Harry Partch (1901-1974) was an iconoclastic American composer and instrument inventor with a passion for integrating musicians, actors, and dancers in large-scale works of total-theater. He was "seduced into carpentry" by his interest in just intonation and his need to have an orchestra tuned to this system. The instruments are more than just producers of tone, however — each one has an evocative name and dramatic physical presence, and each one puts unique physical demands on the performer. In Partch's book, Genesis of a Music, he writes that the performer of the Marimba Eroica should at times "convey the vision of Ben Hur in his chariot," while a musician playing his Kithara must not "bend at the waist, like an amateur California prune picker," but instead should move with grace and athleticism in a "functional dance."
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