Harry Partch's "Inanna" (1952) sets Sumerian mythology to a 43-tone just intonation scale performed on custom-built instruments, rejecting Western equal temperament entirely. The result is ritualistic and estranging—meaning felt before understood. Essential for those seeking music beyond convention; transformative for listeners open to unfamiliar tuning systems and Partch's idiosyncratic vocal delivery.
⚡ Quick Answer: Harry Partch's "Inanna" is a 1952 composition based on Sumerian mythology, performed on custom-built instruments tuned to a 43-tone just intonation scale. Partch's unconventional vocal delivery and the unexpected harmonic intervals create a ritualistic, deeply unsettling listening experience that transcends Western musical conventions entirely.
There is no other music that sounds like Harry Partch, and there never will be, because Harry Partch built his own instruments to play it.
Inanna, composed in 1952 and based on the ancient Sumerian myth of the goddess descending into the underworld, is one of the more bewildering and quietly devastating things ever committed to magnetic tape. It is not difficult music in the way that Schoenberg is difficult. It is difficult the way a foreign language overheard through a thin hotel wall is difficult — you feel the meaning before you understand it.
The Instruments, The Man, The Mission
Partch had spent the better part of two decades rejecting the Western tuning system entirely. Equal temperament, he felt, was a compromise that had drained music of its sensual directness. His solution was a 43-tone scale of just intonation, and since no existing instrument could play it, he built instruments that could: the Chromelodeon (a retuned reed organ), the Adapted Viola, the Adapted Guitar, the Spoils of War (a percussion contraption assembled from hubcaps and artillery shell casings and hubcaps), and the magnificent Quadrangularis Reversum.
For Inanna, Partch himself performed the work largely alone, overdubbing the Chromelodeon and his voice against his own instrumental parts.
The recording was made at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where Partch had a brief residency, on equipment that was serviceable at best. The technical limitations are audible. They don't matter.
What You Actually Hear
The work sets ancient Sumerian text — translations by Samuel Noah Kramer — as a kind of ritual incantation. Partch's vocal delivery sits somewhere between Sprechstimme and chant, more priest than singer.
What strikes you immediately is the tuning. Notes land in places your ear does not expect and somehow cannot argue with. The Chromelodeon drones and shivers. The intervals are consonant in a way that standard Western harmony has trained us to forget — just intonation, at its purest, has a physical presence, a locking-in, that equal temperament approximates but never quite achieves.
The percussion is ritualistic without being theatrical. It suggests ceremony without instructing you how to feel about it.
This is late-night, alone, headphones music. Not because it's quiet — though it often is — but because it demands a kind of attention that a room full of other people makes impossible.
A Personal Note
I want to be honest: this is not music you put on for company. Your guests will look at you. Your spouse may leave the room. There is a fair chance you yourself will be unsettled the first time through, uncertain whether you're listening to something profound or simply strange.
The answer, I've come to believe, is that Partch understood something about music's origins — its connection to language, to ritual, to bodies in space — that the concert hall had educated most of us out of feeling. Inanna doesn't sound ancient. It sounds like what ancient music might have felt like to the people actually inside it.
Gate Records released the recording as part of the series Partch essentially self-produced throughout the early 1950s, funding sessions and pressings through grants and institutional residencies, personally mailing LPs to universities and critics. The man was his own label, his own road crew, his own instrument shop.
There is a recording that came later — a 1987 reissue on Tomato Records with superior sonics — but even the muddy original pressing has a presence that seems appropriate to the material.
Put the kid to bed. Turn out the overhead light. Give this forty minutes.
🎵 Key Takeaways
- 🔧 Partch built custom instruments tuned to a 43-tone just intonation scale specifically because no existing instruments could play his vision—the Chromelodeon, Spoils of War, and Quadrangularis Reversum are purpose-built tools, not adapted ones.
- 👂 Just intonation intervals create a physical 'locking-in' sensation that equal temperament only approximates, making Inanna's harmonic consonance feel unexpected and almost unsettling to ears trained on Western tuning.
- 🎤 Partch's vocal delivery sits between Sprechstimme and chant—he's functioning as a priest intoning Sumerian text rather than a singer performing, eliminating the emotional guidance a traditional vocalist would provide.
- ⚠️ This is genuinely difficult listening that will alienate casual listeners; the work's power comes from its refusal to instruct you how to feel, making it isolating by design rather than pretense.
What instruments did Partch use on Inanna and why did he have to build them?
Partch used the Chromelodeon (retuned reed organ), Adapted Viola, Adapted Guitar, and Spoils of War (percussion made from hubcaps and shell casings), plus his own voice. He built these because no standard instruments could play his 43-tone just intonation scale—equal temperament tuning made that impossible.
How does just intonation differ from standard Western tuning?
Just intonation uses pure mathematical ratios between notes, creating intervals that lock together with physical presence and consonance. Equal temperament (standard Western tuning) spaces all semitones equally, which is a compromise that Partch felt drained music of its sensual directness—just intonation approximates purity that equal temperament only implies.
Why does Inanna sound so unsettling if the intervals are consonant?
The intervals are consonant *physically* but unfamiliar to ears trained on Western tuning, so they land in places your ear doesn't expect. It's not dissonance in the atonal sense—it's the strangeness of hearing harmony that feels ancient and ritualistic rather than emotionally guided, which creates cognitive dissonance despite acoustic consonance.
Should I listen to the original 1952 recording or the 1987 reissue?
The 1987 Tomato Records reissue has superior sound quality, but the muddy original pressing has a presence that suits the material and demonstrates Partch's DIY ethos—he self-funded and self-distributed recordings through institutions in the early 1950s. Either works, depending on whether you prioritize fidelity or historical authenticity.