I just found this. I loved Harry Partch. Met him at UCLA when he held a symposium. First time I heard him was when my boyfriend was getting his PhD and he played Harry's version of Happy Birthday. I was immediately sold!
Only a handful of people have read his text 'Genesis of a Music'. Partch told me it was all bullshjt after he had a stroke from juicing, and nobody came to visit him.
Very good. I want to believe that if Harry Partch had known about the musical project of the Portuguese Traditional Music Group Vai de Roda, he would have wanted to be a Vaiderodian and participated in the recording of the album Vai de Roda 1983. I want to believe. 😀 ru-vid.com/group/PLqQdEN8bEBnWT23qozyDhONpy6PM6N2Ym
What a gift! Thank you, to whoever posted this. Wonder if Partch knew John Cage or the then very young Pauline Oliveros. He's certainly an ancestor of theirs.
Bravo UW ensemble, Bravo! The costumes emphasize the overarching "plot" of the work, and the delivery and pacing makes the piece more "sprightly." I have heard the "original" and seen the New Band performance, and I regard this one as superior to both. If I had some nits to pick, the sound recording could be a bit less "breathy" (combination of distant microphones and RU-vid's compression features). For some reason, The Letter seemed to suffer most in this respect. Thank you so much for keeping Partch's musical legacy alive.
Nice to see my dad conducting this, and glad it's on RU-vid so it can be widely seen and shared. I was 4-5 years old at the time, and have memories of lolling around these performances at that age (as long as I was quiet, haha!). This piece shows the influence of gamelan, not sure how much that is acknowledged within academia. Later my dad played in the local gamelan group as a hobby.
Did your Dad come up to UCLA for Harry's several concerts and symposiums? Harry had a blast in our ethnomusicology gamelan room with so many different ensembles from all over Indonesia. I was an Ethno major under Mantle Hood and my husband an Ethno PhD candidate. Those were the best times at UCLA. Every day was an adventure. Too bad nobody showed the music they were reading. It was a real trip! What is your dad's name?
@@gretchensaaduddin5123 My dad's name was Tom Nee, he was on the faculty at UCSD and conducted orchestral and experimental music. He might've been up at those UCLA events, I don't know.
I found an original mint 3LP box set at a thrift store. Paid 75 cents. It had real cool album size booklets with pictures of all the instruments etc ...
The problem is the instruments. For the most part, Partch's music can only be played on his own instruments - which Partch himself built, and of which there was originally only one full set. This is that original set. However, I think there's another Partch ensemble in Southern California, although they may not have a entire set of instruments. There's also a Partch ensemble in Europe - in Germany, I believe - and I think they do have a full set. Both sets are copies of these instruments.
This is real grass-roots avant-garde--an ordinary intellectual trying to make something new and unique from (metaphorical) baling wire and twine. I can appreciate it on that basis.
