From CRI SD 497:

Ben Johnston String Quartet No. 6 (1980), New World String Quartet (Curtis J. Macomber and William Patterson, violins; Robert Dan, viola; Ross T. Harbaugh, cello)

Ben Johnston (b. 1926, Macon, Georgia) is best known for his work in microtonal music, particularly in the use of the ancient "just" intonation. He received his high school education in Richmond, Virginia and his advanced education at the College of William and Mary, the United States Navy School of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, University of California at Berkeley, Mills College, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds degrees from William and Mary, Cincinnati Conservatory and Mills. His principal teachers of composition were Harry Partch, Darius Milhaud, Burrill Phillips, Robert Palmer, and John Cage. Since 1951 he has been on the faculty of the University of Illinois where in 1983 he became Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition.

Johnston has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the National Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and Associate Membership in the University Center for Advanced Study. He has received commissions from the Paul Fromm Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Fine Arts Foundation of Chicago, the Polish Radio in Warsaw, and the one from the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation that made this recording possible.

The concept of microtonal complexity achieved through the most consonant and mathematically the most uncomplicated tuning procedures has underlain most of Johnston's works since 1961. The extension of tuning based on the first six partials of the overtone series (like common practice in early music, avoiding the compromise of temperament) occupied him until 1970, when he undertook an extension of tuning based on higher partials. Johnston's music is not written for electronic or other instruments of novel design to make possible the new microtonal resources. Instead, he has studied and altered the performance of familiar instruments. He writes:

"In String Quartet No. 6, I undertook the problem of endless melody so fascinating to late nineteenth century composers. Since it seemed to me that this concept never really met successfully the tests to which it was subjected, I was especially anxious to make it succeed in a non-dramatic, non-programmatic context. The melodic phrases are completely elided, avoiding al! cadences. The punctuation, the rise and fall, and the climax placement of these lines and accompaniments are controlled by an elaborate application of proportions from the Fibonacci series. The length of the solos and their tempos are strictly proportional and result in a gradual increase of activity up to double the initial tempo.

"With this work, too, I returned to a problem that has interested me from many angles: the integration of twelve-tone technique with the pitch procedures of extended just intonation. As in one earlier work (Two Sonnets of Shakespeare), I composed a background against which solo melody could be placed. In the quartet I used a 2,3, 5, 7,11 system in which hexads like Harry Partch's comprising the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 11th partials of an otonality (overtone aggregate) or of its inversion, an utonality (under-tone aggregate), are paired, as hexachords in a semi-combinatorial twelve-tone row which has one representative tone from each of the twelve pitch regions of the octave. All forty- eight transpositions of the row are used more than once in a giant palindrome which presents each quartet member in turn as soloist. The solos are freely composed using the tones of the harmonic content of the hexachords.

"The composition of this work was more difficult than any piece I can remember, probably because its moment-to-moment timing evokes for me the ordinary events of daily life rather than its exceptional moments."

The New World String Quartet, with a repertoire ranging from the standard quartet literature to premieres of contemporary American works, has been acclaimed as one of America's most prominent young ensembles. Formed in 1977,the quartet has appeared at major halls in major cities and universities. It is currently Quartet-in- Residence at Harvard University.

This recording was made possible by grants from the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation. String Quartet-Smith Publ, Baltimore (ASCAP): 21'40" Recorded by David Hancock, New York City, April 1983. Produced by Carter Harman and Eve Beglarian.

The music on this record was commissioned by the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation specifically for performers who had won Naumburg Performers' Awards. The New World String Quartet won the Chamber Music Award in 1979.

CRI's Board of Trustees wishes to express its gratitude to the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and the Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation for support during 1982-83.


From CRI SD 515:

Ben Johnston

Sonnets of Desolation, The New Swingle Singers

Visions and Spels, The New Verbal Workshop

Ben Johnston (born in 1926 in Macon, Georgia) is best known for his work in microtonal music, particularly in the use of the ancient "just" intonation. He received his high school education in Richmond, Virginia and his advanced education at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at U'rbana- Champaign with advanced degrees from the College of William and Mary the Cinncinnati Conservatory and Mills College. His principal teachers of composition were Harry Partch, Darius Milhaud, Burrill Phillips, Robert Palmer and John Cage. Since 1951 he has been on the faculty of the University of Illinois where in 1983 he became Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition.

Johnston has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the National Council on the Arts and the Humanities, Associate Membership in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council which makes possible this recording. He has received commissions from the Walter W Naumburg Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Fine Arts Foundation of Chicago, the Polish Radio in Warsaw and the Paul Fromm Foundation for Sonnets of Desolation.

The concept of microtonal complexity achieved through the most consonant and mathematically simple tuning procedures has underlain most of Johnston's works since 1961. The extension of tuning based on the first six partials of the overtone series (like common practice in early music, avoiding the compromise of temperament) occupied him until 1970, when he undertook an extension of tuning based on higher partials. Johnston's music is not written for electronic or other instruments of novel design to make possible the new microtonal resources. Instead, he has studied and altered the performance of familiar instruments.

Of his works, Johnston writes: "Sonnets of Desolation was commissioned by the Paul Fromm Foundation for the New Swingle Singers. It is a setting of four of the last sonnets of the British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poems deal with spiritual crisis, with death and with faith. In composing this music I used for the first time all the overtones through the thirteenth partial, which effectively means through the sixteenth. As in the music of Harry Partch, the inverted series is used complementarily. The choral writing is in eight parts, with one on a part. Microphones are used to amplify the voices.

Visions and Spels is a realization of the indeterminate composition Vigil (although the score, a verbal text, was not written down until after the piece was completed). It was composed by the New Verbal Workshop, of which I was, for this composition, a member. I led the improvisations and decided upon the texts to be used. The impetus for composing this work came from an invitation from Patricia Knowles of the University of Illinois Dance Department to compose a piece for the United States' Bicentennial Year. The first version was performed in 1976, with dancers. After this performance, the Workshop decided to make an independent composition of it. The work is truly a group composition. In part, the impetus to participate in such a composition came from a negative reaction to descriptions of group compositions in mainland China, reported by Cornelius Cardew. Their approach seemed to me be so wrongly based that I vowed to undertake the problem myself in order to make it work as I thought that it could-and should. All the texts are by North American aborigines and come from the collection Technicians of the Sacred, edited by Jerome Rothenberg."

Sonnets of Desolation was written for the New Swingle Singers, who premiered the piece in November 1981 in Urbana, Illinois. Recognized world-wide as masters of the classical scat, the British octet commands a repertoire that ranges from works of the 16th century to the present day The New Swingle Singers have performed at the Kennedy Center, Wolftrap and the Village Gate, among other notable appearances. In the field of contemporary music, the group has been closely associated with Italian composer Luciano Berio, who has included them in his Opera and La Vera Storia and has directed them in recordings of A Ronne and The Cries of London. Recently they recorded the five movement version of Sinfonia, conducted by Pierre Boulez.

The New Verbal Workshop, founded in 1970 by Herbert and Norma Marder, is a group of six poets, musicians and actors who perform a medium which they call "speechmusic," using the voice as primary instrument. All Workshop compositions are improvised: formal structures and themes are developed through exercises and rehearsals and, as in jazz, the content is different in each performance, "teetering" as reviewer Thomas Willis says, "on the boundary between music and poetry." (The Chicago Tribune, April 17,1977). New Verbal Workshop has given performances at the Depot Theater and at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana, Illinois, and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Its activities have been supported by grants from the University of Illinois. Participating in Visions and Spels are Herbert Marder, Norma Marder, Joan Korb, Fred Simon, Theo Ann Brown and Ben Johnston.

This recording was made possible by a grant from the Illinois State Arts Council.

Sonnets of Desolation (10:45), Lingua Press. Recorded by Thomas Hayes. Edited by Scott Wyatt

Visions and Spels (26:19), Smith Publications (ASCAP). Produced and recorded by the New Verbal Workshop. Edited by Norma Marder and Scott Wyatt.

Director of Production: Rachel S. Siegel. Library of Congress No. 84-743301 Liner (c) 1984, Composers Recordings Incorporated. (r) &(c) 1984, Composers Recordings Incorporated. This is a composer supervised recording.