
and metre, a form of declamation that sounds a bit like “old
school” Shakespeare. That’s fair enough when there’s music
in the air but, in the longish stretches where there is no music,
surely the actors could have exercised a little more, well, freedom
of speech? This problem of rigidity runs a little deeper,
extending to dynamic expression. The sort of thing I mean
is if, say, a character gets angry, he tends to continue
at the same level of anger right through, whereas we all
know that even an angry man is likely to ask a question
at a “lower”, though still vehement, vocal pitch than he
used for a previous exclamation (this is a pretty relevant
example - there are many angry men in this play!).
That said, though, there is dramatic expression a-plenty,
and we have to bear it in mind that these folk were, almost
to a man, being asked to do something that was completely “outside
their boxes”. Philip Blackburn relates, for example, that
Allan Louw (Oedipus) apparently had never even heard of
Harry Partch before he was asked to take part, and of the
work’s manuscript commented, “I’d never seen anything like
it in all my life.” Yet - and with a smidgen of reflection,
this comes as no real surprise - he found that what was
required of him came naturally, without any significant,
deliberate effort on his part. He makes the most of a bass
voice so impressively deep it would have had Moussorgsky
weeping tears of joy - his pronouncement of “Woe! Woe is
me . . .” (CD B track 13) is literally as blood-curdlingly
black as old sump-oil.
However, there was one cast member for whom this “new
style” was “old hat”. Rudolphine Radil (Jocasta), once
an acquaintance of Mahler, had performed in Partch’s very
first public concerts in 1931, which lends some significance
to the fact that her mode of delivery differs that of all
the other actors. When there are instruments playing (e.g.
CD B track 4), she tends to “touch” the notes, bringing
the merest, but nonetheless clearly perceptible, singing
edge to her voice. Radil seems to be, very subtly, “meeting
the musicians halfway” which, strictly speaking, doesn’t
accord with Partch’s prescription. However, as Partch himself
was the musical director and obviously didn’t do anything
about it, I guess he must have approved.
Of course, the main interest here is not the acting,
since that should remain pretty much as it would if there
were no musical component, but the impact of Partch’s peculiar
musical methodology. Philip Blackburn suggests that, “Those
who judge Oedipus by the standards of later works
(such as Delusion [of the Fury]) will be
disappointed.” Well, I have, and I’m not! In those later
works the balance of equals shifted. The element of ritual,
which Partch seemed increasingly to regard as an important
part of corporealism, became further to the fore. Correspondingly,
Partch tended to shift the narrative accent increasingly
away from words and towards mime. In its turn, this left
a vacancy that was filled - nay, had to be filled
- by music, and to my way of thinking this is why Delusion in
particular stands up so well as “pure” music (though I
doubt that Partch would have thanked me for saying that!).
Nevertheless, in its own way, the music in Oedipus is
utterly enthralling. When the instruments do creep - or
sometimes “slam” - in, there’s no mistaking the extraordinary
degree to which they enhance the drama. This much smacks
you in the face right from the off: instruments blend with
a wordless chorus (CD A track 10) in a chanted line that
would be exceptionally beautiful, were it not for the searing
astringency of its harmony. Already, you have a feeling
that something’s “up”. Soon after, when Partch’s instruments
generate one of those uniquely “creepy” atmospheres, haloing
King Oedipus’s words, “Children! Descendents of all Cadmus!
Why do you come before me?” you are equally sure that it’s
rather more than a mundane moan about municipal maintenance.
Of course, film music - and let’s not forget that, in
his youth, Partch was himself a silent film accompanist
- serves much the same purpose. Hence, anyone could be
forgiven for asking, “So, what’s the Big Deal?” The Big
Deal is this: film music, or for that matter any other
kind of incidental music, is not harmonically bound to
the tonal and rhythmic content of the actors’ vocal inflections.
What’s more, as long as such music is in equal temperament,
even if the trick were tried it would at best be a coarse
approximation - “about a one-tenth truth, perhaps”!
Partch’s “incidental music”, however, is rooted in and grows out of
the soil of those vocal inflections. In a very real sense,
his music acts like a spotlight, illuminating the emotive
harmony inherent in the actors’ voices.
So, how well does the recording convey this drama? Overall,
rather well! Generally, the sound is quite detailed and
clear, especially considering that it was taped on the
fly, in a resonant acoustic, at the work’s first production
(1952, Mills College in Partch’s home town of Oakland,
California). Occasionally the recording does get caught
out by the penetrating sounds of the cloud-chamber bowls,
and near the end becomes a bit overloaded and congested
(CD B, track 14). Yet, there are surprisingly few tape
glitches and only the occasional hint of pre-echo. Curiously
for a mono recording, I did notice some intermittent stereo imbalance
(CD B, track 1)! This slight wavering of the relative channel
levels of course won’t be a problem if your amplifier can
be switched to “mono” - otherwise, like me, you can just
grin and bear it.
What really puzzles me, though, is why the end of CD
A is faded out, and the start of CD B faded in with some
overlap. CD B track 1 ends on a pause in the action. At
a little over five minutes long, it could easily have been
accommodated at the end of CD A. This would have obviated
the need for any fading and overlapping. More importantly,
it would have considerably diluted the disruption of the
dramatic flow. [See Footnote]
But don’t let these minor matters put you off! This “shadow
of a shadow” of Oedipus is still gripping drama,
and a superb record of what amounts to something of a turning-point
in the career of a genius. Partch himself was a bit dissatisfied
with Oedipus, feeling that he’s somehow let a sense
of classical antiquity predominate over modern relevance.
This was at least partly due to the formal style of Yeats’s
text which, if anything, is striving to create that very
sense and is - again at least partly - responsible for
that “rigidity” I mentioned. However, one of those little
quirks of fate ensured that this wouldn’t happen again.
Partch had proceeded with his setting of Yeats’s poem confident
in the knowledge that he had the author’s written permission.
Unfortunately, that didn’t cut any ice with the long-dead
poet’s agent - the bloke not only refused Partch’s request
for licence to publish the Oedipus recording, but
also vetoed all musical settings. Consequently, for the
planned production in Sausalito, Partch had to do his own
translation - and thus happily awakened a latent talent
for writing libretti.
Mind you, he wasn’t exactly profligate with his newly-awakened
talent. In his next major dramatic effort, The Bewitched,
the human voice just makes a lot of noises! Superficially,
I suppose that “contrary” might seem a more appropriate
term than “profligate”. However, when you think about it
for a moment or two, what we have here is really a very
radical departure - which makes it all the more puzzling
why, to the best of my knowledge, Partch has ventured no
explanation of it. I would guess - and it’s no more than
a guess - that Partch felt that he’d got his fingers mildly
burnt by the linguistic style of Oedipus. Consequently,
before going any further with word-setting, he first took
a step back, and in the “inarticulate” balance of the corporeal
compound tried to fully establish his desired sense of
the modern vernacular. Very pointedly, Partch not only
sets his drama in some sort of vaguely “urban limbo”, but
also subtitles the work “A Ballet Satire” (my italics).
By all accounts The Bewitched is exceptional
even amongst the extraordinary. This is equally true of
the production enshrined in this recording, a live performance
given in Cologne (1980) by the Partch Ensemble during its
first foreign tour. From a couple of first-hand recollections
given in the booklet it emerges that the entire production
team lived, ate and breathed the work for fully six months
of often utterly unorthodox preparation. The upshot was
that, in spite of the absence of words, director Kenneth
Gaburo produced an outstandingly successful demonstration
of the validity of corporealism, unsurpassed even by the
man himself. The question is: does anything of this come
across in the recording’s “shadow of a shadow”?
The answer is “yes”. As I listened, I found myself becoming
increasingly conscious of the intense physicality of
the music. This emanates from more than just the obvious
aural evidence of foot-stamping and vocalisations: there
is an unaccustomed sense of the musicians, like the Witch
and her voice, being part of their instruments rather
than just playing on them - that involvement of
the players’ whole bodies that Partch had advocated. This
feeling isn’t easy to describe, and quite how I get it
from a sound-only recording I’m not at all sure. Nevertheless,
there is something beyond what you get from “conventional” musicians,
including jazz-men, although the latter do come closer
than most. In this respect, particularly intriguing are
the booklet’s quotations of clarinettist Bob Paredes’s
recollections, which include his realisation that “the
music was an extension of voice . . . and the tuning system
was a call to arms on behalf of the . . . issue of voice,
as the body’s primary sound”.
This tells us that the principles at work in The
Bewitched are effectively the same as those in Oedipus.
Voices that appear to be “talking nonsense” are in fact
doing everything that they did in Oedipus: all
the expressions, inflections and emotions of speech are
present and correct - only verbal meaning is omitted
from the mix. Within a corporeal fabric this, if anything,
helps to liberate the enactment of “metaphor” that is
central to the “libretto” of The Bewitched.
As ever, because Partch performances aren’t quite as
thick on the ground as those of The Four Seasons,
comparative assessment is something of a non-starter. Performance-wise,
all I can say is it sounds stunning. Isabella Tercero (the
Witch) is a formidable vocal actress with impressive ranges.
Yes, I do mean the plural! She traverses the entire pitch
range - from about F# below middle C upwards for a semitone
short of three octaves - with scarcely a hint of strain.
The wide range of styles of vocalisation, from singing
through intonation to sheer vocal gymnastics, is something
she apparently eats for breakfast. She takes all the “nonsense” that
Partch can throw at her and, by the time she’s done, has
you believing that it’s a real “language”, such is the
range and degree of emotional expression she imparts. Oh
- and while she’s at it, although of course we can’t see
this, she sometimes has to take on the rôle of “ostensible
conductor”.
The musicians also have their work cut out, not only
because at one point they’ve a basketball match going on
around them, but also because they’re frequently called
on to double as the chorus, with a similar though less
demanding array of vocal effects to negotiate. What’s more,
they do it rather well. However, the most intriguing aspect
of the musicians’ performance is the astonishing blend
they achieve between Partch’s microtonal, justly-intoned
instruments and the conventional piccolo/flute and clarinet.
Common sense tells you it shouldn’t even be possible, never
mind brought off so brilliantly.
Yet, Partch often made use of conventional, “equal temperament” instruments.
Stringed instruments aren’t a problem - guitars can be
re-fretted, and the violin family fingerboards can be appropriately
marked - and the question doesn’t even arise for trombones.
But woodwind have fixed holes, geared to equal temperament.
I think the trick is this. A clarinet (say) is only “geared” to
ET. By design, the holes in the tube match ET, but the
tube itself, by order of the laws of nature, is
justly tuned. Hence, in higher registers that match becomes
progressively more approximate. The case of valved instruments
is very similar. In both cases, the further they go from
the fundamental register, the more the players must “bend” the
notes to stay tuned to ET. Well, if they can bend onto ET,
they can also bend the other way - onto JI. All
it takes is skill, practice - and an abundance of both.
That abundance, whilst evident throughout, is nowhere
more so than in the Epilogue, in which Partch uses
the ruse of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony (and, rather
neatly, he uses the ruse in reverse during the Prologue).
The Epilogue, given almost entirely to Partch’s
percussion instruments - the other players are already
drifting away - is riddled with streams of ostinato flourishes,
like a fast race in which the lead continually changes.
This device, something of a favourite of Partch’s, is one
which will cruelly expose even the slightest lack of unanimity.
Not here - although these marvellous musicians do manage
to expose something else: the cohesive “timbral flux” that
is the hallmark of any true family of instruments going
about its business.
All this wonderful music-making took place in a less
than ideal recording environment. Not only was it genuinely “live” -
recorded on the fly - but also the orchestra was far from
being tidily arrayed in the pit. In Partch’s own words
the instruments were “disposed architecturally and landscapically,
so that the dancers would be in, around, among them, occasionally” (and,
don’t forget, playing basketball, occasionally!).
Such an already hazardous environment would be no place
for microphone stands and trailing cables. From the results,
I would guess that consequently, and to minimise audience
noise, it was miked from close to the front. On the “down” side,
this results in some instruments sounding uncomfortably
close, whilst others sound too recessed. On the “up” side,
the stereophonic recording conveys a lovely depth of perspective,
clarity within a resonant acoustic, and has plenty of body
to the sound. Overall, the West German Radio engineers
have done a cracking job. The CD re-mastering inherits
from the master tape some hiss and the odd bit of print-through,
but there’s nothing unduly obtrusive, especially when weighed
against the spell-binding music and its equally spell-binding
performance.
The booklet helpfully provides a detailed synopsis of
the action. You’d expect that he work’s twelve distinct
sections would map cosily onto the CD’s twelve tracks.
Well, rather less helpfully, the booklet’s sectional track
cues run 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11! Concerned
that I might be missing something, I contacted Philip Blackburn,
who “un-witched” it thus, “I was never very good at page
turns, and I wouldn't want the deities to be offended by
too much perfection. Remove the 2nd 2 and the 2nd 3, start
from 1, go to 12, and you should have it all. The text
and music are all in there, correctly separated.” Mind
you, I’m not at all sure what the great god of Typography
must have made of it, are you?
Although he’s taken a step back, the practical elements
of Partch’s “Greek theatrical” ideals were still fully
utilised - and further developed - in The Bewitched.
Now, presumably having “un-witched” himself, with Revelation
in the Courthouse Park (1960) Partch once more sallied
forth into explicitly Greek territory. I do wonder whether,
consciously or otherwise, Partch had been nudged by West
Side Story, because he similarly re-clothed a classic
- Euripides’ The Bacchae - in a coat of modern relevance.
Partch, though, went a step further, by dovetailing and
overlapping his modern “take” with an enactment of the
original tale. In this, although he admitted that he was
helped a little by the typically “Greek” styling of provincial
American courthouses, what really reinforced the connections
was having each pair of parallel parts played by the same
person. This overall approach was also a really neat way
of evading the snare that King Oedipus had sprung on him.
The cast includes actors/singers, male and female choruses,
drum majorettes, clog dancers, tumblers, a brass band,
guitarists, umpteen Partch instruments, and even a pre-recorded
tape. Such an eclectic mix immediately reminded me of Bernstein’s Mass,
and, sure enough, by the end of the first track I was noting, “Wonder
if LB ever [came across] this . . . Get whiffs of his Mass.” Mind
you, to some extent this is hardly surprising: Partch was
prompted by a striking correspondence between the basic
Euripides scenario and two features of modern-day America.
These were what he described as “religious rituals with
a strong sexual element [and] sex rituals with a strong
religious element” - by the latter he meant the pursuit
of pop stars by half-crazed, or even fully-crazed, crowds
of young women. More particularly, he was prompted by the
convergence, in his own mind, of these two distinct things.
However, while Bernstein turns levity to disaster then
(Glory, Halleloo-yah!) plucks redemption from the ruins,
Partch, true to Euripides’s original tragedy, leaves us
to contemplate the smouldering ashes.
This recording, made at a performance given at the University
of Illinois in 1961, was originally issued on Partch’s
Gate 5 label. It is “as excerpted by Partch”. Comprising
only about half of the complete work, this can of course
do no more than give us the flavour of the piece. Yet,
what a flavour! Unlike film or TV programme trailers, most
of which completely fail to convince me, these excerpts
apparently left me hungry for more, because my final listening
note said simply, “An amazing work”. One day, maybe
there’ll be a recording of the whole thing, then I’ll find
out if it lives up to my expectations! [See Footnote]
Unfortunately, this pro tempore “amazing work” has
to seep through the filter of a recording somewhat less
exalted than that of The Bewitched. In fact, it
sounds as if someone had had a last-minute bright idea,
and stuck up a microphone somewhere that nobody would trip
over it. The monaural sound is very hissy, although reasonably
full-toned - for example, the brass band’s bass drum booms
beautifully (CD A track 2) and the subterranean throbbing
of the Marimba Eroica (track 8) quite properly comes up
through the floorboards. However, the dynamical balance
is very dodgy. For example, the Cloud Chamber Bowls, booming like
big glass bells, are surely far too close to the microphone,
and there is some pre-echo on a huge instrumental outburst
(track 8 again) - although to be fair this is a problem
with storage rather than the recording process itself.
More crucially, often an intoning voice reverberating from
the back is all but inaudible behind the accompanying instruments
whereas, when such voices are at the front (as in track
7), their words are crystal-clear.
Let the above merely be a warning to the audiophile!
If that microphone had not been there, the tape would have
been blank (apart, that is, from the hiss), so I for one
am grateful for what I’ve got. As with any other noteworthy
historical document, the most important thing is that it exists.
That it is also good enough for us to actually enjoy -
as opposed to just “study” - the contents, to the extent
that we (or I, at least) can declare them to constitute
an “amazing work”, must be considered a real bonus.
It’s as plain as the nose on your face that the “step
back” of The Bewitched had done the trick: Partch
had returned to his “Greek” territory with fresh confidence
and clearer idea of how to get what he really wanted. The
formal, declamatory style dictated by Yeats's stately language
is “out”, a vigorous vernacular style is “in”, and this
time nary a post-production grumble from Partch. In passing,
you’ll find that there is a certain “hippy” aura, which
I feel in a goodly number of his works, even in some of
the very early ones. Partch, it seems, had already invented “hippy”,
or at least the “hippy sound”, years before the flower-power,
love-in generation turned up in the Swinging Sixties! As
I recall it, at this point the appropriate rejoinder is, “Right
on, man!”
Also as plain as the nose on your face is the throat-grabbingly
infectious enthusiasm of the performers. They bring out
all the revivalist-style hysteria that Partch puts into
what I can only describe as “rock ‘n’ roll” episodes -
relatively unusually for Partch, there are several really
jolly, toe-tapping tunes. Moreover, the brass band plays
with a rude, robust, almost anarchic, and utterly refreshing
disregard for anything even approaching refinement. There
are all sorts of stimulating, imaginative vocal effects,
like the yelping chorus singing along with the band (track
2), or the whistling and hissing (track 3). Of particular
interest, though, is Freda Pierce (in the dual rôle of
Mom/Agave), who at one particular point is required to
adopt an operatic soprano style. “Operatic”? Yes - this
puzzled me for a moment! It seems to me that Partch is
slipping in a sly practical demonstration of the problem
with conventional singing. By comparison with intoned words,
the operatically-sung words are so incomprehensible that
you can’t even be sure there are any.
Yet, for all the sheer entertainment value of the brassy
band and the strumming guitars, I find myself again, and
above all else, in awe of Partch’s own instruments and
the skill of their players. I am endlessly fascinated by
the way they can creep in and amplify the emotional expression
of the voices, and then generate a fearsome intensity of
their own (track 7). But most of all I am struck by their
incredible ability to create atmosphere. The very start
of Chorus One (track 2) is so flesh-crawlingly creepy
that it would have had even Bartók gasping with admiration,
and I can guarantee that it’ll raise your hackles. It is
so mesmerising that the memory of it haunts you through
all the fun-filled rough-and-tumble, never letting you
forget for one moment that this is all going to end in
tears. Revelation, even in this drastically extracted
form, is indeed quite a revelation.
The corners of Enclosure Five are padded with
several short pieces - we might call them “lollipops” -
only one of which is on the “Greek theme”. Through the
title and the question posed at the end, Ulysses Departs
from the Edge of the World loosely - very loosely!
- relates Odysseus’s fraught return home to Partch’s own
hobo wanderings. Partch had been asked this question many
times, and it amused him to imagine asking it of Ulysses: “Have
you ever been arrested before?” Other than that, Ulysses is
exactly what its subtitle says: A Minor Adventure in
Rhythm. Written in the mid-1950s, when Cool Jazz was
in the ascendant, it is essentially a jazz-styled chamber
piece for trumpet, baritone saxophone and various Partch
instruments including his recently-built Boo (bamboo marimba).
It bounces along very jauntily, its basic melodic outlines
sticking fairly closely to “chord-tones”, presumably to
make it easier for the intended jazz soloists to blend
in with the “backing group” of Partch percussion. Jack
Logan (trumpet) and Larry Livingstone (sax.) offer some
pleasing differentiations of legato and staccato and pump
in bags of expressive guile, whilst the percussion playing
is as skilful and precise as you would expect from a tightly-knit
group of “old hands”. The 1971 stereo recording is close-miked
but not dry, sounding clear and clean. The one exception
is the voice, which sounds a mite distorted and, to be
brutally honest, gives a distinct impression that the cue-card
was cock-eyed.
The Menuet, not by Partch but by Johann Philipp
Krieger, is a concise curiosity - at a mere 45 seconds,
it takes less time to listen to than it does to read about
it in the booklet! This arrangement, for Harmonic Canon
and Kithara, was made to demonstrate a solution to a problem
the piece had with justly-intoned modulation. How does
it sound? Well, try to imagine something in the middle
of the triangle formed by a harpsichord, a king-sized lute,
and a music-box.
The second piece in this Enclosure that isn’t
by Partch is Douglas Moore’s Come Away, Death, a
song for unaccompanied tenor. Partch admired this for its
inherent sense of corporeality, to the extent that in 1941
he made this recording of it, presumably for his own personal
pleasure. George Bishop’s sensitive singing can be heard
clearly through the dreadful mush of the old acetate. It’s
fairly certain that Partch’s own setting of the same words
was inspired by Moore’s, and so this 1997 - and much cleaner!
- recording by Vincent Bouchot (voice) and Didier Ascour
(adapted guitar) is provided for comparison and contrast.
Last, but by no means least, we have Partch’s 1955 revision
of By the Rivers of Babylon, which he wrote in 1931.
Appositely and happily, and ignoring the fact that here
the instrumentation is rather fuller than Partch’s Adapted
Viola, this was the very piece that had so captivated W.
B. Yeats in 1934. This recording, first issued on Gate
5 in 1962, is still monaural but not surprisingly it sounds
much better than the earlier, 1945 recording included on Enclosure
2 (see my review). Moreover, this one is also more
confidently performed - I wonder if that had anything to
do with it
being conducted, which the earlier one wasn’t. Although
to my mind she slightly over-reaches herself in the climax,
Nina Cutler’s vocal contribution is nevertheless very impressive.
As with other of these Enclosures, Philip Blackburn’s
design of the 40-page booklet - and of the CDs themselves
- uses artwork from original productions, scores etc. As
ever, it is crammed with useful and interesting material,
and detailed performing credits. As ever, it is visually
an absolute treat, and happily there are not so many of
those places where the design obscures the text. One little
point, though: why are the Partch instruments and their
performers not listed for Revelation? [See Footnote]
That minute carp apart, it’s full marks to Innova for their
high standard of production which, please note, is something
that we’ll miss sorely when we’re all plugged into iPods!
To conclude, many people tend to think something on
the lines of, “Poor Harry Partch! All this really great
stuff he’s done, and yet you hardly ever hear of him.” Hum.
My wife, on the other hand, tends to think, “Harry Partch?
Pity he wasn’t strangled at birth.” Ah, well, that’s democracy
for you. However, back to the point. In one way, Partch
is actually more fortunate than conventional composers,
because he never suffers from mundane performances by indifferent,
or simply overworked, musicians. By their very nature,
his works are almost always performed by folk who are,
to muddle my metaphors slightly, champing at the bit to
get their teeth into them. Without meaning to diminish
the immense dedication that went into the enormous task
of finding, assembling, and preparing the materials, that’s
why Innova’s Enclosures contain so much stunning
stuff. Even a churlish grumble-guts like me is left with
precious little to moan about Still, it’s good for the
soul have to indulge in effulgent praise of something now
and then, and even better to admit that in this respect Enclosure
5 has twisted my arm with a vengeance.
Paul Serotsky
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Vocal/Instrumental Performers
and Recording Details (where provided)
Ulysses: Danlee Mitchell (diamond marimba), John Grimes (bamboo marimba, cloud-chamber
bowls), Linda Schell Pluth (bass marimba, cloud chamber
bowls), Larry Livingstone (baritone saxophone and speaker),
Jack Logan (trumpet). Rec. 1971 by Jack Williams/Custom
Fidelity Co.
Revelation: Performed by the “Gate 5 Ensemble” of
the Univ. of Illinois - John Garvey (conductor), Jeffrey
Foote (Sonny/Pentheus),
Freda Pierce (Mom/Agave), John Bert (Dion/Dionysus), Elizabeth
Hiller (Korypheus), Coryl Randall (Cadmus), Joel Kelin
(Herdsman). Details of Chorus of Women, Chorus of Men,
Brass Band, Guitarists and other instrumentalists not specified,
but can be found in the book Enclosure 3. Rec. 11
April 1961, live performance at Univ. of Illinois Fest.
of Contemp. Arts.
Oedipus: Harry Partch (musical director,
adapted guitar), Allan Louw (Oedipus), Ian Zellick (Priest,
Second Messenger, Attendant), William
Derrell Bond (Chorus Spokesman), Robert Hood (Oedipus’s
Brother-in-Law), Bruce Cook (Tiresias, Herdsman), Rudolphine
Radil (Jocasta), Gregory Millar (Messenger), Elvena Green
(Antigone), Margaret Calhoun (Ismene), Alison Berry (Attendant),
James Allen Leland (Attendant), Flora Lynn Kirschner (Attendant);
Singing Chorus – Ann Arness, Gina Brown, Gertrude Feather,
Peggy Parlour, B. J. Ross, Jean Sundstrom, Berniece Fredrickson;
Jane van Rysselberghe (marimba eroica), Darlene Mahnke
(bass marimba), Barbara Browning (kithara), Ute Miessner
(harmonic canon), Patricia Carey (chromelodion sub-bass),
Angela Thorpe (chromelodion), Nancy Wiebenson (chromelodion),
Sheila Bates (diamond marimba), Elizabeth Brunswick (cloud-chamber
bowls), Jackie Fox (cloud-chamber bowls), Dante Zaro (microtonal
string bass), Ellen Ohdner (microtonal cello), George Probert
(clarinet, soprano saxophone), Marjorie Sweazey (adapted
guitar). Rec. Lisser Hall, Mills College, Oakland Calif.,
14-16 March 1952.
Krieger’s Menuet: Harry Partch and Ben Johnston (harmonic canon and
kithara). Rec. by Harry Lindgren at Gualala Calif., 1950.
Moore’s “Come Away, Death”: George Bishop (voice). Rec. Chicago, c. 1941-2.
Partch’s “Come Away, Death”: Vincent Bouchot (voice), Didier Ascour
(adapted guitar). Rec. 1997.
Babylon: Nina Cutler (voice), Evelyn Garvey (chromelodion), Lyndel Davis (kithara),
Harry Partch (adapted viola), John Garvey (conductor).
Rec. Univ. of Illinois, 1961.
Bewitched: Danlee Mitchell (musical director), Isabella Tercero (Witch), Peter
Hamlin (adapted koto), Phil Keeney (spoils of war), Cris
Forster (marimba eroica), Randy Hoffman (cloud-chamber
bowls), Doug Laurent (chromelodion I), Jon Szanto (new
boo I), Dan Maureen (bass clarinet), Donna Caruso (piccolo,
flute), Robert Paredes (clarinet), David Dunn (adapted
viola), Robin Gillette and Anita Mitchell (kithara II),
Ron Caruso (diamond marimba), Gary Irvine (bass marimba),
David Savage and Paul William Simons (harmonic canon II),
Ron Engel (surrogate kithara). Rec. by Westdeutscher Rudfunk
at perf. in Cologne, Germany, 1980.
Footnote: I have had feedback from Innova
on some points. The reason given for the awkward side-break
in King Oedipus is
that the lengths of these CDs were stretching the capabilities
of current CD players, and doing it the way I suggest
would have increased the largest playing time by a little
over a minute. Hopefully, any future production runs
will adopt the more sensible split. A full list of Revelation performers
is included in Enclosure 3, which is a large book,
due for reissue May/June 2006. Finally, my “expectations” regarding Revelation will
be at least partially tested sooner than I imagined:
Innova tell me that a new Enclosure 7, a DVD,
will be released at the same time. Amongst other things,
this will include filmed extracts from the production
of Revelation! [PSe]
Ulysses
Departs from the Edge of the World (1971 Orion LP, Jack
Logan, trumpet); Revelation in the Courthouse
Park (1960, University of Illinois, Gate 5 Records, Issue
F); Introduction to King Oedipus (KPFA-FM, 1954); King
Oedipus (1952, Allen Louw: Oedipus; Rudolphine Radil:
Jocasta; Mills College premiere with W.B. Yeats libretto);
Johann Krieger: Menuet (1950, Partch + Ben Johnston);
Come Away, Death (from December, 1942); (1997, Didier
Aschour and Vincent Bouchot); By the Rivers of Babylon
(137th Psalm); (1961, Gate Five Records); Introduction
to The Bewitched (A Dance Satire) (1959, WNYC); The Bewitched
(1980, WDR-Köln). Full details in note at end of review. 
