House of Symphonies

By: Christopher Lantz

Narrated by: Christopher Lantz

Christopher Lantz was one of the few remaining avant-garde composers who experimented in the early ʹ70s with re-presenting notational musical form which he coined: "art scores." In their birth these musical scores were not originally intended as "art." The composer was instead seeking freedom from the constraints of traditional notation. Was it possible to escape the linear bindings? How could he communicate to a musician the virtual improvisational freedom that could be gleaned in the subtleties of space, colors, and forms?

Lantz eventually reached a point in his musical career when he no longer "felt nourished by the music." He determined that Western music was dead. Then he had a vision. He was to return to New Mexico, where he grew up, buy a piece of land and build an acoustical chamber. He gave up his life of wealth and fame, moved to a remote mesa in New Mexico, and began building by hand what would eventually become an extraordinary structure known as "The House of Symphonies" whose structure itself forms the scores of hundreds of abstract symphonies that the composer devoted his life to discovering and performing. His most recent book carries the title The House of Symphonies and tells the saga of the house and its life.

©2006 Christopher Lantz, Barbara Prestigiacomo and Val M. Cox (P)2006 Christopher Lantz, Barbara Prestigiacomo and Val M. Cox