Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos (Music in American Life) [Paperback]

Harry Partch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0252069137 | ISBN-13: 978-0252069130

Now in paper for the first time, "Bitter Music" is a generous volume of writings by one of the twentieth century's great musical iconoclasts. Rejecting the equal temperament and concert traditions that have dominated western music, Harry Partch adopted the pure intervals of just intonation and devised a 43-tone-to-the-octave scale, which in turn forced him into inventing numerous musical instruments. His compositions realize his ideal of a corporeal music that unites music, dance, and theater. Winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, "Bitter Music" includes two journals kept by Partch, one while wandering the West Coast during the Depression and the other while hiking the rugged northern California coastline. It also includes essays and discussions by Partch of his own compositions, as well as librettos and scenarios for six major narrative/dramatic compositions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bitter Music [is] a collation of Partch's miscellaneous writings and lectures, edited by Thomas McGeary and published by the University of Illinois Press with the unPartched elegance typical of their admirable series, Music in American Life... [The] book offers occasion for gratitude, for it reminds us that (in the words of Lou Harrison, the Californian composer who has to a degree assumed Partch's mantle): 'Harry told the truth about tune, as Kinsey did about sex.'" -- Wilfrid Mellers, Times Literary Supplement "Perhaps the fullest representation of the early Partch... A powerful document of its era, a work that should take its place in social as well as musical history." -- Bookforum "This important book documents an often overlooked, yet influential contributor to twentieth-century American musical life, and deserves a wide audience." -- Richard Kassel, Notes "This splendid collection is a great step forward for Partch." -- Peter Dickinson, Musical Times "Especially noteworthy ... for Partch's interest in capturing the music of speech inflections -- sayings of his fellow hobos, truck drivers, and policemen are all notated with precise pitch inflections matching the texts." -- Kevin Holm-Hudson, American Music ADVANCE PRAISE "Evocative, direct, clear, opinionated, argumentative, persuasive, idiosyncratic, and a delight to read... This is not only a welcome addition to the literature on American music; it comes very close to great American literature in its own right." -- J. Peter Burkholder, author of Charles Ives: The Ideas behind the Music Review of earlier edition (?) "Leaves us in no doubt that for Partch life and music were one; personal reflection intermingles with snatches of hobo speech and song, presented in rudimentary notations that demonstrate how 'words are music', in rockbottom America no less than in ancient Greece, in Gregorian chant, or Provencal troubadour song." -- Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (June 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252069137
• ISBN-13: 978-0252069130
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,715,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Bitter Music, December 7, 2009

By 

M. Morgan (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos (Music in American Life) (Hardcover)

This collection is a great insight into the thought and creative process of one of America's most fascinating composers. Passionate, original, non-academic, this collection exemplifies a mind committed to the working out of ideas. The early journals, essays mostly from the middle years and librettos from later work - it's not necessarily a cohesive body of work but it's a welcome antidote to the memoirs of more academic composers whose work slices smaller and smaller into a worked ground. Parallel with Partch's search for the sounds between the notes, is his search for the ideas between the ideas. Partch continually questions, continually searches, as if trying to resynthesise concept and sound world in a vital performance art. You can dip into this collection repeatedly and continue to come up refreshed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Like nothing you've ever read, March 23, 2008

By 

M. Erickson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos (Music in American Life) (Paperback)

Bitter Music (as well as the other writings in the collection) reads like a journal, a storybook, and a score simultaneously. The pages are riddled with colorful characters, bizarre situations, and wondrous insights into the musical mind of a brilliant transient.