The Seventeen lyrics of Li Po were composed between 1931 and 1933 and are among Partch’s earliest extant compositions. They were composed for Intoning Voice and Partch’s Adapted Viola, a hybrid instrument consisting of a cello neck grafted onto the body of a viola, its open strings sounding one octave below the violin. He used texts from the eighth century Chinese poet Li Po, selected from  Shigeyoshi Obata’s 1928 English translation.

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