The hobo composer : redefining Harry Partch
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Date
2002
Authors
Altizer, Matthew David
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This report will consider Partch's life as a hobo from the 1920s to the early 1940s and how his life during this time helped to define him as a person and as a composer. By examining his music, writings and drawings from these hobo years, I demonstrate that Partch should indeed be classified as a "hobo composer" because Bitter Music and his compositions in The Wayward are creatively rich in their representation of Partch's own hobo life. The first chapter explores Partch's attraction to seclusion during his youth as well as his two major hobo experiences in the 1920s and 1930s. The second and third chapters survey two of Partch's main musical works from his hobo period: the journal Bitter Music and the composition Barstow-Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California from the collection The Wayward. By examining these two compositions written during Partch's hobo experiences in conjunction with his thoughts about religion, sexuality, music and the hobo lifestyle, this report will show that Harry Partch was profoundly influenced by his experiences as a hobo. His music from the period speaks both to his personal situation as well as to the larger phenomenon of the hobo culture during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s and thus labels him as a hobo composer.