Comments on On An Overgrown Path: How can you consider that music?

Pliable, thanks for that highly interesting quote ...

2007-12-13T16:06:56.542Z

Pliable, thanks for that highly interesting quote from McPhee. My having examined the scores to Eichheim I have to doubt the intimacy of McPhee's acquaintance with them, for while Eichheim's basic style does show a general french influence, it is hardly "dished-up impressionism". Eichheim deeply incorporates the ethnic melismas, instruments and rhythms in each of his works to a degree which which I think equals McPhee's. The one work of Eichheim's which may be a bit softened around the edges is his suite for small orchestra Oriental Impressions. One day I hope everyone can hear all this music. It can only add to the depth of American music and serve to yet again disprove the theories of linearity that attempt to prove some inexorable stylistic progression toward a generalized avant-garde. Eichheim, McPhee and Harrison prove that their pursuits were no mere byway.

One of my most fascinating musical experiences was...

2007-12-12T09:03:16.163Z

One of my most fascinating musical experiences was playing in a gamelan orchestra at Dartington when I was a student. After you've entered and become part of that soundworld with all its ringing overtones for two hours at a stretch, a Mozart violin sonata can seem very strange indeed.

Thanks for that John, although Colin McPhee didn't...

2007-12-08T07:40:37.732Z

Thanks for that John, although Colin McPhee didn't seem to think Henry Eichheim had been there and done exactly that.

Carol J. Oja's book on McPhee quotes a letter by him to Henry Cowell in spring 1935 in which McPhee says he expected "to have a couple of orchestral work(s) finished by fall - a prelude and toccata (sic), and a 'fantasia' for piano and orchestra on Balinese melodies and rhythms - authentic stuff and not dished-up impressionism à la Eichheim." (Henry Eichheim's orchestral works Java and Bali had been written in 1929 and 1933 respectively).

This seems an appropriate place to mention that Mc...

2007-12-07T15:54:16.294Z

This seems an appropriate place to mention that McPhee was not working in a vacuum. The American composer Henry Eichheim (1870-1942) went there and did that well before Colin, garnering performances by all the important American orchestras of his large works incorporating indigenous music and instruments he brought back from his many travels. Stokowoski (who traveled with Eichheim) was an ardent advocate of Eichheim's, which may explain why he was not too involved with McPhee.