Harry Partch: Revelation... private Gate 5 experimental

$

104

Harry Partch: Revelation In The Courthouse Park (1960 microtonal opera for large ensemble of unique and traditional instruments, intoning voices, and tape) ["excerpted"]


label & cat no.:
Gate 5 Issue F pressed in:
USA date:
1960 format:
LP Vinyl: ex (surface looks great, plays especially nicely for a low budget private press, with only occasional minor surface noise and terrific bass reponse)
Cover: vg+ (light ring wear on front; small writing in pencil on back) Ultra rare original private pressing artifact released on the composer's mail-order-only label featuring Partch's sound-sculpture instruments played in his 43-notes-to-the-octave microtonal scale. This music theater work is an adaptation of The Bacchae, and alternates its setting between the present and ancient Thebes; it was inspired by the then-new phenomenon of rock-stardom, especially that of Elvis Presley, in which Partch saw parallels with Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy. Credits go to the Gate 5 Ensemble of the University of Illinois, Freda Pierce as Mom-Agave, conductor John Garvey, producer Barnard Hewitt, designer and technical supervisor George Talbot, choreographer Jean Cutler, Keith Page, and stage manager Jack McKenzie, as well as "Drum Majorettes, Brass Band, Clog Dancers, Tumblers, Guitarists, and other instrumentalists." The back is stamped "Harry Partch / P.O. Box 491 / Petaluma, Calif. 94955."

From the late 1930s onward, after living as a transient hobo, Partch developed instruments based on his own revolutionary just intonation tuning theories (considered the first in the field since Pythagoras). He composed in isolation within the musical universe he created, but he blazed the same trails as Alois Haba, Julian Carrillo, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, and Charles Ives, drew from percussive eastern music such as gamelan, American folk, Native American, and African music, Hebrew and Christian hymns, and "lumber yards and junk shops," and would become influential to experimental and microtonal composers like John Cage, Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, La Monte Young, Ben Johnston, Easley Blackwood, Glenn Branca, Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, John Eaton, James Tenney, Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad, Henk Badings, and others from the avant garde; his instruments relate to the 'Structures Sonores' of Bernard and Francois Baschet and Jacques Lasry and the sound sculptures and homemade instruments of Harry Bertoia, Max Neuhaus, Z'ev, Donald Knaack, Paul Panhuysen, Bill Fontana, Mario Bertoncini, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rutman, etc. Check out my other auctions this week for more Partch/Gate 5, avant garde/experimental, early electronic/electroacoustic/synthesizer, 20th century classical, microtonal, audiophile, vintage jazz, and sound sculpture/sound art records. Note: New increased USPS shipping rates as of May 2007!
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