Product Details

• Actors: H. Partch, Madeline Tourtelot, Harry Partch
• Format: Classical, NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Innova Records
• VHS Release Date: January 23, 1996
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000004AF8
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #496,855 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Partch at Long last, June 14, 2000

By 

Mr. F. E. Perry (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Enclosure One: Four Historic Art Films by Madeline Tourtelot with music by Harry Partch [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video features 'Four HISTORIC ART films' by Madeline Tourtelot with Music by Harry Partch: Rotate the Body in All Its Planes; Music Studio - Harry Partch; U.S.Highball; & Windsong.

The quality of these films have survived remarkably well seeing that they were recorded in the 1950's (except film #1 - 1961). My personal favourite is Music Studio - for here we are invited for a tour of Partch's home by the man himself and he introduces several of his resident invented instruments to us and demonstrates passages upon them. It's very intimate. This is useful in helping us to identify these instruments when heard in the ensemble playing - which features these beautiful, rich, and unique sound-textures - in the other films. For those unfamiliar with Partch and his music, he is a unique individual; a 'one-off'. He created his own musical world of microtonal intervals played upon a large array of beautiful percussion instruments (sculptures) and stringed instruments plus the 'Chromelodeon' - an adapted reed organ. His later music in particular is very rhythmical and often features unusual and uneven time signatures. One of his instruments is called the 'Mazda Marimba' - and it's made of actual light bulbs (with their 'entrails' removed!) which produce a kind of 'coffee percolator' sound - very delicate, hi-pitched and staccato. Other instruments have 'tuned' beer and wine bottles, whilst yet another is constructed entirely of slit bamboo. Partch is famous for his 43-notes-to-the-octave scale - instead of our 12 note scale! Suffice it to say that one hears many subtleties of sound and intervals missing from our modern music. Partch was a pioneer and many of his discoveries and sounds have been adopted (perhaps unknowingly) by many contemporary figures. U.S.Highball is almost 25 minutes long and is a recording of the piece of that name. It's played by an ensemble of musicans who would rehearse and learn Partch's unique system of notation and playing methods for months on end - and for no money! It's an account of a transcontinental hobo trip - for Partch was himself a hobo in the 30's. Shots of trains are interspersed between shots of various aspects of the ensemble. It includes voice - which, in some ways, was responsible for Partch seeking out these tones between the notes of our 12 note scale. He noticed that we don't speak in the manner performed in opera - our voices used these 'other' tones. Finally, we have Windsong. This is a chance to see the film for which Partch had composed this piece of music. The soundtrack later became known as 'Daphne of the Dunes.' B/W. It is fascinating to see leaves waving in the breeze, or waves moving, or flocks of birds flying whilst listening to Partch's music which seems to be so far-better-suited to the world of nature than our 12 tone scale. The sounds and the pictures go very well together. There is a story line based upon the ancinet Greek legend of Daphne and Apollo. Partch's Bass Marimba Eroica is constructed of four planks of wood up to 12 feet long the lowest vibrating at 22 cycles per second - very close to the lowest sound we humans can hear. Unfortunately, such primitive technology cannot do justice to such sounds! Nevertheless, it is a treat to have these historic movies preserved for posterity. It is a unique world - both of sound and vision - to which we are invited, and there is the sense that everyone involved is there for the right reason. The first movie 'Rotate the Body' features gymnasts moving to Partch's music and is the least exciting to me. Three of the films are in colour whilst Windsong is in Black & White. Whilst these have value as 'art films' with great integrity featuring a unique musical sound-world of a music rarely performed, yet the music and the films have a cohesiveness and it is a 'happening' scene which actually 'works.' We can even be inspired by Partch's evident passion for his music and for the Truth of 'Just Intonation' - the name of this system of tuning as opposed to our universal and modern (since the time of Bach) 'Equal Tempered tuning' - which, in fact, is largely out-of-tune. A deep matter and for further info re this checkout Partch's book 'Genesis of a Music.'

Planet Partch is a wonderful world and very well worth visiting every once and a while.