Tag Archives: Aron Kallay

The Complete Harry Partch, Volume 4


Bridge 9611

The first volume of this Bridge Records landmark series focused on Harry Partch’s (1901-1974) most likely best known works, a fine way to introduce this man’s unusual and brilliantly experimental music.

Bridge 9349

From this first volume, it is clear that great care was taken to produce the most authentic and complete versions of this music in dedicated, authentic performances on faithfully constructed copies of Partch’s unusual (and visually beautiful) instruments. The instruments themselves deserve a history and analysis but that is beyond the scope of this review. This is a great disc to introduce listeners to this man’s work.

Bridge 9149A/C

This second volume won a Grammy for the best classical compilation. It is largely a spoken word album, the title taken from Partch’s journal documenting his itinerant adventures and musical experiments. This is essentially an audio “Complete Works” edition in which the scholarship of text and performance are refined to represent as accurate a representation of this unique composer’s work as possible. Not as easy listening as the first volume but truly a gift to fans and performers.

Bridge 9525

The third volume, reviewed here, includes a heretofore unknown work by Partch gleaned from that careful reading of the “Bitter Music” diaries (along with other gems). This was actually my introduction to this recording project as Mr. Schneider graciously sent me a copy for review. This rekindled my romance with Partch’s music begun in about 1970 when I heard a 7” promotional disc which was bundled with my copy of Wendy Carlos’ Switched on Bach. That disc contained an excerpt from Partch’s Castor and Pollux among other composers.

Volume Four

Track listing

Now comes Volume 4 and it is loaded with Partchian glory in that it presents the first complete recording of these interrelated works, a sort of cycle of song cycles which, together make up a larger work, a “Meta-song cycle” titled, “The Wayward”. It is arguably his first large scale dramatic work, presented here in aggregate as once planned but never realized until now.

Each volume in this series truly does homage to Harry Partch and assures that his music will continue to have listeners well into this 21st century. There is no question in this listener’s mind, that this complete works cycle will stand for a long time as THE definitive and most complete version of Partch’s oeuvre for many years.

Even as a long time fan of Partch’s work such as myself continues to find delight in the care and attention to detail found in all of these releases. Enthusiasts will still enjoy the various prior media incarnations by the composer himself from releases on his own Gate 5 label and others which are still available as are subsequent recordings by Dean Drummond and others. But the present series features newly fashioned copies of Partch’s original instrument designs. Those instruments and their visually beautiful and imposing designs themselves become characters along with the musicians in staged live performances. This represents a major step in his artistic development which led to larger scale music theater and film scores later in his career.

It is hard to imagine this being done better and this series effectively situates Partch not simply as the obscure outsider experimentalist, but as a unique artist whose work informs and inspires the next generation of composers and performers. It also clarifies his music theater aspirations and sets the tone for the (hopefully upcoming) larger dramatic works in this ongoing series such as The Revelation in Courthouse Park (1960), The Bewiched (1955), and Delusion of the Fury (1968).

Indeed, Partch had an eye and an ear for the theatrical. His palette was the drama of the dispossessed, the hobo, riding the rails in a sort of proto-beat ethic that later gave rise to Jack Kerouac et al, whose Everyman tales in his novels shaped the subsequent artistic generation. Partch, with his exotic tuning theories broke free from the straight jacket of western music’s conventional tunings (and western concepts of drama) to tunings reconceived from their Pythagorean ideals of ancient practice to a modern alternative with the goal of finding new ways of expression. Kerouac experimented with writing and Partch with tuning. But both men struggled in at least partly voluntary exile from the mainstream of the society within which they found themselves. Partch’s dramatic backdrop was the railroad which unintentionally created a new social sphere of the dispossessed who rode the trains in search of sustenance both physical and intellectual. That dramatic backdrop was one of hopped trains and thumbed rides. Kerouac used his thumb to hitchhike or rode along in trains (he was a brakeman), and (sometimes) in stolen cars courtesy of his muse Neal Cassidy. All this couched in a modern descendant of literature’s great Greek dramas, Japanese Noh dramas, and Ethiopian drama, Partch tells the heroic adventures of his, the generation that followed the “jazz age” and preceded the beat generation much as Kerouac helped evolved literature from the early twentieth century American romanticism of Thomas Wolfe eventually to the “Beat Generation”.

There are six tracks on this release comprising six works. The last “bonus” track is a speculatively realized version suggested but never realized in Partch’s lifetime and it is more than just filler. Like the prior releases, this one speaks to the fans and enthusiasts who seek a complete rendering of every last note the composer wrote.

The Cloud Chamber Bowls, the Chromelodeon, the plectra and percussion instruments, and the characteristic wooden xylophones announce the first work and provide the listener a context in no uncertain terms that this is an expansion of the musician’s harmonic palette. It signifies that performers and audience are now in a very distinctly different world.

The Eight settings that comprise Barstow went through several revisions (1941, 1954, 1968). On this release we are presented with the most recent revisions of the eight inscriptions. The original version of 1941 for voice and guitar is available on the first volume and I believe this is the version that Maestro Schneider performed at an Other Minds concert in San Francisco some years ago.

This present version utilizes a chamber sized ensemble and adds solo and other voices that act like a Greek chorus describing the unfolding drama. If you’ve only heard the version on previous recordings, you’re in for a treat. Both male and female voices are used as appropriate to the gender of the writer of the text. This final version of Barstow here takes on a much grander form, in a larger dramatic splendor which fleshes out, as much as possible, the people (or at least the memories of the people) behind these lonely evanescent texts.

The second and third tracks, clocking in at just over three minutes and just under three minutes respectively are also more elegantly “dressed” with a more elaborate and dramatically effective presentation depicting news headlines (San Francisco) as they once sounded with paper boys hawking their wares and then the text of a letter (The Letter) from one hobo to another, a message to the composer of the work that serve to establish a context. There is some marvelous instrumental music that drives these dramatic segments in a very cinematic, impressionistic manner.

The fourth track, U.S. Highball, in this 1955 revision is a much longer (nearly 30 minutes) description of a train trip which Partch actually traveled. The vocal writing reflects the composer’s mature style and this movement is arguably the heart of this music dramatic foray. The instrumental sections imitate train whistles (with Doppler effects convincingly achieved due to the uniquely non-western tunings). Disembodied voices accompanied by the ever present and imposing musical instruments tell a surreal narrative of a journey as relevant to the ever evolving state of the art that resonates deeply with the feel of the era much as “On the Road” resonated with the esthetic vibe of the following generation. It is essentially brief narratives that are woven into a compelling story and a beautiful example of music drama revisioned to a generational esthetic.

Track five is in effect a sort of humorous postlude. Here, in addition to Partch’s unique instruments, the composer added parts for saxophone and trumpet. These choices were inspired by the composer’s appreciation of the artistry of Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan (with whom he had wished to collaborate). “Ulysses at the Edge” concludes the drama…

But wait…we have an encore. Here, the scholarship and deep respect for Harry Partch’s work gets a sort of little after party of its own here. It is an ingenious version of that same little postlude we just heard with some improvisatory passages driven by a desire to do honor to a collaboration which never occurred…until now.

I refer interested listeners to the very fine liner notes booklet for details on the army of scholars, musicians, and other artists but let me just list the performers:

Erin Barnes, Paul Berkolds, Alison Bjorkedal, Tim Feeney, Dustin Donahue, Aron Kallay, Vicky Ray, John Schneider, Derek Stein, Nick Terry, and Alex Wand played the Partch instruments. Dan Rosenboom played trumpet and Brian Walsh played baritone saxophone.

The instruments heard included:

Diamond Marimba, Spoils of War, Kithara II, Cloud Chamber Bowls, Canon, Bass Marimba, Chromelodeon, and Surrogate Kithara. These may not be sentient but their presence suggests otherwise.

Because Isaac Schankler


schanklerpatterns

aerocade music

Isaac Schankler billed on their own website as “composer, etc.” clearly has a sense of humor but that characterization is as good as any to describe this composer, performer, teacher, writer.  Suffice it to say it is worth your time to check out that web site.

Schankler’s name and music are new to this writer’s eyes/ears bit it is delightful to make the acquaintance of this artist via the present release.  Three electroacoustic works are presented.  Schankler does the electronics and an array of musicians play the acoustic instruments.

Schankler_headshot

Isaac Schankler (from the composer’s web site)

The combination of acoustic instruments with electronics (fixed and/or interactive) goes back at least to Edgar Varese and has practitioners which include Mario Davidovsky, David Behrman, Milton Babbitt, and a host of others too numerous to discuss within the scope of this review.  The point is that Schankler seems to be a part of these traditions and has developed a personal way to work with this hybrid medium.

One of the problems this writer has experienced while trying to understand and write meaningfully about electronic music (with or without acoustic instruments) is that textbooks on such music seem to end their surveys in about 1990.  Add to that the fact that electronic music, once a category banished to a sort of appendix in the days of the Schwann Catalog, has now acquired multiple meanings.  Electronic music now apparently includes dance music, dark ambient musings reminiscent of Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream, individual experiments typified by artists like David Lee Myers and Kim Cascone, and the original meaning with work by pioneers like Subotnick, Luening, Babbitt, etc.

This disc would have been listed in that little appendix I mentioned earlier if it had been released in the 70s or so.  It is, in this listener’s mind, classical electronic music.  Perhaps one could dance to it but it seems to be written with the intent of presenting musical ideas and highlighting the musical skills of performers on their acoustic instruments.  This one is best heard with headphones and serious attention.

The first track is Because Patterns/Deep State (2019) is a sort of reworking of two earlier pieces Because Patterns (2015) for prepared piano duo (Ray/Kallay Duo) and The Deep State (2017) for double bass and electronics.  There is an interview on Schankler’s website that discusses the composer’s processes in each piece and the reasons for combining the two into the present form.  The solo parts, such as they are, are performed by Aron Kallay and Vicki Ray on keyboards and Scott Worthington on double bass (curiously the soloists were recorded in different studios).

From a listener’s perspective one of the most striking things was how deeply embedded the solo performers are.  This is like a concerto grosso in which the instruments are more embedded in the texture.  It is a complex piece which demands the listener’s attention but ultimately rewards said listener in a musically satisfying way.  In short, your reviewer has only the faintest grasp of the processes involved but appreciates the end product.  At about 25 minutes this is a commitment but one worth tackling.

Mobile I (2009) is written for violin and electronics (interactive) and is described by the composer as an audio analogue of mobile sculpture.  Think Calder set to music perhaps.  Again regardless of the process the main concern for the listener is whether the result actually entertains. Here, where the soloist (Sakura Tsai) is more at the forefront, it is easier to hear the interactive nature of the music as the gestures of the violin are responded to by the electronics.  It is a form of call and response with the soloist in the lead and the electronics answering.

The third and final track is Future Feelings (2018) commissioned and premiered by Nadia Shpachenko and, according to the composer’s website was the result of experiments seeking pleasing sounds for the composer’s first child.  This is not a lullaby but rather a working out of ideas.  It works as a concert piece as intended but is probably not going to make its way onto a “soothing sounds for babies” CD any time soon.

This digital and vinyl release semis to have precious little in the way of notes to guide the listener but this label aerocade can be forgiven on the strength of their choices in repertoire and quality of recorded sound and the composer’s website is nicely designed and informative. Their release of the Post-Haste Duo was reviewed most favorably in these pages earlier and a quick scan of the label’s website suggests that this label (established by Meerenai Shim , who also did the lovely design of the cover, this is the 11th release of a label that deserves the attention of new music fanciers).  Links are provided for the interested listener, all of which will lead to a better understanding and will serve as a guide to find similarly interesting and creative music.