“I am particularly pleased, because the result is so different from the solo flute recording of Eberhard Blum and the solo clarinet recording of Roger Heaton. It is not just another interpretation, but a case where interpreters have added so much insight to the music that the music itself has grown. When I was composing this music around 1982, I really thought I was simply writing melodies, but now these little pieces, though remaining melodies, have become something much more, something I would never have imagined. They have become what you hear on this CD.” Tom Johnson “Tom Johnson (b. 1939) belongs to a generation of American composers who founded musical minimalism. We know that this term was first applied to the visual arts, notably to Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and particularly Sol LeWitt, whom Johnson recognizes as an influence. However, it wasn't the repetition in itself that interested him, but rather the idea of music as a process. Steve Reich applied this idea brilliantly in his phase pieces. But after 1975, while the same Reich distanced himself from the radicalism of his first works, and younger American composers came out with music that was lusher, more expressive, even sentimental, Johnson insisted on the unrelenting rigor of formalized processes. The Rational Melodies, composed in 1982, may be regarded as the outcome of this research, first of all by their sheer quantity, but also by the fact that they summarize brilliantly and clearly procedures from the past, present, and future, which together characterize his work: combinations of cycles of different lengths (I, IV, XI, XVII, XVIII), permutations (VII, X), the paper-folding or "dragon" formula (II, XIX), other automata (XVI, XX), or self-similar structures (XIV, XV).” Gilbert Delor  |
CONCERT POUR TOM JOHNSON
L’Ensemble for Contemporary Chamber Music (Ensemble für Neue Kammermusik an der Universität Dortmund) - Université de Dortmund (Allemagne) et l’Emsemble Dedalus, organisent un concert-hommage à l’occasion du 70 anniversaire du compositeur Tom Johnson.
Date : 27 septembre 2009
Heure : 19 heures
Lieu : Les Instants Chavirés
Adresse : 7 rue Richard Lenoir (Montreuil)
Métro : Robespierre
Entrée libre dans la mesure des places disponibles
Une longue nuit pour Tom Johnson
Tom Johnson, un des plus importants compositeurs de musique minimale, vit à Paris depuis vingt-six ans. Dans ses compositions il s'intéresse fondamentalement aux processus logiques, tels que comptage ou pavage. Il a aussi composé un certain nombre de pièces dans lesquelles il déploie tout son sens de l'humour. Quelques-unes de ses œuvres sont de merveilleuses pièces de poésie sonore.
Maintenant le compte à rebours approche des 70 ans, et l'Ensemble de Musique de Chambre Contemporaine de l'Université de Dortmund(Allemagne) a organisé à cette occasion une tournée de concerts anniversaire à Dortmund, Ulm et Montreuil (près de Paris).
Au cours de cette nuit parisienne très spéciale l'ensemble (dirigé par Maik Hester) jouera des oeuvres de la série récente des Tileworks, ainsi que quelques "classiques" comme Monologue pour Tuba ou Maximum Efficiency. L'artiste vocale Angelika Meyer interprétera Running out of Breath de Tom Johnson, ainsi que quelques oeuvres d'importants poètes sonores comme Kurt Schwitters ou Ernst Jandl, toutes en relation avec l'oeuvre de Tom Johnson.
La longe nuit commencera avec une conférence du musicologue Gilbert Delor, suivie du concert de l’Ensemble de Musique de ChambreContemporaine de Dortmund. En troisième partie, le groupe français Dedalus apportera sa propre contribution, avec des compositions de Tom Johnson et des pièces hommage écrites pour l’occasion par certains de ses membres
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Ver la reseña en la revista Doce Notas: Una noche para Tom Johnson |
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The Stroke That Kills New World Records ref. 80661 Not for sale at Editions 75. Works by Eve Beglarian, Alvin Curran, David Dramm, Michael Fiday, Tom Johnson, and Gustavo Matamoros
Seth Josel, electric guitar, electric bass
Over the past twenty-plus years, Seth Josel has established himself as a leader in helping to shape the electric guitar’s burgeoning future as a “classical” instrument. This album is a statement not only of his artistry as a performer, but also as a curator of new music for the guitar. The six pieces on this recording demonstrate a variety of means and approaches spanning the reified electric flamenco of David Dramm to the sound-art abstractions of Gustavo Matamoros.
David Dramm’s (b. 1961) The Stroke That Kills (1993) is rooted in the fierce rhythmic strumming of the flamenco style, but its translation to the electric guitar propels the music to a harder, more vicious place. Michael Fiday’s (b. 1961)Slapback (1997) is inspired by a live recording of The Who in which the guitarist Pete Townsend plays a duet with himself as his sound echoes off the arena wall. In Slapback, the guitar performance—heard in the right stereo channel—is repeated, by means of an electronic delay unit, one eighth-note later in the left stereo channel. Like Slapback, Eve Beglarian’s (b. 1958) Until It Blazes (2001) utilizes an electronic delay to augment the guitarist’s performance, but unlike in the Fiday, Beglarian’s use of echo does not create a separate contrapuntal line. Rather, it helps create a soundspace in which the delay effect promotes a sense of ambient depth and a more subtle sense of syncopation. Tom Johnson’s (b. 1939) Canon for Six Guitars (1998) is a process piece where rigorous adherence to its initial conditions of pitch and rhythm ultimately produces something of a commentary on itself.
The idea of building a composition around a formalized exploration of the guitar as a harmonic medium is also taken up by Alvin Curran (b. 1938) in Strum City(1999). The first movement is relatively straightforward and presents a long series of chords, not unlike a chorale, through the aural gauze of the strum. While Strum City’s first movement is uncritically and unabashedly strum-centric, the second and third movements break apart the strum’s dual temporal nature, each focusing on one of the strum’s dual aspects. Gustavo Matamoros’s (b. 1957) Stoned Guitar (2005) comprises two separate sub-pieces: Stoned Guitar and TIG Welder. TIG Welder is a recording of the eponymous device that is played simultaneously with the performance of the Stoned Guitar score. The balance between guitar and recording is determined by means of external electronics as stipulated by the composer. |
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Editions 75
