Reviews in Brief: Harry Partch’s “Delusion of the Fury”

It hardly seems fair to do a brief review of Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury, so rather than calling it a review, I’m just going to make it a heads up, in the hope it’s something you’ll want to check out. It’s a theatrical piece – some have called it a “play,” but that doesn’t really fit. It’s dramatic, yes, but it’s more like a circus than anything else I can think of – motion, sound, spectacle, all in one package.

The music itself is Partch’s own microtonal composition, played on instruments of his own design and manufacture. It is, to put it bluntly, more than a little otherworldly, but I think that’s the point. It’s highly percussive, and not what we normally think of as melodic, although there are certainly melodies that thread their way through the piece. It’s very hard to describe. If you happen to be watching the performance, it’s totally absorbing. If you’re just listening (which I happen to be doing right now), it’s also totally absorbing, but in a very different way. You can just let your imagination wander through this music, but you will be guided, more or less: there are images here, although I can’t quite pin them down as references – I did say “otherworldly,” and I think that’s the best characterization I can come up with.

I do remember, years ago, seeing Partch and his ensemble in performance. It was quite an experience – something I suspect that would be closer to a medieval festival than anything else I can think of. There was that sort of ad hoc quality to it, although you know the performers had been thoroughly rehearsed. The instruments themselves became part stage set, part props, and part actors in their own right.

Jut to give you some of the flavor, here’s the opening, “Exordium.”

You can find the whole thing on YouTube.

(A footnote: yes, the title does have a specific meaning in relation to the work itself: it’s about anger and reconciliation.)