Daniel Wolf's comments

D. W. has had a couple of very nice thoughts recently, as in:

>As a composer, I wish to be identified without the qualifiers _microtonal_=
=20
>or _just intonation_ stuck in-between the words _good_ and _composer_. It=
=20
>strikes me again and again that the best pieces in just intonation or in=20
>some _microtonality_ are good pieces of music first, and the intonation is=
=20
>one of many factors contributing to that quality, the whole really being=20
>greater than the sum of the parts.

Yes! I have always had a devil of a time trying to convince percussionists
that just because a piece was a good *percussion* piece, it didn't
necessarily follow that... you get the picture.

>Besides Protestant Hymns, Yaqui Indian songs, and Mandarin Lullabies, none=
=20
>of which is particularly rich in harmonic adventure, what was the=20
>_classical_ repertoire that Partch knew (beyond Chopin)?

One other classical influence that might explain it was Partch's respect for
Modest Mussorgsky, whom he thought quite highly of (Boris Gudonov being
prominent). Another thought might have been some of the things HP might
have played to accompany silent films; much of the literature that populated
the 'fake' books used for movie houses was very derivative of late Romantic
European music (Wagner, et al). Only possibilities...

>The other striking feature of Partch=B4s _system_ is his systemic symmetry.=
=20

One thing that always struck me was the *physical* symmetry of many of the
instruments, usually a mirror symmetry of some sort. The Diamond Marimba is
obvious, but both the Quadrangularis Reversum and the Boo split right down
the middle with mirrored left/right sections, and even the Spoils of War,
Kitharas and Mazda Marimba could be seen in this light.

- Jon
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Jonathan M. Szanto | If spirits can live online . . . . . . . . .
Backbeats & Interrupts | . . . then Harry lives in Corporeal Meadows
jszanto@adnc.com | http://www.adnc.com/web/jszanto/welcome.html
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