Harry Partch’s compositions of the 1940s - and to some extent his work in general - have remained until recently an unwritten chapter in the history of American music. And yet it was these very pieces - the collection of four works he would later collectively entitle The Wayward - that brought him to the attention of the New York musical world. His concert of these pieces for the League of Composers (April 22, 1944) established for him a small but permanent reputation as a musical maverick who had wandered off well-worn tracks and had developed a sort of lateral extension of his art, independently of any of the main circles of American music.

Artists

Gate 5 Ensemble (Evanston, Illinois) (U.S. Highball), Harry Partch, Danlee Mitchell, Elizabeth Gentry (San Francisco), David Dunn, Dennis Dunn, Randy Hoffman, with dubbed-in interludes from the 1950 recording by Harry Partch, Ben and Betty Johnston, and Donald Pippin (The Letter), The Harry Partch Ensemble, music director (Barstow), The Gate 5 Ensemble, director (And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma)