Ben Johnston (b. 1926)
String Quartet no. 4, “Amazing Grace” (1973)
American composer Ben Johnston was born in Macon, Georgia in 1926 and currently lives in North Carolina. Johnston is most closely associated with the post-war avant-garde and just a quick glimpse through his biography reveals a staggering list of figures with whom he interacted, including John Cage, Earle Brown, La Monte Young, Iannis Xenakis, and – most importantly – the great American maverick Harry Partch.
Partch was a composer who was interested in alternative forms of tuning, particularly ones that involved intervals smaller than the half step (which are often referred to as microtones); accordingly, he invented and built new instruments specifically to play his music. Johnston shared Partch’s fascination with microtonal tuning and pursued his interest in it alongside other stylistic undertakings, though Johnston’s music typically involves traditional instruments.
The String Quartet no. 4, subtitled “Amazing Grace,” is perhaps Johnston’s best known work. It was written in 1973 and originally intended to be performed as a set with Johnston’s String Quartet no. 3 (individually, the pair share the respective subtitles “Vergings” and “Ascent” and are collectively known as “Crossings”). However, the single movement Quartet no. 4 is often heard on its own and stands as a satisfying introduction to Johnston’s remarkable body of work.
Lasting about ten minutes, the Quartet is based on the hymn tune AMAZING GRACE. Johnston departs from the original tune, though, by adapting it to fit a microtonal scale based on the ancient Pythagorean system of tuning according to ratios. A series of variations follow, each more rhythmically and harmonically complex, before the return of the now “transformed” hymn tune closes the piece.
Johnston’s marriage of folk music idioms, non-Western tuning, and the very Western variations form may seem odd on paper, but in practice they combine to form a wholly original and deeply expressive musical experience. If Johnston is “one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer,” as John Rockwell once described him, he is also one of the most important links to the early days of the great American maverick tradition, and one of the last direct connections to some of its early figures.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
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