Today is the 90th birthday of American original Ben Johnston. Johnston, born in Macon, GA, in 1926, is regarded as one of the foremost composers of microtonal music.
A former apprentice of Harry Partch, Johnston exceeded even his master in his experiments with just intonation, a method of tuning based on the intervals of the harmonic series. Equal temperament, in which the intervals of the chromatic scale are distorted to create major and minor scales, with the ability to modulate from key to key, had been the standard in Western music for hundreds of years.
However, to get something, you often have to give something up. The compromise of equal temperament is a finite system. Johnston (and Schoenberg before him) realized that by the 20th century the musical resources bestowed by an adherence to equal temperament were on the verge of exhaustion. The exploration of microtones opened up new horizons by allowing for an expandable scale of more than forty divisions to an octave.
Johnston’s great achievement is to take a radical concept and render it in such a way as to make it comparatively accessible to untutored listeners. Check out his String Quartet No. 4 “Amazing Grace,” composed in 1973:
To coincide with the composer’s nonagintennial, the Kepler Quartet has completed a recording project encompassing all ten of Johnston’s string quartets. The final installment is scheduled for release next month.
Here’s a fascinating article, which appeared today on NewMusicBox, by the quartet’s second violinist, Eric Segnitz, on the process of documenting these challenging works.
http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/ben-johnston-celebrating-90-years-with-10-string-quartets/
Happy birthday, Ben Johnston!
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