ANTS RECORDS

Roger Heaton, clarinets.

“I want to find the music, not to compose it". This statement,

one of Tom Johnson's most effective, explains the general

sense of the music of this CD and of most of Tom's musical

research. The Rational Melodies are one of the most

important instrumental cycles of the "new music" repertoire.

Here we have the application of rational methodology to

musical composition, using additive operations, combinations,

permutations, substitutions, inversions and other logical

processes as directed by the ear of a passionate musician. "I

am certainly not the first person to work with logical

sequences and formulas," says Johnson. But we, the listeners,

must thank him for letting us hear clearly (and musically) this

rationality.

The Bedtime Stories can be heard as delicate, peculiar

musical "nursery rhymes"; it's a little 12-story compendium of

sound that takes us on an amazing journey in the world of

numbers.

Roger Heaton is, in this disc, simply fantastic. It¹s hard to find

a better word to describe the sensations that surface as we

listen to him. The British clarinetist give us the essence of

Johnson’s music. In his interpretation rationality becomes

joy, inspiration, strength; melodies appear in chic classical

clothes and his virtuosity (always needed by the score)

perfectly adheres to the scores. And there is also the elegant

reading of the texts of the Bedtime Stories, with that perfect

English accent and that clarinet that seems coming from the

pages of a fairy-tales (and numbers) book.

Esther Ferrer is a multi-faceted Spanish artist, living in Paris

for years, but traveling all over Europe (much in Italy) and in

the rest of the world. Presenting performances, installations,

photographic works, she is a great exponent of "total art"

(she was in the group ZAJ from 1967 until the group

discontinued in 1996). For this CD cover, she offers one of her

visual structures following the prime number series, an aspect

of her work that goes particularly well with the rational

processes of her husband, Tom Johnson. A particular thanks

to Esther for her kind permission to allow us to use these

images.

track list

1-21) Rational Melodies I-XXI 35'54"

22-33) Bedtime Stories I-XII 24'02"

released 20/07/2006