Music in American Life: Bitter Music

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Harry Partch was an innovative composer who embraced just intonation, leading him to create new instruments for his unique forty-three-tone scale. The anthology explores his views on music's societal role, his compositions, and his distinctive instruments. It begins with "Bitter Music," a journal from his time as a transient in the American West during the Depression, which he believed lost. This deeply personal account offers vital biographical insights into a pivotal period in his life, revealing the insecurities of his career marked by fluctuating institutional support and economic challenges. As a significant work of American Depression literature, the journal uniquely features musically notated speech along with folk and popular music. The second journal, "End Littoral," chronicles a hiking trip along California's rugged coast. The collection includes twelve essays that present Partch's thought-provoking analysis of music's relationship with society, with two essays published for the first time, while the others appeared in obscure publications from 1941 to 1972. Additionally, it features twelve extended discussions by Partch on his compositions, with ten being previously unpublished. The anthology concludes with librettos or scenarios for six of his major narrative or dramatic works.