The Harry Partch Collection, Vol. 1, from New World Records is a reissue of the first in CRI's series of four discs devoted to the recorded work of stubborn individualist and microtonalist
Harry Partch. Although it contains the same content as the CRI release, this is not a strict reissue in that several important aspects of the original package have been improved. The booklet has been redesigned, with 24 pages instead of 20 with the tiny, barely legible print of the CRI release enlarged with more photographs and an added bibliography.
Partch's low-budget, privately made 1950s recordings have been newly remastered in each selection and the result is superior to the CRI CD in every respect.
The Harry Partch Collection, Vol. 1, is devoted to a period in
Partch's development that is marked by a transition from his early "speech music" pieces based on poetry to extended instrumental works that demonstrate his unique 43-note to the octave scale. This move was prompted to some degree through friendly criticism offered by composer
Henry Cowell, who had commented on the lack of a strong rhythmic profile in
Partch's speech music works, exemplified here by Intrusions (11).
Partch responded with the Plectra and Percussion Dances, pieces that are mostly instrumental and composed in a swinging, percussive idiom that makes the music's unusual harmonic properties easy to digest. New World's engineers seem to have solved the problem in the Intrusions (11) of the booming bass marimba dominating the more delicate and diaphanous sound of the Harmonic Canon, a problem that goes back to the original Lauriston C. Marshall 78s of these works. Also the original CRI CD was a little disappointing in that Castor and Pollux didn't sound noticeably better than they did on the 1950s LPs issued by CRI; here they are heard to better advantage than ever. The works contained on The Harry Partch Collection, Vol. 1, are all essential and this anthology makes for an excellent introduction to both the series and
Partch's music, which is like nothing else on Earth.