the wayward

(1941-1943)
after Harry Partch by Tim Mariën

Harry Partch, The Wayward:
1. U.S. Highball,
2. San Francisco,
3. The Letter,
4. Barstow, Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions

Tim Mariën : Toeënwâs

Mike Schmid, voice
Ictus Ensemble

with the support of Adams Instruments

PHOTOS GALLERY | NL | FR | PRESS

You hear America and cannot escape the feeling that Harry Partch has succeeded in perfectly capturing the music of the USA somewhere between references to traditional folk songs and the roar of the trombone. And this is underlined by the standing ovation that everyone received. It's now full speed ahead on the “Art of our Times” (KAZ) express.
Vorarlberger Nachrichten, August 2011, Veronika Fehle

Wanderings around America during the Great Depression

‘Listening to Partch is not necessarily pleasant,’ wrote the Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino, ‘his music is permeated with an inhuman sorrow, stubborn and unbending, just like the social rejection that marked his own life.’

Nevertheless, Harry Partch, like his predecessor Charles Ives, put American musical history into a new perspective. He grew up at the start of the twentieth century in small villages between Arizona and New Mexico amongst Presbyterian missionaries, Chinese immigrants and local Indian tribes and witnessed the decline of the ‘Old West’. The seeds of his wandering existence, his uninhibited thinking and the development of his musical theory and the bizarre range of instruments that emerged from it were sown in that cultural melting pot.

Harry Partch

‘Just Intonation’ and ‘Corporeality’ are two concepts that are inseparably linked in Partch’s music: a refined micro-tonal harmony is turned into sound in a physical, original and natural way that lies between speech and song and between playing and moving with the instrument.

His music cannot be categorised. It is reminiscent of experimental blues, the spoken word or the classical monodrama and is rarely heard in Europe. Specially for Ictus, Tim Mariën has now reworked The Wayward, a series of songs that resulted from Partch’s wanderings around America during the Great Depression. It is an entirely new production for voice and ‘transformed instruments’ including a 12-string folk guitar, banjo, zither, Chicago reed organ, microtonal piano, trombone and percussion.

Mike Schmid, voice

In the same spirit, the concert also includes the first performance of a new work by Tim Mariën. Mariën (1975) discovered Harry Partch’s musical theory when studying musicology. It was a revelation that helped him shape his own ideas.

Tim Mariën

Ictus performing the Partch adaptation, live in Darmstadt, July 2010, radio broadcast (HR2)

Here : historical recording of the 4th movement, Barstow,
by Harry Partch lui-même

... and here, a first experience, Opéra de Lille, 2005, with Kris Dane, voice + microtonal intruments (guitar and piano customized by Tim Mariën)

Tim Mariën on Partch:

“Generally speaking, the work of Partch gives accommodation to two ideas. Firstly there is the use of a tuning system based on pure intervals resulting in a microtonal scale, and the construction of instruments to play these intervals.  It is clear he found some inspiration in ancient Greek music theory, and in the writings on acoustics by the 19th century German scientist Hermann Helmholtz.  Secondly there is the creation of a ritual music theater. In this sense Partch mentions an affiliation with African ritual, ancient Greek and Japanese music theater."

“More specific, The wayward cycle is a collection of compositions based on Partch’s own experiences as a transient hobo during the so-called American Depression.  The work consists of 4 pieces, ranging from eight hitchhikers inscriptions from a highway railing (Barstow); the cries of two newsboys on a foggy night (San Francisco), a depressive message from a hobo friend (The Letter) and a substantial account of a transcontinental hobo trip (U.S.Highball).  All these pieces exist in several versions realized between early 1940s and the late 1960s, each following version including newly constructed instruments.  The whole work has a duration of about 45min.”

“Considering the obvious demand for an idiosyncratic “Partch orchestra”, it seems almost impossible for an outsider to arrange any of his compositions. Then again, trying to reach for an almost impossible goal characterizes the human condition.  In this way, I accepted the challenge to enter this highly personal oeuvre, extracting essential features of the work and translate them into new forms.  These will include microtonal instruments of my own design, although different than Partch’s.  Barstow was the first result and successfully realized by Ictus in 2005.”

“After all, it seems that Partch’s music demands from the listener either to accept it or to walk away from it.  I never walked away from it.  Nevertheless, the way in which Partch was able to transform a scientific approach to music into a sound world of his own, and giving direction to his discoveries in the context of ritual, is no more or less than a very unique contribution to the world of new music.”