Harry Partch, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Harry Partch

composer from the United States

Date of Birth: 24-Jun-1901

Place of Birth: California, United States

Date of Death: 03-Sep-1974

Profession: composer, musical instrument maker, musicologist, music theorist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About Harry Partch

  • Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments.
  • He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales.
  • He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947). Partch composed with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones derived from the natural harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals to the octave.
  • To play his music, Partch built a large number of unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl.
  • Partch described his music as corporeal, and distinguished it from abstract music, which he perceived as the dominant trend in Western music since the time of Bach.
  • His earliest compositions were small-scale pieces to be intoned to instrumental backing; his later works were large-scale, integrated theater productions in which he expected each of the performers to sing, dance, speak, and play instruments.
  • Ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh and kabuki heavily influenced his music theatre. Encouraged by his mother, Partch learned several instruments at a young age.
  • By fourteen, he was composing, and in particular took to setting dramatic situations.
  • He dropped out of the University of Southern California's School of Music in 1922 over dissatisfaction with the quality of his teachers.
  • He took to self-study in San Francisco's libraries, where he discovered Hermann von Helmholtz's Sensations of Tone, which convinced him to devote himself to music based on scales tuned in just intonation.
  • In 1930, he burned all his previous compositions in a rejection of the European concert tradition.
  • Partch frequently moved around the US.
  • Early in his career, he was a transient worker, and sometimes a hobo; later he depended on grants, university appointments, and record sales to support himself.
  • In 1970, supporters created the Harry Partch Foundation to administer Partch's music and instruments.

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