Harry Partch - The Harry Partch Collection, Vol.2 (2004)

Harry Partch’s compositions of the 1940s—and to some extent his work in general—have remained until recently an unwritten chapter in the history of American music. And yet it was these very pieces—the collection of four works he would later collectively entitle The Wayward—that brought him a small but permanent reputation as a musical maverick who had wandered off well-worn tracks and had developed a sort of lateral extension of his art, independently of any of the main circles of American music. The musical starting point of the compositions of The Wayward is the inflections and rhythms of everyday American speech. From the beginnings of his mature output in 1930 Partch had been devoted to what he called “the intrinsic music of spoken words,” and these four works capture something of the spontaneous musicality of the conversations of the hoboes he befriended during the Great Depression.


HARRY PARTCH (1901–1974)
The Harry Partch Collection, Vol. 2
New World Records 80622-2

Artists:
Thomas Coleman, Performer; David Dunn, surrogate kithara (zither), new kithara i (zither); Dennis Dunn, harmonic canon; Gate 5 Ensemble (Evanston), Performing Group; Gate 5 Ensemble directed by Harry Partch, Performing Group; Elizabeth Gentry, chromelodeon; Harry Partch Ensemble, Performing Group; Randy Hoffman, omicron belly drum; Jack McKenzie, Conductor; Danlee Mitchell, Performer, music director

The Wayward (40:58)

The I - U.S. Highball - Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip (25:27)
The II - San Francisco - A Setting of The Cries of Two Newsboys on a Foggy Night in The Twenties (02:34)
The III - The Letter (02:52)
The IV - Barstow - Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions (10:04)

And on The Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma (35:49)

This recording was originally issued on Composers Recordings, Inc. as CRI CD 752.