美国国家公共电台 NPR Ben Johnston Hears The Notes Between The Notes

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST: 

Ben Johnston celebrated¹ his 90th birthday this year, and he completed a decade-long project - the recording² of all 10 of his string quartets. That's in part due to the fact that Ben Johnston hears music differently than most people. He hears the notes between the notes. Maureen McCollum of Wisconsin Public Radio explains.

MAUREEN MCCOLLUM, BYLINE³: When Ben Johnston was growing up in Georgia, he questioned the standards scales he was taught in school.

BEN JOHNSTON: Because I knew I was hearing all this stuff, but I had no idea what I was hearing.

MCCOLLUM: So...

JOHNSTON: I played by ear, and invented my own chords.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEN JOHNSTON COMPOSITION, "STRING QUARTET NO. 4")

MCCOLLUM: In Western music, we're taught that there are set notes and scales - Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So. But instead of jumping from Do to Re, there's actually an infinite number of pitches in between called microtones. Johnston works with those notes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEN JOHNSTON COMPOSITION, "STRING QUARTET NO. 4")

MCCOLLUM: Ben Johnston's "String Quarter No. 4" four is probably his best known and most performed work. It's his take on "Amazing Grace." At his home in Madison, Wis., surrounded by a flock of peacocks and a herd⁴ of barn cats, the 90-year-old composer says the work has its roots in his childhood, in slavery and in his desire to hear what the song might have sounded like if Beethoven had covered it late in his career.

JOHNSTON: I was trying to take an aspect of the tune⁵. Let's hear it now from the medieval point of view. Or maybe - what about here? I'll refer to the Romantic period.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEN JOHNSTON COMPOSITION, "STRING QUARTET NO. 4")

MCCOLLUM: It was actually Johnston's love of the Glenn Miller⁶ Orchestra and Broadway show tunes⁷ that made him want to be a composer. Then, during World War II, he heard Stan Kenton's band.

(SOUNDBITE OF STAN KENTON COMPOSITION, "PRELUDE⁸ TO NOTHING")

JOHNSTON: It was the first time I ever heard real jazz improvisation⁹. But immediately I could get it by ear, and it changed my whole approach to harmony.

MCCOLLUM: After the war, he apprenticed¹⁰ with the iconoclastic¹¹ American composer and instrument maker¹² Harry¹³ Partch and studied with Darius Milhaud and John Cage. All of them encouraged him to follow his own path.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in foreign language).

LARRY POLANSKY: You know, we need Jackson Pollack, we need James Joyce, and we need Ben Johnston because they do question something that generally goes unquestioned.

MCCOLLUM: Composer Larry Polansky studied under Johnston at the University of Illinois, where the older composer taught for more than three decades. Polansky went on to become a professor himself and says Johnston taught him that there's more to music than the standard Western scale.

POLANSKY: To limit it and to kind of enforce and entrain a very specific set of pitches and reify them as somehow natural or what things should be just doesn't make any sense.

MCCOLLUM: Ben Johnston's used all the notes he can wrangle¹⁴ in dance music, percussion¹⁵ pieces, orchestral works. But he spent almost four decades composing 10 unique string quartets.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEN JOHNSTON COMPOSITION, "STRING QUARTET NO. 7")

MCCOLLUM: It took the Kepler Quartet 14 years of rehearsing and recording to get them all down. Eric Segnitz is the group's second violinist.

ERIC SEGNITZ: There was a fair amount of invention and learning curve in getting rid of any preconception of what a chord actually sounds like. That's a big thing - what a scale sounds like.

MCCOLLUM: Segnitz says what struck him even more than the complexity¹⁶ of the music was the way Johnston has never veered¹⁷ from his vision.

SEGNITZ: I think it's really his integrity that impresses people because there are all sorts of pressures on modern composers to reach an audience, to be popular. You know, it's like high school, basically, right? So the fact that someone has really cut through all that is very meaningful.

MCCOLLUM: That doesn't mean the composer can't be playful. In his "String Quartet No. 10," Johnston subtly teases a traditional tune through four movements.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEN JOHNSTON COMPOSITION, "STRING QUARTET NO. 10")

JOHNSTON: It's like you build up this enormous expectation until, finally, you get to the end and say, now the climax¹⁸ will reveal the tune, and it turns out to be "Danny Boy."

(SOUNDBITE OF BEN JOHNSTON COMPOSITION, "STRING QUARTET NO. 10")

MCCOLLUM: Ben Johnston now wants musicians to take his ideas into the future. He sees his string quartets as a foundation and wants others to build upon his tunings and continue what he calls his search for truth in music.

JOHNSTON: Well, I think a lot of this is music sounds that people never thought they wanted to hear, but as a matter of fact, they have.

MCCOLLUM: Just as he did as a kid back in Georgia almost nine decades ago. For NPR News, I'm Maureen McCollum in Madison, Wis.

SIMON: And tomorrow on Weekend Edition Sunday, we'll hear the music of three teachers who've gone punk rock.

1 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

2 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 herd   

n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见，只是人云亦云。

5 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

6 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

7 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 prelude   

n.序言，前兆，序曲

参考例句：

• The prelude to the musical composition is very long.这首乐曲的序曲很长。
• The German invasion of Poland was a prelude to World War II.德国入侵波兰是第二次世界大战的序幕。

9 improvisation   

n.即席演奏(或演唱)；即兴创作

参考例句：

• a free-form jazz improvisation 自由创作的爵士乐即兴演出
• Most of their music was spontaneous improvisation. 他们的大部分音乐作品都是即兴创作的。

10 apprenticed   

学徒，徒弟( apprentice的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I was apprenticed to a builder when I was fourteen. 14岁时，我拜一个建筑工人为师当学徒。
• Lucius got apprenticed to a stonemason. 卢修斯成了石匠的学徒。

11 iconoclastic   

adj.偶像破坏的，打破旧习的

参考例句：

• His iconoclastic tendencies can get him into trouble. 他与传统信仰相悖的思想倾向可能会给他带来麻烦。 来自辞典例句
• The film is an iconoclastic allegory. 电影是一个关于破坏的寓言。 来自互联网

12 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

13 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

14 wrangle   

vi.争吵

参考例句：

• I don't want to get into a wrangle with the committee.我不想同委员会发生争执。
• The two countries fell out in a bitter wrangle over imports.这两个国家在有关进口问题的激烈争吵中闹翻了。

15 percussion   

n.打击乐器；冲突，撞击；震动，音响

参考例句：

• In an orchestra,people who play percussion instruments sit at the back.在管弦乐队中，演奏打击乐器的人会坐在后面。
• Percussion of the abdomen is often omitted.腹部叩诊常被省略。

16 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

17 veered   

v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转

参考例句：

• The bus veered onto the wrong side of the road. 公共汽车突然驶入了逆行道。
• The truck veered off the road and crashed into a tree. 卡车突然驶离公路撞上了一棵树。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 climax   

n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点

参考例句：

• The fifth scene was the climax of the play.第五场是全剧的高潮。
• His quarrel with his father brought matters to a climax.他与他父亲的争吵使得事态发展到了顶点。