Harry Partch

Partch's first album was an overnight success.

Harry Partch is a fictional composer in a series of books by J. K. Rowling who composed seven operas before taking up a professorship of music theory and fading into obscurity. Partch, whose parents died due after hearing intense feedback from an audio setup conceived by Lord Equaltemperamort, attracted attention from the musical world when he was born with a strange clef-shaped birthmark on his face. He was encouraged to take up composition at an early age, quickly finding that his powers exceeded those of his peers.

Partch studied tuning in London, where he found that he was able to magically split the octave into 43 parts whereas composers of lesser stature could only muster 12. Using these powers, his baton, and instruments he himself created, Partch works tirelessly to defeat the evil Lord Equaltemperamort, when he's not getting into mischief with his pals and sneaking out to satisfy his Jelly Belly cravings.

Discography

1. Harry Partch and the Sorcerer's Tone (op.1)

   Harry enters the Royal Academy of Music and Musicianship, where he makes friends with fellow students Hermione Grainger (daughter of Percy) and Ralph Vaughan Weasley. He gets a new baton, which seems to be the other half of Lord Equaltemperamort's baton. Harry composes a piece that puts a dog to sleep.

2. Harry Partch and the Secrets of Chamber Music (op.2)

   Lord Equaltemperamort somehow manages to reopen the Academy's defunct concert hall, and persuades Harry to attend the first performance of his new composition. The piece includes a part for serpent, an instrument everyone else had thought was obsolete. Harry does not enjoy the concert, and neither does Ralph Weasley's sister.

3. Harry Partch and the Prisoner of Temperament (op.3)

   Harry's godfather, Serial S. Black who sings like a dog, has escaped from the musician's prison, A-flat's Cavern, where demented wardens constantly tune their instruments a quarter-tone flat, thus sucking any musical ability out of whoever they encounter. When the wardens, in their search for Serial S., appear at the Academy, Harry's new composition, …et expecto pray-tonal, sends them away and thus rescues Serial S. from certain tone-deafness.

4. Harry Partch and the Garbled-F Lyre (op.4)

   Harry is unexpectedly chosen to tune the Academy's harp, but it turns out to be a port-clef that magically delivers him directly into the clutches of Lord Equaltemperamort. However, Harry's baton is more than a match for his evil opponent, because it summons to his aid dead composers whose music Lord Equaltemperamort's awful conducting has previously murdered.

5. Harry Partch and the Delusion of the Fury (op.5)

   Harry enters the Ministry of Music, where he hears a prophesy that he will one day cause Lord Equaltemperamort's resignation as director of the Royal Opera.

6. Harry Partch and the Half-Tone Prince (op.6)

   Harry resorts to plagiarism in an attempt to impress his tutors. Unfortunately, although Harry doesn't realise this, the compositions he copies are those of one of his teachers, Snoopy, who uses the incident to end the career of the Academy's Principal. We are led to the conclusion that Snoopy is actually Meantemperamort, the Half-Tone Prince, a trusted servant of Lord Equaltemperamort.

7. Harry Partch and the Deafening Yowls (op.7)

   Harry leaves the Academy in order to find and destroy the seven mythical instruments that keep Lord Equaltemperamort from embracing microtonality. As Harry starts singing, he realizes that one of these instruments is himself. Harry sacrifices himself, submitting to Equaltemperamort's baton as lead tenor. As Equaltemperamort attempts to conduct an impossible aria whose high notes would kill any normal musician, Harry releases a deafening yowl unconnected to any notion of Western tonality. Equaltemperamort realizes to his horror that this is the truest musical art, and his life's work has been in vain; he kills himself on stage, to thunderous applause.