Johnny Reinhard NY Times Review

Well, Johnny Reinhard got yet *another* New York Times Review. I
don't know how he does it. Many others, including myself, can never
get them to come to *anything.* Anyway, although perhaps slightly in
breach of copyright, I am submitting the text for educational
purposes to this list. It's fairly short this time and, regrettably,
no photo was included:

INSTRUMENTS AND EARS NEWLY TUNED by Paul Griffiths
NY Times Monday, May 6, 2002:

The 21st American Festival of Microtonal Music started on Tuesday at
Washington Square United Methodist Church with an unusual program:
rarely do you get Harry Partch and J.S. Bach on the same night.

Both were being honored for their work with particular tunings:
Partch with just intonation (intervals that represent relatively
simple ratios of frequencies), Bach with the Werckmeister III tuning
he may have found enshrined in some of the organs he used. Partch's
complete "17 Lyrics by Li Po" were intoned by Johnny Reinhard, with
Anastasia Solberg on viola; then a small group of musicians played
the Fourth "Brandenburg" Concerto, a la Werckmeister.

The Partch score is a classic, his breakthrough piece, written in
1930-33. But it is almost never performed, surely because the tuning
is so hard to get right, but also because the notation is less than
complete.

He wrote the instrumental part for an "adapted viola," a hybrid of
viola and cello, supplied with frets to help the player get the
notes. Ms. Solberg dispensed with all that. She played on a
standard viola, tuned down, from her own painstaking transcription of
Partch's tablature, while Mr. Reinhard, who could have been louder,
rendered the tuneful speech of the vocal part.

the complete work is long, and maybe on another occasion the
performers could make a selection, which certainly ought to
include "The Night of Sorrow," a beautiful lament in which voice and
instrument echo in mournful turns through their strange tones, and "I
Am a Peach Tree," with its flavor of Chinese flamenco. In the Bach,
the Werckmeister tuning showed up in a slightly skewed sound to ears
expecting equal temperament, but the differences are exceedingly
subtle, never more than a 16th tone, which is less than most
musicians would allow as expressive deviation.

The concert also included Tristan Murail's "Winter Fragments," a
short, delicate essay in electronically modulated instrumental
music. Consisting of hard-frozen sounds and soft snow showers, it
was played by the Ensemble Subtilior.