Bitter Music

Harry Partch (1901-1974) was a largely self-taught composer, music theorist, and musical instrument maker. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Percussive Arts Society and the author of Genesis of a Music.Thomas McGeary is the compiler of The Music of Harry Partch: A Descriptive Catalog and a contributor to The Blackwell History of Music in Great Britain. He also received an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for his translation and edition of Arnold Schoenberg's "Brahms the Progressive" for the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute.

Winner of an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, 1992."Bitter Music [is] a collation of Partch's miscellaneous writings and lectures. . . . [The] book offers occasion for gratitude, for it reminds us that (in the words of Lou Harrison, the Californian composer who has to a degree assumed Partch's mantle): ‘Harry told the truth about tune, as Kinsey did about sex.'"--Wilfred Mellers, Times Literary Supplement "This important book documents an often overlooked, yet influential, contributor to twentieth-century American musical life, and deserves a wide audience."--Richard Kassel, Notes "This splendid collection is a great step forward for Partch."--Peter Dickinson, Musical Times "It is said that [Partch] is the most innovative, iconoclastic and genuinely American composer of our century and Thomas McGeary, by his excellent editing, has allowed us to understand these statements."--John Beck, Percussive Notes