 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The ninth AGP installment features the work of Ben Johnston, who was born in 1926 and studied with Harry Partch, Darius Milhaud, and John Cage. Johnston is best known for his microtonal compositions, based on overtone series to produce pure intervals relative to each note of the octave. The first two pieces in this installment are selected from his later microtonal compositions, using an extended overtone series and thus a greater diversity of intervals. The first is his sixth string quartet and the second is a choral piece with texts by Gerard Manley Hopkins, sung by the Swingle Singers. The sound of pure and microtonal intervals using voices is really quite striking. The third and fourth pieces are the two parts (with the LP flip in between) of an indeterminate composition that emerged from a collaboration with The New Verbal Workshop, with Johnston participating as a member. This piece of sound poetry is one of Johnston's non-microtonal works. The recordings that comprise this installment are from two CRI LPs (CRI SD 497 and CRI SD 515), and exhaust the out-of-print Johnston compositions that I could find in my stacks. A number of Johnston's other string quartets are in print, as are a set of pieces for microtonal piano. The text file included in the installment contains the liner notes from both LPs. To download AGP9 files, right-click on each of the following links and select SAVE LINK AS.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||