The New Yorker on early 20th century composer Harry Partch.

He summarized his thinking in a 1949 book entitled “Genesis of a Music,” which begins with the most startling forty-five-page history of music ever written. The art really began to go downhill, we’re told, when Johann Sebastian Bach got his grubby fingers on it. Partch held Bach responsible for two trends: (1) the movement toward equal-tempered tuning, which meant that composers could not absorb the scales of other world traditions; and (2) the urge to make music ever more instrumental and abstract. Although Bach advocated neither of these things, Partch’s critique of the long-term denaturing of music still packs a punch.

(Thanks Robot Wisdom.)