I've known Ben Johnston for 45 years, first as a teacher, then as a friend. We stayed in touch from my student days at Illinois in the 60's through his retirement to Rocky Mount, NC in 1986 and a more recent move to Madison, WI. It's safe to say that the majority of things I know and care about music had their beginnings with Ben. A student of both Harry Partch and John Cage, plus a time studying with Darius Milhaud between the two, Ben taught his students not just the “facts”, but how the facts fit together to create ideas. And not just the isms and fashions, but why music matters, and why microtonal sounds are important. That's how Ben got to Harry Partch in the first place, reading Genesis of a Music shortly after it was published and realizing that he heard music the same way Partch did. That is, that microtonal pitches, found “between the cracks” of the piano, could make musical intervals pure and in tune with nature, creating a music of technicolor sounds that went far beyond the palate of grays available from the equal-tempered scale. Ben talked about listening to this music as the aural equivalent of watching a movie on a color TV, instead of a black and white. Another time, he said listening to music in our everyday equal-tempered tuning is like watching a TV that is slightly out of focus. Our eyes make the adjustment and we don't notice that anything is wrong until someone readjusts the focus and we say “Oh, I see!”. Or in Ben's case, “Ah, now I hear!”
This, incidentally, has been a good season to hear Ben's music in New York. There were two performances this fall: The Tavern, with texts from Rumi, performed by John Schneider on just-tuned guitar, with Paul Berkolds, baritone; and String Quartet No. 9, played by The America Modern Ensemble at Galapagos. There's even one more chance to hear his music in the city, this time the String Quartet No. 4, Amazing Grace, which is being presented by the Chamber Players of the League of Composers/ISCM at the Tenri Cultural Institute on Sunday, February 28th at 3 PM. If you get a chance, don't miss it. Ben doesn't use microtones to complicate the sound, but to illuminate it. And nowhere can the beauty of his microtonal process be better heard and understood than in these variations on a well-known hymn.
Note: One of the ongoing topics Nora and I are exploring with Ben is how best to create microtonal sound gardens for special environments such as hospitals and churches. It's an ongoing discussion that I'm blogging on SonicBabylon, if anyone is interested in following along.