Spending an Hour with Tom Johnson

It is now almost three months since I wrote my last article about an album in the Nicolas Horvath Discoveries series. To some extent this involved taking a break from all of those discoveries, but it also allowed Horvath with time to add the latest ducks to his row. Thus, I spent this morning with an album that had been available for download back in July but whose accompanying booklet did not surface until September.

That album consists of a single composition by Tom Johnson entitled “An Hour For Piano.” Like all of Horvath’s releases, this album now has a Bandcamp Web page; but the album is available only for download or streaming. Hopefully, that download will include the accompanying booklet.

I feel this issue is more critical than usual for this recording. Indeed, if I may take liberties with the composer, the title of this particular release might better be altered to “An Hour For ….” In many respects the experience of Johnson’s composition is one of experiencing the duration of an hour. This becomes evident when one opens the booklet and discovers the introductory essay that Johnson has provided, entitled “Program Notes to be Read While Hearing.” This is followed by another essay, this time written by Horvath and given the title “The Musical Notes Hid Others: Tom Johnson’s Crime Revealed to his Listeners Before It’s Too Late.” There is then an opening paragraph under the header “Notes from Nicolas Horvath,” whose opening sentence is: “It is strictly forbidden to read the following while listening to the work.”

In other words the album itself serves up an “experience,” which, among other things, addresses what may be viewed as a dialectic based on the act of listening and the act of reading about the act of listening. (To some extent John Cage explored this same path in writing his “Lecture on Nothing.”) Those curious about this experience but hesitant about “taking the plunge” into Horvath’s recording will probably be pleased to know that this composition has its own Wikipedia page. Some readers may think that offering this reference is my way of punting on accounting for my own impressions of listening to Horvath’s recording. However, this particular offering is decidedly not one’s usual listening experience; and I would prefer to keep my own opinions to myself while inviting others to chart their own paths through that aforementioned dialectic.