Tom Johnson
(Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )

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Tom Johnson (1939), a student of Morton Feldman, bridged minimalism and dadaism, i.e. LaMonte Young and John Cage. An Hour For Piano (Lovely 1081, 1979), composed in 1971, is a subliminal piano piece that sounds like gamelan tinkling. Other "minimal" works include Nine Bells (India Navigation, 1982), an exercise in topological music, Rational Melodies (Hat Art, 1993), composed in 1982, perhaps his most ambitious, a sequence of 21 simple melodies (derived from mathematical operations) that can be performed on any instrument, Bedtime Stories (1985), twelve tales for clarinet and voice, released first as Historias Para Dormir (2003) and then on Rational Melodies/ Bedtime Stories (Ants, 2006), Eggs and Baskets (1987) for text, and Failing: A Difficult Piece for Solo String Bass, for "talking" performer (the performer has to talk while s/he performs the almost impossible score).

The Four Note Opera (1972) is his most famous opera, built, literally, around four notes only. Other operas include Riemannoper (1988) and Trigonometry (1997). Also "minimal" are his radio pieces: J'Entends un Choeur (1993), Music and Questions, Die Melodiemaschinen (1996). All of them are dwarfed by the Bonhoeffer Oratorium (1996) for orchestra, choir and soloists, his most ambitious composition. He relocated to Paris in 1983, where he published his book "Self-Similar Melodies" (1996).

Music for 88 (XI, 1993) is another exercise in mathematics applied to music: each of the nine pieces is, basically, the demonstration of a mathematical theorem.

The Chord Catalogue (XI, 1999) is a mathematical performance of all the 8178 chords possible in one octave: the 78 two-note chords, the 288 three-note chords, the 1287 five-note chords, etc., up to the 1287 eight-note chords, then down to the 715 nine-note chords, the 286 ten-note chords, etc., and finally the one and only 13-note chord.

Kientzy Plays Johnson (Pogus, 2004) compiles several Johnson compositions for saxophone. Kientzy Loops is whirling minimalist repetition at its most hypnotic. Narayana's Cows (originally composed for trio of saxophone, bass and guitar, but here scored for multi-tracked saxophone) separates and independently emphasizes melody, bass line and drone. Johnson himself reads some spoken-word segments that illustrate a mathematical problem (thus the title) and which are supposed to also illustrate how the composition evolves. As it gets more complex, the pattern begins to echo Michael Nyman's upbeat music, but with a stronger sense of purposefulness. The four Infinite Melodies employ the same general process: each new phrase is longer than the previous one, "reaching out toward infinity". The effect is almost playful in the II, funereal and intimidating in IV, transcendent in III and disorienting in I, which resorts to silence as a component of the phrase, so that the piece tends towards absolute silence.

Johnson died at the end of 2024.

(Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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