{"id":9694,"date":"2017-03-02T15:13:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T14:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/?p=9694"},"modified":"2022-06-30T15:16:36","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T13:16:36","slug":"bring-open-ears-and-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/blog\/bring-open-ears-and-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bring open Ears and Eyes!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n\t\t\t\t
\n

In the context of our concert at\u00a0Onassis Cultural Centre<\/a>\u00a0in Athens on February 23, clarinettist Carl Rosman answered some questions about the fascination with Harry Partch’s music and his instruments:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you see Harry Partch as a pioneer and innovator or one more interesting and important 20th century composer?<\/em>
\nPerhaps you could say that there are two things that a composer needs to have done to be properly recognised as a pioneer or an innovator (as opposed to just a cult eccentric!): They don\u2019t just need to have done something new, they need other composers to have followed in their footsteps. I\u2019m not sure you could say that that happened with Partch, at least not yet \u2013 the need for special instruments has made it a bit tricky for other composers to take up where Partch left off. Of course composers since Partch have pursued the idea of just intonation without using his instruments, but I think one thing that that work has made clear is how much of Partch\u2019s work is actually inherent in the instruments. They aren\u2019t just a means of obtaining particular pitches which on standard orchestral instruments are harder to get at reliably \u2013 his work isn\u2019t just about the pitches, it\u2019s also very much about the physicality of the instruments.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting paradox for me: Partch set out with his instruments to explore certain harmonic areas, but as the instrument collection grew, it came more and more to accommodate instruments where the pitch really isn\u2019t the only element in the foreground, and even instruments which work against the idea of fixed pitches. The chromelodeons obviously are great at providing a kind of fixed pitch \u2018backbone\u2019 to the music; originally the harmonic canons and kitharas must have been intended that way as well, but the glass rods that he introduced to those instruments move away from the sense of the pitch of the instrument being fixed \u2013 and the same is true of the guitars, which are only played with slides. The cloud chamber bowls are visually spectacular but because of the way the instruments are built (cracking enormous (and expensive) bottles and hoping the crack happens in just the right place!) the actual pitch was even for Partch not something he could rely on. But of course he kept using them: they\u2019re such an important visual part of the impact of the music in concert.<\/p>\n

So the idea of Partch\u2019s music as a pitch system (which is something later composers can most easily take up, since it doesn\u2019t require these specific instruments) is something that he didn\u2019t consistently put at the centre of his music; on the other hand the actual instruments are something other composers haven\u2019t really had available to them. And in any case you could say that Partch\u2019s attitude to instrumentation isn\u2019t something you would replicate by rebuilding his instruments \u2013 if you wanted to replicate his attitude you would have to do that on your own terms, by building instruments from materials specific to your time and place, as he did.<\/p>\n

Anyway, fortunately we don\u2019t have to worry about questions like that constantly \u2013 we can also just play the pieces.<\/p>\n

What do you think that is the most challenging and interesting element of Partch\u2019s work, except of course of his self made instruments? How difficult it really learning to play those instruments comparing to the conventional ones?<\/em>
\nI can\u2019t speak for all my colleagues here so this is just my experience\u2026 I\u2019m a clarinettist, and so I often come on stage with things that aren\u2019t the instrument I first learnt \u2013 sometimes I play other sizes of clarinet, sometimes it\u2019s saxophones, or slightly more distantly related instruments such as chalumeaus or recorders, or recently even a nose flute. (I\u2019m very careful with what I take on with saxophones and recorders, of course, since there are already wonderful musicians who specialise in these instruments.) And then sometimes I have percussion to deal with, or other instruments which produce sound in a completely different way from the instrument I originally trained to play. Those are the instruments where you have to be particularly careful, since the reflex of producing the right sound at the right time on an instrument you\u2019ve been playing for 20-30 years is so internalised and so caught up with a particular way of making the sound that you really do have to unpick that process when you\u2019re dealing with an instrument you pluck rather than an instrument you blow. It\u2019s not that the instruments themselves are inherently difficult to play, it\u2019s that the process of making the sound needs rethinking, and with your \u2018native\u2019 instrument that\u2019s a process you\u2019ve internalised over many years. That and Partch\u2019s notation, which since he normally doesn\u2019t use traditional staff notation but a kind of tablature takes a lot of getting used to, and I\u2019m not quite sure if he always chose the most efficient way of communicating the information to the player\u2026<\/p>\n

The most challenging element? For me, it\u2019s actually been a matter of getting past the specificities of the instruments and the harmonic language to the point where we can \u2018just play the music\u2019. A musician in the classical repertoire who is constantly preoccupied with their playing techniques isn\u2019t\u2026 well, isn\u2019t quite a musician yet!<\/p>\n

What do you think of Parch\u2019s harmonic language and particularly his multitonic system? Was it just a fascinating curios or a valuable addition to the ever going evolution and progress of music?<\/em>
\nI think it\u2019s easy to forget to what extent the harmonic language current in any time and place is caught up with its tuning system and instrumentation. For example, strict equal temperament came along rather later than we sometimes think. Partch thought it was J.S. Bach\u2019s standard practice, which as far as I\u2019m concerned is at least a century out \u2013 for me the arrival of really strict equal temperament is historically speaking not so long before classical music starts to get away from the idea of pieces of music being in a single main key, or even in a key at all. So, in one sense, for me Partch is an interesting manifestation of that \u2013 a completely different harmonic language and instrumentation needs a different music. I don\u2019t think his music was ever going to flow into the mainstream, and I don\u2019t think he would have expected it to, since it needs a completely different set of instruments, not just because of his harmonic language but because of physicality of playing his instruments and their physical presence is so caught up in the music. But maybe what\u2019s most interesting for me is the way the extreme specificity of Partch\u2019s music might help us wonder whether other things in classical music are also more specific to their time and place than we sometimes pretend, or than we pretended in the days when anything we would hear in classical music would be played on the same piano or by the same orchestra.<\/p>\n

It was important to us that we didn\u2019t just acquire a replica set of Partch instruments (I say \u2018just\u2019 as though that were a simple matter, which it very much wasn\u2019t, especially for Thomas Meixner, who built most of them) and then perform his pieces \u2013 that\u2019s why we have commissioned several pieces for the Partch instruments. That\u2019s slightly tricky for the composers, of course. Generally if we commission a piece they can count on performances by other ensembles but if the piece is for Partch instruments that isn\u2019t quite as likely!<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t Parch music really need a conductor or you work best this way, that is without one?<\/em>
\nI think in any piece of reasonably complex ensemble music there are bits where the players can best sort things out for themselves and bits where an external hand silently showing the beat really is the most efficient way of keeping the group together. So there isn\u2019t really a yes\/no answer here, or for a lot of ensemble music, not just by Partch.<\/p>\n

Our first Partch project (Delusion of the Fury) is a piece for about 20 players, but it\u2019s also a theatre piece where the physical presence of a specialist conductor would distort the focus of the performance for the audience. (It would also have made the stage setup impossibly complex if every one of us had to be able to see a conductor!) But at the same time it wouldn\u2019t be quite right to say that the performances have been unconducted \u2013 different musicians sometimes conduct where it\u2019s necessary, just as in that piece different musicians sometimes start to sing, or act out parts, or of course move between instruments.<\/p>\n

So, yes, sometimes Partch\u2019s music does need a conductor, and then one of us conducts! Of course that does require a lot of discipline in rehearsals when you don\u2019t have a central coordinator. It\u2019s true that sometimes that has led to some rehearsals which have perhaps not operated at the very peak of efficiency\u2026<\/p>\n

Is Ensemble Musikfabrik somehow dedicated to Parch\u2019s work or is it one more composer that you play his music?<\/em>
\nIt often happens with us that certain composers come along in waves \u2013 we had a big Stockhausen wave some years ago, for example, when we had planned some performances for his 80th birthday but they turned out to be the first major performances after his death. It\u2019s no big surprise that we\u2019re experiencing a bit of a Partch wave at the moment: he\u2019s always been a cult figure and at the same time we\u2019re the first group in Europe with a full set of instruments to play his music. But we\u2019re not a specialist ensemble and have to cover a wide range of music; we\u2019re actually trained to play quite different instruments and we\u2019re also quite good at those; and in any case it\u2019s extremely important for us to have something planned for when each wave subsides\u2026<\/p>\n

What would you say to somebody who hasn\u2019t heard any of Parch\u2019s music neither ever seen you playing live as for describing what is he\/she going to experience watching your concert?<\/em>
\nIf they\u2019ve seen a traditional ensemble concert, then it won\u2019t look much like that: the stage will be full of very strange bits of furniture! Partch\u2019s music is very rhythmic \u2013 Even Wild Horses in particular is full of Latin dance rhythms, with microtonal melodies floating over the top.<\/p>\n

But in one respect it\u2019s just like any other concert, really: Bring open ears and eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/section>\n
<\/section>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the context of our concert at Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens on February 23, clarinettist Carl Rosman answered some questions about the fascination with Harry Partch’s music and his instruments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-9694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","tag-harry-partch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9695,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694\/revisions\/9695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}