# Ben Johnston String Quartets



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I have just recently discovered most of these (I've known 7 for a while but only recently have gotten really into it) and they're incredible. Easily my favorite SQ cycle after Beethoven. I'm a huge fan (& advocate) of Just Intonation, but beyond that they are simply brilliant works of music and would probably still sound great even in 12 TET. I'm ordering the score for #7 and can't wait to dig in further. What do you think about them? Which string quartet is your favorite (I can't make up my mind on that yet)? What are your favorite performances? (There aren't too many to choose from).

So far I've only listened to 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10, all performed by the Kepler Quartet.


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## EmperorOfIceCream (Jan 3, 2020)

I think they are amazing, and I have been really impressed by Johnston's other music, esp. Quintet for Groups. I haven't been able to do careful listening to all of them yet, but I love 4 and the ending to 10. I think everyone should hear 4, and the coda is one of the most amazing endings to a string quartet I have ever heard. I also quite like the wandering third movement of 7. To me, his string quartets also have a very American sound, in a good way, like Ives. They seem like they could exist in the same universe of a Thomas Pynchon novel like Mason & Dixon or Against the Day, and they have a sort of postmodern bent with the combination of classical and modern musical material and form. Anyways, I'm highly impressed by them, and the harmony really is beautiful to hear and has changed the way I listen to intonation in other music.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

He's a much more mature, and better composer than Ives, IMO, though I too made that connection.

I agree everyone should hear SQ #4. It's very easy on the ears, and there is always a sense of familiarity even in the weirder passages.

I have not yet heard the Quintet for Groups, I will have to check it out.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I like 5 and 9 most I think, and I find 6 and 7 the most challenging.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Fantastic works, very much worthy of being considered in the 20th century SQ tradition.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

i agree with my fellow members that johnston is a major composer in the SQ tradition, probably in the top ten in the category (haydn, mozart, beethoven, schubert, dvorak, schoenberg, bartok, shostakovich, weinberg, johnston). of course there are contemporary heavyweights like rihm, dillon and G.F.haas who have not finished their cycles and we should not forget radulescu; my own favourites are 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 and of course the quintet.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

justekaia said:


> i agree with my fellow members that johnston is a major composer in the SQ tradition, probably in the top ten in the category (haydn, mozart, beethoven, schubert, dvorak, schoenberg, bartok, shostakovich, weinberg, johnston). of course there are contemporary heavyweights like rihm, dillon and G.F.haas who have not finished their cycles and we should not forget radulescu; my own favourites are 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 and of course the quintet.


A composer who has written 15 string quartets, so far, that I admire is *Krzysztof Meyer*. 1-13 have been recorded and released on Naxos and are well worth hearing. And was it an oversight or something else which caused to leave *Elliott Carter*'s name off your list?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I listened to SQ #6 last night (I liked it but found it more challenging to follow than #7). Here's a comment about the piece from his student and fellow microtonal composer Kyle Gann:



> Note, however, that unlike other composers who identified a fatal flaw in the 12-tone language, Ben didn't stop writing in it. I once asked him why, since he was a just intonationist, he continued to write 12-tone music, and he answered, "Well, I had learned all that technique, and I didn't want it to go to waste." In his 12-tone music, though, he applied his own critique as a reform. In his remarkable String Quartet No. 6, the first hexachord of the row is a harmonic series on D, and the second is an undertone series on D#. This means that all 12 notes of the row are not equal in weight, because one note in each half of the row is the fundamental from which the other five pitches are derived. The pitch matrix for this row contains 63 different pitches within the octave. The piece rocks back and forth between overtone series' and undertone series', in a thoroughly tonalized 12-tone technique.


I also watched this:






Here are some key takeaways:

1. As you might expect, Ben Johnston describes himself as a "revisionist". In contrast to Harry Partch, who sought to break away from the tradition of Western Art Music, Johnston seeks to answer the question "What might Western Art Music sound like if we had never adopted temperament?" In this way his approach represents a direct continuation of the line of thought of some Renaissance theorists and composers. For instance, the slow movement of SQ 10 sets out to answer the question "What might a Bach Chaconne sound like had it been based off of complex interactions of just ratios"?

2. Johnston divides his microtonal endeavors into 3 phases:

a. 5, 7, sometimes 11, 13 limit harmony representing simple relations akin to modal tonal music (SQ's 2-5)

b. The proliferation of microtones that thereby naturally arises from (a) (this is SQ's 6 and 7)

c. A simplification of (b) to choose a set of just ratios to represent a "scale" and allow modulation to a different set of just ratios, often via common tone (SQ's 8-10)

3. Johnston was a very proud man, and although he did not try to proselytize his students or colleagues into adopting the Just Intonation, he was adamant throughout the speech about both the scope / worthiness of his mission as well as his feelings about his own accomplishments.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> A composer who has written 15 string quartets, so far, that I admire is *Krzysztof Meyer*. 1-13 have been recorded and released on Naxos and are well worth hearing. And was it an oversight or something else which caused to leave *Elliott Carter*'s name off your list?


I'd like to keep this thread about *Ben Johnston*, or at least associated practitioners of Just Intonation or Microtonality. There are plenty of other places to discuss *Elliott Carter* and American composers at large.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> I like 5 and 9 most I think, and I find 6 and 7 the most challenging.


This makes sense. 6 and 7 were deliberately written in the most challenging style, and it's not difficult to hear that come through. 7 for me is pretty easy to follow, but 6 (while beautiful) seems to meander and drag on. But I've only listened to it once so far!

I think my favorites are 7, 9, and 10. But I'll need to listen some more.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

SanAntone said:


> A composer who has written 15 string quartets, so far, that I admire is *Krzysztof Meyer*. 1-13 have been recorded and released on Naxos and are well worth hearing. And was it an oversight or something else which caused to leave *Elliott Carter*'s name off your list?


As hinted in my post i have not mentioned all the SQ composers i admire (Babbitt, Dusapin, Feldman, Ferneyhough, Harvey, Norgärd, Scelsi, Schnittke for example are excellent candidates for any SQ list). I personally have reservations about Carter's cycle although i admit he is a great composer. I like his SQ 3 and 4, but am disappointed by the others. Meyer's SQs are superb. I particularly like 5, 9, 12, 13. But the overall idea of my post was to show that Johnston deserved to be mentioned among the great SQ composers.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

justekaia said:


> As hinted in my post i have not mentioned all the SQ composers i admire (Babbitt, Dusapin, Feldman, Ferneyhough, Harvey, Norgärd, Scelsi, Schnittke for example are excellent candidates for any SQ list). I personally have reservations about Carter's cycle although i admit he is a great composer. I like his SQ 3 and 4, but am disappointed by the others. Meyer's SQs are superb. I particularly like 5, 9, 12, 13. But the overall idea of my post was to show that Johnston deserved to be mentioned among the great SQ composers.


While I recognize Johnston's efforts and importance in this area he is not among the composers I listen to much (prior to this thread I forgot the last time I listened to one of his SQ). Of course neither are most of the other composers on your list. I rarely listen to SQ written prior to the 20th century. Johnston's exploration with just intonation and microtonality are of no interest to me, and much of his music just sounds out of tune.

I prefer Carter, Weinberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, and Meyer since I hear a rigorous method in their work which appeals to me.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

That's strange @SanAntone. I don't hear much of a "rigorous method" in Bartok or Shostakovich, and the methodology of the serialists, while rigorous, often seems to me too abstracted for its own good. But with Ben Johnston's string quartets, the proliferation of microtones and the gradual, controlled movements along the spectrum(a) of consonance-dissonance seem to me to suggest a much more of a "rigorous" structure based on first principles than the music of any of the other names you mentioned. To each his own, I guess.

One of the things Johnston said in the speech I linked above, while other 20th century composers were attempting to "emancipate dissonance", Johnston's goal was to "emancipate consonance". I thought that was very well-said.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Easily my favorite SQ cycle after Beethoven.


OK I may have been exaggerating a bit. I think it's my favorite post-Beethoven, but not "easily". There are many other great ones too.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> That's strange @SanAntone. I don't hear much of a "rigorous method" in Bartok or Shostakovich, and the methodology of the serialists, while rigorous, often seems to me too abstracted for its own good. But with Ben Johnston's string quartets, the proliferation of microtones and the gradual, controlled movements along the spectrum(a) of consonance-dissonance seem to me to suggest a much more of a "rigorous" structure based on first principles than the music of any of the other names you mentioned. To each his own, I guess.
> 
> One of the things Johnston said in the speech I linked above, while other 20th century composers were attempting to "emancipate dissonance", Johnston's goal was to "emancipate consonance". I thought that was very well-said.


None of the five composers I listed were "serialists" a least in how I define that term. In their compositions I hear a rigorous development of thematic material which interests me more than what I hear as the priorities in Johnston's music. I recognize the quality of his music and can appreciate it and even have enjoyed it (but it exhausts my interest relatively quickly).

I ignore them when composers speak in a speculative or meta-musical manner and prefer to listen to their music and draw my own conclusions.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

To be clear, I know that none of the composers you listed were serialists (although Carter experimented with serialism at some point in his life IIRC). I added the bit about serialism to clarify that, for my listening preferences, rigorous methodology isn't necessarily a good thing on its own - unless it is somehow connected to what I see as the first principles of music. The way I wrote it was confusing.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

justekaia said:


> i agree with my fellow members that johnston is a major composer in the SQ tradition, probably in the top ten in the category (haydn, mozart, beethoven, schubert, dvorak, schoenberg, bartok, shostakovich, weinberg, johnston). of course there are contemporary heavyweights like rihm, dillon and G.F.haas who have not finished their cycles and we should not forget radulescu; my own favourites are 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 and of course the quintet.


I'd forgotten about 3. I think it's quite a challenge. What do you think is going on in the quartet? What was he trying to do?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I prefer Carter, Weinberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, and Meyer since I hear a rigorous method in their work which appeals to me.


John Cage must be spinning in his grave as he reads this.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> John Cage must be spinning in his grave as he reads this.


Other methods composers use also appeal to me. But mainly if I like the sound of a composer's music, that's enough. And I doubt John Cage would care what I think.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I'd forgotten about 3. I think it's quite a challenge. What do you think is going on in the quartet? What was he trying to do?


Johnston said that String Quartet No. 3 and No. 4 are like diptych or two rims of a canyon, and they can be perceived as old world/new world, international style/world music, serial emphasis/proportional emphasis, or personal/transpersonal. Crossings, comprised of the two quartets and The Silence (60-120 seconds pause between them), may be considered as triptych, and The Silence is like a traverse between two opposite canyon walls, from "the post-Viennese expressionist ethos" to "ultrachromatic microtonal just intonation." (On Crossings)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bloody hell - I had no idea what metaphysical depths I was opening up when I asked the question!

San Antone. Do NOT read Tortkis’s post.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Mandryka said:


> I'd forgotten about 3. I think it's quite a challenge. What do you think is going on in the quartet? What was he trying to do?


String quartets are my favourite category and I own the full collection of 287 composers' string quartets. I do not try to analyse the works too much as the sound is really the dominating element in SQs. The convoluted stories of the composers do not convince me.
But no 3 is really an outstanding one in Johnston's cycle although the last two are the crowning achievement IMHO.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

justekaia said:


> String quartets are my favourite category and I own the full collection of 287 composers' string quartets. I do not try to analyse the works too much as the sound is really the dominating element in SQs. The convoluted stories of the composers do not convince me.
> But no 3 is really an outstanding one in Johnston's cycle although the last two are the crowning achievement IMHO.


Have you heard the new Beat Furrer?


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Mandryka said:


> Have you heard the new Beat Furrer?


I have it on CD through my sound engineer and it is waiting for me to listen to it with headphones. Beat Furrer is an austere composer whom I appreciate, but who does not exhilarate me. As you put the question, I will listen this afternoon and revert. take care


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Mandryka said:


> Have you heard the new Beat Furrer?


Ok, i have listened to furrer's SQ 4; i don't hear an original voice, more a work that is in line with present average production; my favorite will remain his third quartet which i really like


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

justekaia said:


> Ok, i have listened to furrer's SQ 4; i don't hear an original voice, more a work that is in line with present average production; my favorite will remain his third quartet which i really like


I did exactly the same as you and I totally agree, and I'm happy to have my response confirmed (I was a little worried that I was becoming too blasé.)


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Mandryka said:


> I did exactly the same as you and I totally agree, and I'm happy to have my response confirmed (I was a little worried that I was becoming too blasé.)


i have the firm belief that people like you and me can recognize the intrinsic value of art works


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## EmperorOfIceCream (Jan 3, 2020)

justekaia, what are your favorite 20th century cycles? Besides Johnston, I love Bartok's cycle and Dutilleux's Ainsi la nuit, but I feel like it is an abused genre and don't devote a lot of time to them. There is a certain string quartet 20th/21st century string quartet with some slow dissonant passages and a lot of extended techniques that I feel I have heard over and over.

Btw, fun trivia, there are some pretty amazing stories about Johnston's ear, like him being able to identify the harmonic ratio of a piece of metal that fell on the ground as it was resonating.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

EmperorOfIceCream said:


> Btw, fun trivia, there are some pretty amazing stories about Johnston's ear, like him being able to identify the harmonic ratio of a piece of metal that fell on the ground as it was resonating.


I believe it. As a child he recognized equal temperament as "out of tune". I'm much the same way, very sensitive to minute gradations (though my ear is less sensitive than when I was a child). Though I will say having perfect pitch has proven to be more of a curse than a blessing at times, when it comes to adjusting to music in Just Intonation. I wish I were exposed to more of it at an earlier age so that I didn't categorize pitches according to their nearest approximation in A = 440 12-TET. But I absolutely love JI nonetheless, and I am trying to entirely retrain my ear and brain to be able to think directly in terms of ratios without having to translate from the approximate "letter" notes and then make deviations.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EmperorOfIceCream said:


> justekaia, what are your favorite 20th century cycles? Besides Johnston, I love Bartok's cycle and Dutilleux's Ainsi la nuit, but I feel like it is an abused genre and don't devote a lot of time to them. There is a certain string quartet 20th/21st century string quartet with some slow dissonant passages and a lot of extended techniques that I feel I have heard over and over.
> 
> Btw, fun trivia, there are some pretty amazing stories about Johnston's ear, like him being able to identify the harmonic ratio of a piece of metal that fell on the ground as it was resonating.


I just want to say that IMO the Ferneyhough cycle is extremely impressive, and consistently rewarding. Even the early one, the sonatas for string quartet.

I think it's a great shame that we don't have easy access to the spectral cycles - Radulescu and Haas.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

justekaia said:


> Ok, i have listened to furrer's SQ 4; i don't hear an original voice, more a work that is in line with present average production; my favorite will remain his third quartet which i really like





Mandryka said:


> I did exactly the same as you and I totally agree, and I'm happy to have my response confirmed (I was a little worried that I was becoming too blasé.)


I found the work to be engaging and well-written. Glad to have heard it.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

The last movement of #10 is incredible.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

There was a while that I liked his music. Some of it has a certain accessibility like Quartet #4 which I think is the one on the hymn, but I don't really find his music challenging in a good way over time.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Does 20th c. Music need to be challenging?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Does 20th c. Music need to be challenging?


Just by looking at only this post, I could tell that Phil had come by and commented "(the music is) not challenging". lol.


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