Ben Johnston (composer)
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Benjamin Burwell Johnston, Junior (born March 15, 1926 in Macon, Georgia) is a composer of contemporary music in the just intonation system.
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[edit] Johnston's Music
Ben Johnston is best known for extending Harry Partch's experiments in just intonation tuning to traditional instruments through his system of notation. Johnston's compositions range widely in style, focusing on 20th century experimental modernism and neoclassicism (though extending into jazz ("Revised Standards," for string quartet), folk-song variations (String Quartets 4, 5 and 10), and rock music (the rock-opera "Carmilla"); one of his compositional goals is to demonstrate the versatility of just intonation tuning in many styles.
Most of his later works use an extremely large number of pitches, generated through just intonation procedures. In them, Johnston forms melodies based on an "otonal" eight note just-intonation scale made from the 8th through 15th partials of the harmonic series) or its "utonal" inversion. He then gains new pitches by using common-tone transpositions or inversions. Many of his works also feature an expansive use of just intonation, using high "Prime limits." His String Quartet No. 9 uses intervals of the harmonic series as high as the 31st partial.
Johnston's early efforts in just composition drew heavily on the accomplishments of post-Webern serialism. His String Quartet No. 4 "Amazing Grace", however, ushered in a change of style in which tonality plays a central role. The String Quartet No. 4 was recorded by the Kronos Quartet and is perhaps Johnston's best-known composition. His "Amazing Grace" quartet was also recorded by the Kepler Quartet on a CD for the New World Records label, the first of a proposed series to document Johnston's entire cycle of string quartets. It is on this CD that String Quartet No. 3 was recorded (for the first time) to create a pairing, with String Quartet No. 4, called Crossings. The two quartets were premiered this way by the Concord Quartet at New York's Alice Tully Hall, on March 15, 1976 (the composer's fiftieth birthday).
[edit] Biography
Johnston taught composition and theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1951 to 1983. Johnston began as a traditional composer of art music before working with Harry Partch, helping the senior musician to build instruments and use them in the performance and recording of new compositions. After working with Partch, Johnston studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College. It was in fact Partch himself who set Johnston up with Milhaud. It should be noted that Johnston struggled with just how to integrate just intonation into his compositions for a number of years. Since 1960 Johnston has used, almost exclusively, a system of microtonal notation based on the rational intervals of just intonation. Johnston also worked with John Cage, who encouraged him to pursue the composition of just-tuned music for traditional instruments.
Other works include the orchestral work Quintet for Groups (commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Sonnets of Desolation (commissioned by the Swingle Singers), the opera Carmilla, the Sonata for Microtonal Piano (1964) and the Suite for Microtonal Piano (1977). Johnston has completed ten string quartets to date. The Kronos Quartet, led by David Harrington, has a standing offer to record all ten quartets, but its label, Nonesuch, has thus far refused the offer. In 2006, the Kepler Quartet issued String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 4 & 9 for the New World Records label. As of 2006, the Kepler Quartet plan to follow up with String Quartets Nos. 1, 5, 6, 8 & 10, for New World Records. Also as of 2006, New World Records, through its Database of Recorded American Music (an online subscription service for colleges, universities and libraries), plans to make the Kepler release(s) available, along with the rest of New World Records' catalogue (including Johnston's Sonata for Microtonal Piano, Five Fragments for voice, oboe, bassoon and cello, Gambit for 12 instruments, Ponder Nothing for solo clarinet, Septet for woodwind quintet, cello and contrabass, Three Chinese Lyrics for soprano and two violins, and Trio for clarinet, violin and cello), to students, faculty and scholars affiliated with a subscribing university, without charge to the individual.
Following on the ideas of Theodor Adorno, Johnston believes that music has the power to influence and even control social trends. Johnston believes that an equal tempered tuning system based on irrational intervals contributes to the hectic hyper-activity of modern life. The wildly beating sonorities of equal temperament are thought to resemble (and perhaps foment) the fast-paced, unmeditative current of present-day Western existence. Many just intervals lack the sharp vibrancy of irrational intervals (and higher-order rational intervals) and thus are sometimes felt to convey an affect of stasis and meditative calm. Indeed, cultures whose tuning systems draw heavily on purely tuned intervals (e.g., North Indian classical music) tend to value meditative social attitudes more greatly than in the West.
Johnston has received many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959, a grant from the National Council on the Arts and the Humanities in 1966 and two commissions from the Smithsonian Institute.
A very insightful interview with Ben Johnston can be found in William Duckworth's book, Talking Music. Heidi von Gunden's monograph on the composer, The Music of Ben Johnston, appeared in 1986 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press), and Bob Gilmore's edition of Johnston's complete writings, Maximum Clarity and Other Writings on Music was published in 2006 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press).
[edit] Recordings
- 2006. The Kepler Quartet: Ben Johnston String Quartets. New World Records.
- Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 9
- Ben Johnston: Crossings: String Quartet No. 3
- Ben Johnston: Crossings: The Silence
- Ben Johnston: Crossings: String Quartet No. 4 (Amazing Grace)
- Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 2
- 2005. Susan Fancher: Ponder Nothing. Innova Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Ponder Nothing
- 2002. Cleveland Chamber Symphony. Vol. 1, 2 & 3. Troppe Note Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Songs of Loss
- 1997. Phillip Bush: Microtonal Piano. Koch International Classics.
- Ben Johnston: Suite for Microtonal Piano
- Ben Johnston: Sonata For Microtonal Piano
- Ben Johnston: Saint Joan
- 1996. Michael Cameron: Progression. Ziva Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Progression
- 1995. Music Amici: Ponder Nothing. New World Records.
- Ben Johnston: Septet
- Ben Johnston: Three Chinese Lyrics
- Ben Johnston: Gambit
- Ben Johnston: Five Fragments
- Ben Johnston: Trio
- Ben Johnston: Ponder Nothing
- 1995. The Stanford Quartet. Laurel Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 9
- 1995. Sound Forms for Piano. New World Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Sonata For Microtonal Piano
- 1995. The Kronos Quartet: Released (Compilation). Nonesuch Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 4 (Amazing Grace)
- 1994. Dora Ohrenstein: Urban Diva. CRI Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Calamity Jane to Her Daughter
- 1987. The Kronos Quartet: White Man Sleeps. Nonesuch Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 4 (Amazing Grace)
- 1984. New Swingle Singers and New Vocal Workshop. Composers Recordings, Inc.
- Ben Johnston: Sonnets of Desolation
- Ben Johnston: Visions and Spels
- 1983. The New World Quartet. Composers Recordings, Inc.
- Includes Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 6
- 1980. The Fine Arts Quartet:. Nonesuch Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 4 (Amazing Grace)
- 1979. Music from the University of Illinois. Composers Recordings, Inc.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Duo for flute and contrabass
- 1971. New Music Choral Ensemble, Kenneth Gaburo, conductor. Ars Nova/Ars Antiqua Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Ci-Git Satie
- 1970. Carmilla: A Vampire Tale. Vanguard Records.
- Ben Johnston: Carmilla: A Vampire Tale
- 1969. John Cage & Lejaren Hiller - HPSCHD/ Ben Johnston - String Quartet No. 2. Nonesuch Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 2
- 1969. Bertram Turetzky: The Contemporary Contrabass. Nonesuch Records.
- Includes Ben Johnston: Casta Bertram
[edit] Books
- Johnston, Ben: "Maximum Clarity" and Other Writings About Music. University of Illinois Press, 2006.
- Von Gunden, Heidi: The Music of Ben Johnston. Scarecrow, 1986.
[edit] External links
[edit] Listening
- Ben Johnston at the Avant Garde Project has FLAC files made from high-quality LP transcriptions available for free download.
