source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 08:01:42 -0700 Subject: Re: Partch Factualia From: "Enrique Moreno" 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 Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 22:53 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA27270; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 22:54:40 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA27334 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id NAA06313; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 13:54:33 -0700 Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 13:54:33 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu