Harry Partch - who created musical instruments from scrap and completely dismantled the 12-tone system that Western music is based on - was not your average mid-twentieth century composer wandering around the Golden State.
To discuss Partch’s influence, impact and his own instruments, we are pleased to have as the SoC’s guest Thomas Oesterdiekhoff, the Director of the Musik Ensemble in Cologne, Germany, whose company produced Partch’s Delusion of the Fury in Cologne and at New York’s Lincoln Centre for two sold-out performances.
In this 15-minute interview, Oesterdiekhoff sheds light on Partch’s atypical upbringing, and his obsession with tone that led to creating his own tonal system. Creating an entire array of instruments using hubcaps, bottles and shell casings, Partch penned a number of brilliantly chaotic noise ensembles that push the boundaries of music that has been termed “unclassifiable”. Oesterdiekhoff describes how he and his team meticulously rebuilt a new set of instruments and how a trained musician threw out all of his/her knowledge to relearn Partch’s system. With 52 players and instruments on stage, half of which are moving around, no conductor, and a cast dressed up as hobos, Delusion of the Fury is one rare blend of music and theatre and demonstrates the genius that welds them together in ways unimaginable.
www.musikfabrik.eu