About Our Words: Harry Partch
The memories of Susannah Sprague from Portland, Maine, USA, were stirred by Paul Serotsky's article concerning composer and musician Harry Partch.
Susannah writes:
My late father had the luck to attend a Harry Partch concert at Columbia University during WWII. His account of this experience fascinated me to no end as a child and later as an adult. I had no idea at that time that anyone else had even heard of this artist.
Harry's brother Virgil was, by the way, a cartoonist who, according to my father, was using his brother Harry as a model, which only became obvious obvious upon viewing Harry at the concert. Unfortunately, this resulted in my father and his companio (a Displaced Person of noble lineage from Rumania) being asked to leave the concert. They could not contain their mirth, having viewed the New Yorker cartoons first. They were respectful, however, of Partch's pioneering endeavors in music. Partch worked with 48 tones, though, as I understood it from my father, and now I read that it is 43. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Thanks.
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2007/02/harry_partch_fo.php
