Tonality Flux: music by Harry Partch on specially built instruments

Wondrous instruments for groundbreaking music. To broaden his musical colour palette, American composer Harry Partch needed non-existent instruments in the 20th century. The Amsterdam Partch Project rebuilt these instruments. On Sunday afternoon 5 February, the Scordatura Ensemble will bring them to Finkum for the concert 'Tonality Flux', organised by podium Pakhûs SOLO.

Harry Partch (1901-1974) was an idiosyncratic composer and instrument maker who lived on the west coast of America. Initially, he was a viola player and pianist, but as he started composing, he increasingly felt that the Western scale was too limited for the musical colour palette he was looking for. He was inspired by the natural laws of harmony and intervals and read books by Hermann von Helmholtz, a physicist who wrote about the essence of sound. He also immersed himself in the Ancient Greeks and their scales.

Encouraged by this, Partch decided to build special instruments in 43-tone tuning and write music for them. Creating smaller tonal distances creates the phenomenon of microtonality. Partch used the term 'tonality flux' for modulating in these very small steps. Performances of Partch's music are rare, as proper instrumentation is a necessity for this. Since 2002, the Amsterdam Partch Project, including members of the Scordatura Ensemble, has devoted itself intensively to reconstructing this music by building the necessary instruments.

Thus, on an ordinary Sunday afternoon in the Vituskerk in Finkum, the modified viola, several converted guitars, the trained human voice and the chromelodeon; a modified pipe organ, can be heard. From this, choral-like chords with a unique microtonal richness of colour can be heard during the Tonality Flux programme.

The Scordatura Ensemble consists of viola player Elisabeth Smalt (also artistic director), performer Chris Rainier (also researcher) and keyboard player Reinier van Houdt. The ensemble performs adventurous music by contemporary composers and specialises in unusual tunings and microtonality. This concert features works from the period 1930-1950: wonderfully intimate music in rich timbres, compelling and narrative.

The drink in the interval is included in the concert ticket. More information and booking: www.pakhussolo.nl.