Private 
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz : Voices Past, ("Plasm over ocean", chamber opera) (1977)*'
The 'uncello', listed on the cover of the CD roughly has an interesting form, but if I look really closer at all the instruments, both for the musical ideas and for the aesthetic finalisation of the products, these objects seem all still a bit too much derived from rough ideas, and seem also worked out without much refinement and attention to detail, to an almost amateurish degree.
I don’t think that these instruments can be seen as "inventions", as final results of inventive ideas, but should more be considered as one of the elements for a more conceptual use, like in a theatre range. (If we consider African masks as "art" it also is taking a less important detail out of a more complex context ; if we separate it from the rest it looks primitive, but their function surely isn't). This simplicity is much more acceptable as being part of a concept, as one of the elements for more temporal use, like in a décor in a theatre-like concept. I am not sure if they are designed only for such purposes. I can only notice they are used with this specific chamber opera, which is divided into 3 parts, of roughly 8-9 minutes for each part. The costumes designed by Janet Passow Gillock for this opera seem to have been equally minimalistic. If all elements in this play are all expressions on the same level, equally thought over as expression I can imagine this might still work within its totality.
Then I noticed another aspect, in the scenery of this contemporary music play. I noticed more often before that some creative spirits are driven into a sphere or bubble of astral darkness, where they themselves think they are into a mystical sphere, but this seems only that way because they are imprisoned in the purgatorium of their own expressions. The music, with its chaotic layers of singing, with some repetitive musical “noise”, and spoken word, reflects this world very well. The sounds of the instruments used I can hardly call harmonious, but they do fit with the world they express. But for me this purgatorium also musically still points much more towards a hell sphere, showing no liberation in any form. I can hardly listen through the whole piece when I want to put myself in the position as if this becomes a reality. Even when we get more semi-medieval chanting with some disharmonies, I notice still no attempt to any liberation out of this form. Lots of Latin and difficult English words being used (from a text written by David Ross Gunn) sound like an imperial eternal repetition within this imprisonment. This surely is a world where I never want to be, and where I see no real human reflections whatsoever. There is only an astral reflection of the lonely world of a seemingly lost soul.
D.B.K. :
“The review is very insightful.
You are quite correct that the instruments are rough. That is deliberate and minimalist. Most instruments that I have built are made for specific pieces, and have no purpose beyond those pieces. "Plasm" and its instruments were part of the time & place, an old rusting post-industrial New Jersey city, and during the post-Fluxus period. Almost all the instruments have been destroyed (the Hharp and Gong survive).
"Plasm" was written in 1977. This was midway between the Vietnam War and the target date of George Orwell's "1984". Both dates are important to this piece, as I was a political protestor during the War. Nuclear Armageddon was still imminent in 1977 (three years after Nixon), and it could have been Hell on Earth in seconds.
Musically, "Plasm" was composed before tonality had resurfaced as a mainstream force in nonpop. Minimalism was only evident in the big cities; even George Rochberg -- the first of the Terribly Serious nonpop composers -- had yet to turn to tonality, and David del Tredici has just begun composing his New Romantic "Child Alice" (and would finish it four years later). As such, "Plasm" represents in its three scenes a transition from the chaos you mention through the chant-line simplicity / complexity combination to the very straightforward rhythmically-driven conclusion - and paralleled the artistic edge of the times.
This opera was scorned when it was first performed. It was viewed as a rejection of both the American conservatory sound of Copland/Harris/Piston and the conservative Darmstadt/Stockhausen/Ligeti European tradition that still was part of American music. America (particularly with the minimalists and the west-coast composers) abandoned the European model in the late 1970s, and by 1985, the transition was complete to the diversity of largely tonal styles that represent American music today.
The text is existential, and again owes a great deal to "1984". The sections in Esperanto are a terrifying mix of optimism (a common language) and pessimism (the meaning of the words).”
Other pieces with experimental musical instruments : "Unisons" used two of Forkklang, Diskklang ; "Withered" used the Juicedrum. "Ash Wednesday" used the Organism."Christian Wolff in Hanover" used Miniharp, Monofilament, Ovarian Xylophone, Buzzophone. "Echo" used Triangulum, Candleharp, Infernal Machine, Windharp,Jingles.
