The Wayward is Harry Partch's cycle built from the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters. In his own words it is "the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States 1935-1941". This recording by Newband under Dean Drummond plays all four parts on Partch's original instruments.
Partch (1901-1974) was born in Oakland, California, and was one of the first composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales in just intonation. He invented and built his own instruments. The Depression forced him to live for years as a transient, and the texts and experiences he collected then became the basis of The Wayward. Drummond (1949-2013) was an American composer and conductor who founded Newband. In 1990 the ensemble received custodianship of the original Harry Partch Instrument Collection and has worked since to revive the major works. The singers are Stephen Kalm (baritone) and Robert Osborne (bass-baritone). The recording was made on 15-17 December 1999 at the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, produced and engineered by Judith Sherman.
Barstow sets eight hitchhiker inscriptions from a highway railing at Barstow, California. San Francisco sets the cries of two newsboys on a foggy night in the twenties, with cello, Kithara II and Chromelodeon. The Letter is a Depression message from a hobo friend. U.S. Highball, at twenty-six minutes the core of the disc, is a musical account of a transcontinental hobo trip. Drummond himself plays surrogate kithara and Kithara II. The voices travel over the whole Partch orchestra: kitharas, harmonic canons, chromelodeon, diamond and bass marimbas, bamboo marimba (boo), cloud-chamber bowls and the spoils of war. The players include Nelson Padgett, Nina Kellman and Dominic Donato, among others.
Partch wrote the texts between 1941 and 1943 and revised the cycle in 1954, 1955 and 1967. The 24-page booklet, with notes by Drummond in English and German, includes black-and-white photographs, some by Betty Freeman.
CD, Wergo WER 6638 2, released in 2002, total time 42'47".
