[spectre] New podcast: Tom Johnson about his compositional methods, and the influence that John Cage and Morton Feldman had upon it

Radio Web MACBA rwm2008 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 27 10:14:34 CET 2012


*New podcast: Tom Johnson about his compositional methods, and the
influence that John Cage and Morton Feldman had upon it.
*
Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/tom_johnson/capsula

Tom Johnson is an American minimalist composer. A former student of Morton
Feldman, his music is mainly based on the application of numerical and
logical systems. His approach is unique, quite different from the free
wanderings of Feldman, or the repetitions and gradual processes of other
American minimalist of his generation, such as Terry Riley or Steve Reich.
His music is often called conceptual but in many cases it depends strongly
on the special tempo and sound qualities of the performance with
traditional instruments. Such is the case of the "Chord Catalogue", a 1985
piece in which the pianist plays, without omission or repetition, all
possible 8178 chords within one octave.

Tom Johnson's music has a special relationship not only with numbers, but
also with words. In his operas, such as the well-known "The Four-Note
Opera", or in the program notes that he often writes for his music, he uses
words not to tell a story, but to make the listener aware of the formal
structure of the piece, as well as the evolution of the performance and the
process of hearing it.

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