Harry Partch - Enclosure III

Winner of a 1998 Deems Taylor Special Citation. Written, compiled and produced by Philip Blackburn. Second pressing.

A full-length portrait of an unconventional life, Enclosure Three (ISBN: 0-9656569-0-X) is a luxury limited-edition 528-page, lavishly-illustrated, hardcover art-, bio-, scrapbook of Partch. It is the first biography of one of America's most original and influential artists told through over 1,000 facsimile documents in his own words: 330+ photos; essays; sketches; scores; correspondence with Anaïs Nin, W. B. Yeats, Edmund Dulac, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Martha Graham, Alwin Nikolais, Bruce Goff, Kenneth Anger, and Ben Johnston.

Partch's life touched many of the central characters in American twentieth century art, literature, theater, architecture, film, dance and music. For Partch fans and neophytes alike, Enclosure Three contains essential source material for all those interested in unusual lives, Depression-era Americana, cultural history and creative educational approaches.

Contents: (include the following satires, writings, and commentaries by Partch himself)
A Modern Parable 1 and 2
The Umbilical Chord Still Vibrates
On G-String Formality
KPFA lecture series
Manual on the Maintenance and Repair of — and the Musical and Attitudinal Techniques for — Some Putative Musical Instruments
Some Old and New Thoughts After and Before ‘The Bewitched’
Drawings from ‘Bitter Music’ and ‘End Littoral’
Bach and Temperament
The Kithara
Barstow
Musicians as “Artists”
No Barriers
The Ancient Magic
A Somewhat Spoof
Toward a Ritual Music Consciousness
Verbal Scenarios for ‘Cry From Another Darkness (Delusion of the Fury)’, ‘The Dreamer That Remains’, ‘The Bewitched’, and other incomplete works

"Reading this text is like opening what you think is a bedroom door, only to find it leads to an entire mansion's worth of rooms. This volume's limited print run will make it difficult to peruse at your local bookstore, but I can guarantee that if you're interested in music -- or at a more general level, creative thought -- that questions the common and expected, you will become fascinated with the life and work of Harry Partch."
- Ian Koss, Ink 19