CDs with online ordering
David Johnson: A Celebration (PFCD275) £12.50/£17.50
Compositions by David Johnson, David Dorward, Robert Crawford, John Purser, Ronald Stevenson and Owen Swindale
1-3 David Johnson (1942-2009): String Quartet in C, Op. 1 [07:04]
– I. Adagio
II. Minuets 1 and 2
III. Allegro non troppo
4 David Dorward (1933-2020):
Elegiac Nocturne, for bass recorder and string quartet [07:28]
5 David Johnson (1942-2009): Piobaireachd, for solo recorder [06:08]
6 Robert Crawford (1925-2012): Variations on a Ground, for recorder and string quartet [04:31]
7 John Purser (Born 1942): Skye Blue, for solo recorder [04:21]
8 John Purser: (Born 1942): Skyebright, for solo harp [05:29]
9-11 David Johnson (1942-2009): Preludes and Fugues Nos. 1 in B Flat, 6 in G, and 8 in F, for piano (from Twelve Preludes and Fugues for piano) [18:39]
12-13 Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015):
Two songs to poems by William Soutar,
for soprano and piano [04:27]
– Hallowe’en Sang;
The Quiet Comes In
14 Owen Swindale (1927-2021): Elegy for my Lost Friends, for recorder and string quartet [04:10]
Total Time [66.13]
About this Album
Author of the seminal volume (Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford UP, 1972) and Scottish Fiddle Music in the Eighteenth Century (John Donald, Edinburgh, 1984), a historical survey and compilation of unknown Scottish musical gems, it is as a composer that David Johnson (1942-2009) wished to be remembered best. His reputation here remains, with a few exceptions (such as the solo recorder works Piobeareachd and Music for Halloween, which found their way into examination syllabi), local rather than national. His style is tonal, concise and quirky. There is often a distinct Scottish flavour, and more than a hint of pop music, and his works are imbued with a concern that his music should be enjoyable for both performers and listeners as well as socially relevant.
Many
of his works were composed for his own instruments (including a sonata for
cello and piano, and three solo cello suites), and others were inspired by well-
known performers (his Twelve Preludes and Fugues for piano were written for Ronald
Stevenson). There are no less than five operas, including the four-acter Thomas the Rhymer, based on the well-known border ballad collected by Sir
Walter Scott. All his music is accessible to amateur and young performers.
Johnson never obtained the full-time academic post that his erudition and
abilities deserved, though he did have shorter term research and/or teaching
posts at Napier and Edinburgh Universities. So he had to battle for most of his
life against the vicissitudes of an irregular income.
It is hoped that this recording, based in part on a privately recorded concert
intended for his 70th birthday, designed by himself, and including music by
several of his composer friends, but which sadly he did not live to see, will act
as a reminder of his great talents as a composer. The concert took place on 29th
October 2009.
John Turner
Credits
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano)
John Turner (recorder)
Flora White (harp)
Duncan Honeybourne (piano)
Harvey Davies (piano)
The Edinburgh Quartet
The Manchester Chamber Ensemble
David Johnson
David Johnson (1942-2009) was an authority on classical Scottish music
of the eighteenth century, who by his discoveries, editions and writings
retrieved from obscurity a fascinating and distinctively Scottish repertoire of
high musical quality, informed by continental fashions, as well as being of
great social interest.
Johnson was the eldest of three
sons, and attended the Rudolf Steiner School before studying English at
Aberdeen University.
He had started to compose at an early age, and two movements from a work
for recorder consort (Three Trios, chiefly on Pastoral Subjects), written when
he was 14, were published by Robert Salkeld's MMR Edition. He took up both
the cello and the recorder, and became proficient, but not virtuosic, on both. At
Aberdeen, his compositions, including a bassoon sonata, came to the notice of
Ian Kemp, then a lecturer in the Music Department, and on completing his
degree, Johnson went up to Kemp's (and his father's) own college at
Cambridge, St. John's, to read music, completing the tripos in two years, rather
than the usual three, obtaining a first-class degree, and composing prolifically
the while.
He stayed on at Cambridge to research, his
doctoral research culminating in a seminal volume (Music and Society in
Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford UP, 1972). Johnson followed this study with Scottish Fiddle Music in the Eighteenth Century (John Donald,
Edinburgh, 1984), a historical survey and compilation of unknown Scottish
musical gems.
John Turner