hey Szanto...

Haverstick here...dadgumm it, Jon, even after reading your lengthy post
to Reinhard concerning Partch, wherein you laid out the reasons why he
should be treated differently than other composers, I still don't agree;
in fact, I still think it's elitism...sorry...also, how ironic that you
wind up duking it out primarily with Reinhard, who, I feel it's safe to
say, is one of the foremost Partch interpreters in the world, and who
most likely knows the music as well as anybody ever did or ever will...
yikes...Hstick

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Let me see if I get it straight:

1. Partch's music is inseparable from its dramatic dimension; intonation,
lyrics, acting, the gestural playing on the instruments, and the very
instruments that Harry built are physical presence on the stage during a
live performance and form all an inseparable gesamtkunstwerk --a unique
artistic unity.
2. Anything that breaks this unity, therefore, affects the
gesmtkunstwerkenheit --the total unity of a work's elements--- thereby
mutilating Partch's art.
3. Preliminary list of possible mutilations to Partch's art:
a) Recordings (because the physical proximity and the drama are missing).
b) Musical performance only (because drama is missing)
c) Dramatic live performances with non-Partch instruments (because you
got to see the thing itself and the gestures necessary to play on it are
part of the drama)
d) Films and videos (because it's not a live performance where there is
physical proximity between the audience and the action)
e) Dramatic live performances with exact replicas of Partch instruments
(because the instruments are unique)
4. Only those who have control over the original instruments can stage an
artistically honest performance of the works as the composer intended, and
only those who attend their performances can get a true sense of Harry's
art.
5. When the original instruments disintegrate, Partch's art will die
forever.
6. Fortunately for the world, polymer technologies provide ever advancing
substances to fix the little cracks and splits in the instruments, so that
in every generation there will be at least a little number of privileged
people who will experience Partch's art for many generations to come.
My conclusion is that plastics are the best thing that happened in the
world since the invention of the bed.
Enrique Moreno

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Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 13:54:33 -0700
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