Enclosure V

Enclosure V

Description: 
On an Ancient Greek Theme
Composers: 
Harry Partch
Douglas Moore
Johann Krieger
Performers: 
Harry Partch
Jack Logan
Danlee Mitchell
University of Illinois
Mills College
Allen Louw
Rudolphine Radil
Ben Johnston
Kenneth Gaburo
Isabelle Tercero
San Diego Partch Ensemble
Vincent Bouchot
Didier Aschour
Nina Cutler
Catalog Number: 
#405
Genre: 
experimental
new classical
Collection: 
microtonal
solo voice
percussion
homemade instruments
theater
gay
Location: 

Urbana, IL

Release Date: 
Jan 1, 1998
Liner Notes: 
View
Digital Only
Enclosure ViTunes Artist's PageiTunes Album Page
Song TitleTimePrice
1.Ulysses Departs from the Edge of the World (arr. J. Logan)06:24$0.99
2.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Chorus 111:50
3.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Chorus 3, In Part07:25$0.99
4.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Scene 1, Hymn to Dionysus: Holy Joy and Get Religion01:12$0.99
5.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Scene 2, Hymn to Dionysus: What the Majority Believes01:23$0.99
6.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Scene 2, Hymn to Dionysus: Glory to the Male Womb01:41$0.99
7.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Scene 3: Chorus 408:15$0.99
8.Revelations In the Courthouse Park: Scene 4: Coda06:38$0.99
9.Introduction to King Oedipus07:37$0.99
10.King Oedipus: Introduction01:58$0.99
11.King Oedipus: Opening Scene06:40$0.99
12.King Oedipus: First Chorus03:00$0.99
13.King Oedipus: Tiresias Scene (beginning)07:59$0.99
14.King Oedipus: Tiresias Scene (continued)05:21$0.99
15.King Oedipus: Second Chorus01:09$0.99
16.King Oedipus: Creon Scene06:27$0.99
17.King Oedipus: Jocasta Scene06:12$0.99
18.King Oedipus: Incidental Music05:02$0.99
19.King Oedipus: Third Chorus01:43$0.99
20.King Oedipus: Messenger Scene09:39$0.99
21.King Oedipus: Fourth Chorus01:05$0.99
22.King Oedipus: Herdsman Scene05:36$0.99
23.King Oedipus: Oedipus Scene02:17$0.99
24.King Oedipus: Fifth Chorus02:10$0.99
25.King Oedipus: Instrumental Commentary02:58$0.99
26.King Oedipus: Antiphony02:18$0.99
27.King Oedipus: Exit Oedipus - Pantomime07:57$0.99
28.King Oedipus: Final Chorus and Coda01:44$0.99
29.Partita In G Major: Menuet00:53$0.99
30.Come Away, Death03:01$0.99
31.December, 1942: No. 1. Come Away, Death02:45$0.99
32.By the Rivers of Babylon03:39$0.99
33.Introduction to the Bewitched04:05$0.99
34.The Bewitched: Prologue18:56
35.The Bewitched: Scene 1: Background for the Transfiguration of American Undergrads In a Hong Kong Music Hall05:00$0.99
36.The Bewitched: Scene 2: Background for the Permutation of Excercises In Harmony and Counterpoint05:34$0.99
37.The Bewitched: Scene 3: Background for the Inspired Romancing of Pathological Liar05:20$0.99
38.The Bewitched: Scene 4: Background for the Alchemy of a Soul Tormented By Contemporary Music05:22$0.99
39.The Bewitched: Scene 5: Background for the Visions of a Defeated Basketball Team In the Shower Room04:07$0.99
40.The Bewitched: Scene 6: Background for the Euphoria On a Sausalito Stairway04:41$0.99
41.The Bewitched: Scene 7: Background for the Transmutation of Detectives On the Trail of a Culprit05:33$0.99
42.The Bewitched: Scene 8: Background for the Apotheosis of a Court In Its Own Contempt05:35$0.99
43.The Bewitched: Scene 9: Background for a Political Soul Lost Among the Voteless Women of Paradise06:00$0.99
44.The Bewitched: Scene 10: Background for the Demonic Descent of the Cognoscenti While Shouting Over Cocktails07:30$0.99
45.The Bewitched: Epilogue02:02$0.99
One Sheet: 

Enclosure Five, the fifth installment of this multi-media biography, is a 3-CD set focussing on Partch’s works inspired by ancient Greece. It includes important works published here for the first time, reissues of out-of-print recordings, and new performances. With this issue, virtually the entirety of Partch’s recorded ouevre is publicly available for the first time. Taken with the rest of the Enclosures Series and the Harry Partch Collection on CRI, we can now begin to assess Partch’s whole output.

Works include: • A reissue of Ulysses at the Edge with Jack Logan playing the trumpet part originally intended for Chet Baker; • Revelation in the Courthouse Park (after The Bacchae of Euripides), in its original version recorded at the University of Illinois in 1960 and excerpted on Partch’s own Gate Five records; • King Oedipus, the culmination of Partch’s Speech-Music period, in its original version. Although Partch considered this his most important work (it took 19 years to write) and an excellent performance (featuring the incomparable Allen Louw as Oedipus and Rudolphine Radil—pupil of Mahler—as Jocasta), it was never released; • Miscellaneous short Speech-Music works: By the Rivers of Babylon (reorchestrated from the version heard on Enclosure Two); Come Away, Death from the lost collection, December 1942. This work, for voice and guitar, appears with the work by Douglas Moore that inspired Partch’s own setting; and Minuet, a curious Baroque duet performed by Partch and his then-student, Ben Johnston; • The Bewitched (A Dance Satire) in a 1980 recording from Germany featuring an extraordinary performance and recording of this major Partch work (produced by Kenneth Gaburo for the Berlin Festival, with Danlee Mitchell, music director and Isabelle Tercero as The Witch). Partch’s own spoken introductions to two of the works are included as well as an extensive booklet.

The Enclosures series, named after Partch’s last contemplated work and released on the innova Recordings label of the American Composers Forum, is the culmination of a 13-year endeavor by Dr. Philip Blackburn, a Minnesota-based composer, performer, administrator and scholar. Inspired by Partch’s pioneering spirit and dearth of published materials, Blackburn worked with the Harry Partch Foundation, colleague Kenneth Gaburo, and many others to bring Partch’s singular voice to the public, attempting to “let Harry speak for himself.”

Reviews: 

First Prize

-Delire Actuel, CFLX-FM

Volume 5 may scrape the bottom of Partch's barrel, but what a barrel! Apart from some politely truculent radio statements, the real prize of these three discs is the CD premiere of King Oedipus, the work with which Partch paid homage to Yeats and tied his early output to ancient Greek drama. It sounds every bit as weird and mannered as the original Greek drama probably would if accurately reconstructed, yet the story imprints itself powerfully, with some occasional thrilling climaxes on Partch's home made instruments. Partch and Ben Johnston perform a well-tuned Baroque minuet, and there are a few dreary vocal works demonstrating Partch's early concept of corporeality, plus the old Gate 5 recording of Revelation in the Courthouse Park and Kenneth Gaburo's fabulous production of The Bewitched. For Innova's project as a whole, A plus is too weak a grade.

- Kyle Gann, Village Voice

In one way, Partch is actually more fortunate than conventional composers, because he never suffers from mundane performances by indifferent, or simply overworked, musicians. By their very nature, his works are almost always performed by folk who are, to muddle my metaphors slightly, champing at the bit to get their teeth into them. Without meaning to diminish the immense dedication that went into the enormous task of finding, assembling, and preparing the materials, that’s why Innova’s Enclosures contain so much stunning stuff. Even a churlish grumble-guts like me is left with precious little to moan about Still, it’s good for the soul have to indulge in effulgent praise of something now and then, and even better to admit that in this respect Enclosure 5 has twisted my arm with a vengeance.

- Paul Serotsky, Musicweb International