Thumbing through the May 1968 edition of the American Record Guide, which I rescued from some recycling bin somewhere, yielded this particularly choice advertisement from the now-lamented Composers Recordings, Inc.:
INCONSEQUENTIAL! - The New York Times
Not a good enough composer! - High Fidelity
Considerable limitations! - Music Journal
That is what the critics wrote (among nicer things) about our first Harry Partch record (CRI 193). The words ring down the ages; they are the same as, or closely similar to, the words Spohr wrote about Beethoven, that Hanslick wrote about Wagner, that somebody always writes about every interesting innovator in the history of music.
If it doesn't sound like "great" music, off with its head!
Well, Harry Partch doesn't sounds like great music because he doesn't sound like any music ever heard before. But (and this really confounds the critics) he does catch the ear, much the way the Beatles do. In fact, some of the verses on his new record, AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY, PETALS FELL IN PETALUMA (CRI 213), remind people of the Beatles -- only farther out.
Partch's PETALS is for people who enjoy music that is fresh and tangy. And who knows? Maybe it's great, too.
Playlist:
Gaetano Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor - Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Maggio Musicale/Tullio Serafin (EMI)
Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Janine Jansen and ensemble (Decca)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Violin Concerto No. 3; Rondo No. 2 in G; Franz Schubert - Rondo in A; Michael Haydn - Violin Concerto in B-flat - Baiba Skride, Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach/Hartmut Haenchen (Sony)
Morton Feldman - Piano and Orchestra*; Cello and Orchestra**; Coptic Light - Alan Feinberg*, Robert Cohen**, New World Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas (Argo)
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