HARRY PARTCH: THE WAYWARD FIRST COMPLETE RECORDING
BRIDGE 9611

Bridge Records is pleased to issue the latest recording by Partch Ensemble, the Grammy Award winning new music group specializing in the music and instruments of the iconoclastic American composer Harry Partch. Partch's "The Wayward" in the composer's own words, is “a collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters—the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States from 1935 to 1941.” This is the world premiere recording of Partch's complete cycle.

Reviews:

(5 Stars)

"Harry Partch was that rare thing of a true original. Born in California in 1901, Partch went on to create his own musical scale, construct his own highly idiosyncratic musical instruments and compose some of the strangest and most delightful music of the 20th century. This glorious disc from the Partch Ensemble brings to life one of Partch's most intriguing and affecting series of works, "The Wayward", in a world premiere recording.

Partch describes "The Wayward" as "a collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters - the result of my wanderings in the Western parts of the United States from 1935 to 1941. This recording brings together, for the first time, all five pieces that comprise the 'collection'. These range from the eight-movement work "Barstow", which features lively spoken text (based on hitchhiker inscriptions from a highway railing in Barstow) heard above a spritely band of Partch's custom instruments, to the more melancholy piece "San Francisco", which evokes the chill of the city's mist.

It is a treat to hear so many of Partch's original instruments on the album, including the Cloud Chamber Bowls (suspended perspex bowls struck with a beater), the Chromelodeon (a pump organ, retuned to fit Partch's scale system) and the Castor and Pollux (a zither-like instrument with 44 strings). Instrumental performances throughout the record are precise and richly musical, while the vocal lines, which often teeter between the spoken and the sung, are delivered with terrific charm. It is a pleasure indeed to encounter music so alive with imagination and performed with such poise." — Kate Wakeling (BBC Music Magazine)

"We'll stay with "classical music" and also a bit with Castor and Pollux, but jump forward 200 years. In the early 1940s, US avant-garde artist Harry Partch wrote a collection of songs for baritone, bass, and orchestra, which he subtitled "A collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters - the result of my wanderings in the western part of the United States from 1935-1941" and revised several times over the next 25 years. "The Wayward" (Bridge) is advertised by the label as the "first complete recording" – we hear peculiar spoken-word chants set to radical acoustic guitar accompaniment. Furthermore, Partch was a great instrument inventor; he simply created the tools for his sound concepts himself. Whether only replicas or also Partch originals were used here is beyond my knowledge, but the exotic sonic richness of the "Chromelodeon," "Cloud Chamber Bowl," "Diamond Marimba," or "Surrogate Kithara," often zither- or xylophone-like structures, alone makes this music special. Some pieces (e.g., "US Highball") sound like an anticipated musical/Hollywood parody with magnificent tenor blaring, and "Ulysses at the Edge" is included as an encore in an "improv version" with magnificent trumpet lines. Oh yes, "The Wayward" has something to do with Castor and Pollux in that the "Castor & Pollux Canons" are also part of the instrumentation."  — Karsten Zimalla, WESTZEIT

BRIDGE 9611