#2376: American Eccentrics

As part of WNYC’s American Music Festival on this edition of New Sounds, there's music from American eccentric Harry Partch, who among other things, was a composer, instrument-maker, musical dramatist, sometime hobo, piano teacher, and grape-picker. We’ll hear a work that fused Partch’s instrument building and composing - “And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma.” It's just full of complex textures and radical rhythms created by overlaying thirty-four one-minute instrumental verses, in combinations of duets, trios, and quartets, up to a concluding septet. Also, listen to "serious" orchestral music by the late guitarist, innovator, and American iconoclast Frank Zappa. Hear selections from a recent release of his music by the Ensemble Modern, the German new-music group that Zappa worked with late in life. Plus, there’s the strange and twisted sounds of Henry Kaiser’s re-invention of Stephen Foster’s song, “Autumn Waltz,” and music by La Monte Young, among others.

PROGRAM #2376, American Eccentrics (First aired on Feb. 14, 2005)

ARTIST(S)	RECORDING	CUT(S)	SOURCE
Various Artists	Beautiful Dreamer, The Songs Of Stephen Foster	Henry Kaiser: Autumn Waltz [3:00]	American Roots Publishing #591594** www.americanrootspublishing.org *
Harry Partch	The Harry Partch Collection, Vol. 2	And On the Seventh Day, Petals Fell in Petaluma, excerpt [16:00]	New World #80622** www.newworldrecords.org *
Ensemble Modern plays Frank Zappa	Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions	A Pig With Wings [4:30] Naval Aviation In Art [2:30] Revised Music For Low Budget Orchestra [7:30]	BMG #59842** www.bmgclassics.com*
La Monte Young	The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer from the Four Dreams of China	90 xii 9, The Second Dream, excerpt [12:00]	Gramavision #79467 Out of print. Info and discography at: www.melafoundation.org

*, ** Find the recordings you've heard - go to the New Sounds Recordings Information page