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["Pomp and Circumstance")

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Welcome back to another episode of the Piano Part.

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I am your host, Yukimi San.

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For this episode, I interviewed Mr. David Hackbridge-Johnson, one of the prolific British composers

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of our time, whose piano works were recorded by Mr. Lowell Lieberman, who is one of the

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prolific American composers of our time, whom I get to interview last season.

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So in the episode with Mr. Lieberman, he mentioned that he was about to release a new album titled

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The Devil's Liar under the Steinway and Sons label, and he mentioned that he wanted to

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play pieces by contemporary composers, and he stumbled upon Mr. Hackbridge-Johnson's

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music.

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So Mr. Lieberman chose Mr. Hackbridge-Johnson's piano compositions, including all seven nocturnes,

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exclusively for the album, and the rest is history.

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Lieberman describes Hackbridge-Johnson's compositional voice as vigorous, unrepentantly melodic,

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spurably crafted and orchestrated, and with a refreshing and idiosyncratic harmonic sense.

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Since then, I have been super curious about this composer, and since the release of the

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album last year, The Devil's Liar, I have been listening to it often, and I absolutely

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love it.

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It became one of my favorite albums of all time.

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So then I reached out to Mr. Hackbridge-Johnson via Facebook to be friends, and finally today,

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I got to meet him and interview him.

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Just finished the interview session now with Mr. Hackbridge-Johnson, and he's the sweetest

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person on earth, and his wealth of knowledge about music and literature, especially the

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way he explains with humor, is just so priceless.

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So before getting started, I want to welcome everyone who is listening or watching the

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PianoPod for the first time.

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I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City, passionate about creating a

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thriving and meaningful community of the classical music industry through this podcast.

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Please visit ukimisongstudio.com to find out more about my work, and each episode of

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the PianoPod, I interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground

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in the industry before getting started.

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I want to thank everyone for tuning in.

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Please rate the show and review it on Apple podcasts because every rating review will

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help people find my show.

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So here we go, dear friends, please enjoy the show.

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You are listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry

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about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.

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I am honored to welcome Mr. David Hackridge-Johnson, one of the prolific British composers of our

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time who has written works in all genres.

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His name became known to many classical music listeners worldwide in recent years, with

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one of America's most frequently performed and recorded living composers and pianists,

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Mr. Louis Lieberman's solo piano album under Steinway and Sons label.

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The title of the album is The Devil's Liar, which all the pieces are written by Mr. Hackridge-Johnson.

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Mr. Hackridge-Johnson has written over 20 symphonies and tone poems, as well as various

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chamber, vocal, ballet, opera, and choral music.

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In addition, he has written extensively for the piano, including piano sonatas, nocturnes,

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and many shorter pieces and piano cycles.

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Very recently, Mr. Johnson's newest work, an opera titled Blaze of Glory, was premiered

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at the Wales Millennium Centre and presented by the Welsh National Opera and received rave

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reviews from multiple publications.

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The Opus Numbers to catalogue Mr. Johnson's large-scale works are currently in the 400th

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and more.

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Unfortunately, however, we get to listen to only a handful of recordings of his compositions

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through YouTube and music streaming services.

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So here I am today with Mr. Hackridge-Johnson to discuss his remarkable career in compositions.

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And I have been a big fan of his music since the release of The Devil's Liar.

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So I personally want to promote his music, not limited to piano works, but ranging in

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different genres so that a lot of classical musicians, including fellow pianists, will

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get to know him and start performing and recording his incredible music more often.

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So David, thank you for being here today.

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Thank you, Yukimi, for inviting me.

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First, I want to tell you, Mr. Lowell Lieberman was on my show and just before he released

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his second piano solo album, The Devil's Liar, I loved the album so much.

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I've been listening to it since its release in February 2022.

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And you know, during the interview session, Mr. Lieberman said nothing but praises about

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you and your works.

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And out of 70 minutes of our conversation, he spent a good amount, like eight to 10 minutes,

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talking about the album, your compositions, and he shared the story of how he found you

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and your works in details.

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And I just wanted to say to my listeners and fans, if you haven't listened to Mr. Lieberman's

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album, The Devil's Liar, Liar as in L-Y-R-E, which is the ancient instrument, U-shaped

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harp with piano solo pieces written by Mr. David Hackridge Johnson, please find links

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in the description and buy an album or start listening to it via music streaming services.

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And if you missed Mr. Lieberman's episode with me, which was published in January 2022,

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and where we discussed about this album and talked about Mr. Hackridge Johnson, I wanted

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to remind you to check it out.

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This link is also in the description.

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Anyway, so let's start with this.

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I know how Mr. Lieberman found you through Facebook and everything, but I want to know

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from your take.

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One of the positive aspects of the internet is that it can bring people together who probably

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would otherwise never meet.

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And I got a friendship request from Lowell and I thought, wow, because I'd heard of him

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because he's a major American composer.

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And I knew he was a fine pianist as well, sometimes playing his own music, sometimes

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others.

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I thought, oh, that's interesting.

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And then, you know, the nature of these things, you just sit there, not really communicating

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for months because we're just on the internet as entities.

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But then all of a sudden he did write to me and he mentioned that during lockdown he was

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playing the piano a lot and he'd already produced an album, a double album actually, of some

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of his favourite rather demonic pieces, including things like Liszt's Totentanz.

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And we had started a discussion about that.

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And he said he was planning another album, which would include another bunch of favourite

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pieces, but he'd want to include maybe something by me.

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And I thought, OK, so continuing on the devil's theme, the diabolical, I concocted a nocturne

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for him, which was based on a very weird dream I'd had about this peculiar devil-like creature

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sitting on a rock playing an instrument with very strange tunings.

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And I thought, OK, I'm going to write this.

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And I sent it to him the next day.

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And he seemed to like it.

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And then he said, well, you've called it nocturne number seven.

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I think it's number seven, isn't it?

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Where are the others?

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I said, I don't know.

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They're around somewhere.

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I mean, they could be in piles of manuscript paper in that corner or in that corner or

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upstairs in the attic.

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I did find the other six and they needed a bit of tidying up because these were quite

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old pieces from nearly 20 years ago, at least 15 years ago.

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I tidied them up.

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I sent them to Lowell one by one.

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And then at that point, he decided, you know what?

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I'm going to do an album entirely of your music, David.

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And I was quite amazed.

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And I thought, I didn't know what to think, really.

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And I thought, well, maybe he'll go away and maybe he'll change his mind.

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Maybe he'll think, actually, maybe this stuff's not so good as I first thought.

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But literally within a few weeks, he sent me practice recordings that he'd done in his

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own house and then said that he was going to go to a recording studio where Sergey,

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who I don't know whether you know Sergey, has a recording studio and he's just going

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to do them.

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So I think probably within six months of us having any kind of official communication

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other than just staring at each other in the ether, he had an album out and Steinway had

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agreed to issue it.

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OK, that's remarkable enough.

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And that would have been fine had he just played the pieces and that's fine.

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But there was the fact that the way he played the pieces just so impressed me.

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The fact that regardless of what one's opinion might be of the music, I can't say.

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Other people have to say that for me as a composer, he got right inside the style, right

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inside the marrow of the music to produce these very, very intense, intimate and intense

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performances, which I was absolutely thrilled by.

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And it was really just one of those strange things where, you know, six weeks after first

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speaking, he's made an album of my stuff.

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So he's always been a hero, but he's now a double hero for me.

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The title of the album is actually the title of Nocturne No. 7.

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Did you write the Nocturne No. 7, The Devil's Liar for Loa?

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He asked me whether I would like to write a piece.

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I wrote a piece that very evening.

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I sent it in by probably breakfast time the following morning and said, look, I want to

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dedicate this to you.

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He'd sent me a hamper of his own music, by the way.

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He'd sent me some sheet music and I already had some CDs of his.

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So I felt like I owed him something anyway.

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And now that we were actually in proper communication, I thought, well, whatever he does with this

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piece, I don't mind.

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I'm going to write him something just as a greeting, as a sophisticated greetings card,

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if you like.

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So it's written for him.

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And it is an interesting sound world that just happened to be in my mind.

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It's not a showpiece.

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It's not really even impressionistic.

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It's part of my, I have an obsession with the late piano music of Liszt and it's a music

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that Lowell loves as well.

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So I thought, OK, this is in my head.

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So it comes out and I thought it's got Lowell all over it because I knew his Frankenstein,

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of course, as well.

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The wonderful ballad that he wrote, the DVD of which I bought some time ago.

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And the fact that Lowell writes very melodically, but also in Frankenstein, there's this, it's

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not just the horrible horror aspect, it's the pathos.

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It's the sadness, the melancholy of this creature that's been made and is rejected.

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And it comes out of Gothic horror, but also feeds into the decadent literary movement,

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all things I'm terribly interested in.

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So I think we already had a kind of meeting of minds, not just musically, but also intellectually

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and culturally.

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Right.

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And then also in the episode that I spoke with him, he was very impressed.

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He of course himself is a composer and he was very impressed the fact that, you know,

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at that point it was Opus 405 and not only the amount, but the quality and the variety

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of music that you are making.

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And then, you know, let me quote him.

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He says, David is a terrific composer.

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I am very excited about this release, hoping this album will make many others to explore

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his music.

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So that's what he says.

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So let's talk about this album, The Devil's Liar, now that people have the access to your

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music through, you know, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music and so forth,

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then people get to hear your music.

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The album includes seven Nocturnes and then Belphan there and Barclaylal LGs and then

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Calligraphic poems, which has six different pieces.

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So let's start with your Nocturnes, Nocturne number one, Noturno, Spettrale, which is,

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I heard a lot of Chopin's excerpt.

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It started with a left-hand pattern with, I think it's an excerpt from Barclayl.

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Yeah, it's put in a minor mode, isn't it?

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So that set you up for what is a parade of Chopin-esque phantoms that haunt the music.

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And Chopin is to me always extraordinary.

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He's never old-fashioned.

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He's always modern.

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He's so far from a parlor composer.

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There's this mistaken view that, oh yes, Chopin, yes, we should all learn Chopin because we

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can just sit in our drawing rooms and play it and it's nice.

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And of course, that's fine.

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Chopin always sounds nice, but I think he's much more than nice.

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I think Chopin is a profound musician because of what he did, not only in terms of piano

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texture, but also harmony and counterpoint.

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He loved Mozart and Bach.

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So it's not this rare if I airy-fairy aesthetic.

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It's an aesthetic that's really firmly rooted in classical counterpoint and harmony, which

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he then extends using the piano as a palette, like a painter.

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So you've got this, suddenly the whole piano is available rather than just thinking in

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terms of, well, we have a melody and we'll accompany it.

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Suddenly that the hands are more widely spread.

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There's interlocking.

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There's all sorts of things that I think was probably revolutionary at the time.

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Probably Czerny was doing some of that kind of stuff, but in a more, in a less revolutionary

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language.

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And so I thought, well, I'll pay a little homage to Chopin, whose music is always modern,

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always shocks me when I hear pieces.

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And I think, oh, I thought I knew that piece well, but something so incredible just happened

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there.

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And it makes you want to start thinking about music in a different way all over again.

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Tell us more about the next one, Nocturno, Misterioso and so forth.

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Oh, yes.

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Now I haven't got the music with me.

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Is that the one I wrote for Michael Garrett?

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I can't remember which one that is.

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There's another very strange one again, which has its links with decadence and the occult

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and mystery.

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So again, probably coming from my obsession with the late piano pieces of Liszt, where

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you have elements which you could perceive as tonal, but they're not resolved in a tonal

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way so that the traditional functionality of harmony breaks down and you start to get

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very strange progressions and you can play around with them.

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You can start with the whole tone chord and then you can do things with that.

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But then you can introduce alien elements to the whole tone chord or you can have the

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two different whole tone chords going on at once.

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All sorts of availabilities that were explored by Busoni, of course, as well.

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So that's the root of that one, I think.

227
00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:22,560
Would you like to show us what that means on the piano?

228
00:17:22,560 --> 00:17:29,600
I mean, if you're thinking in terms of improvising, which of course I do all the time, it's one

229
00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:30,600
of the things that...

230
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:58,640
Or something, just to get a harmonic flavour of something.

231
00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:04,720
So I like, when I'm composing, I like sometimes to think of two or three different harmonic

232
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,560
strains going on at once.

233
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:12,640
So an easy way to experiment with it, and you find wonderful harmonies, is to just put

234
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:21,080
the right hand on the black notes and the left hand on the white notes.

235
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:36,960
And you suddenly have a harmonic world opening up to experiment with, to experience, and

236
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:37,960
then see if you can...

237
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:44,560
And that's just playing chords, but you then have to find the actual material to make a

238
00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:45,560
composition.

239
00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:50,320
But that will inspire you to titillate your ear so that you can get into a harmonic mode

240
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:51,880
for that particular piece.

241
00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:52,880
I see.

242
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:53,880
Wow.

243
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:56,320
That's really fantastic.

244
00:18:56,320 --> 00:19:00,680
Just to know the secret of that particular sound that you create.

245
00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:08,400
And also, like number four and five, I don't know if you remember all these pieces, but

246
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:14,080
there are some of the nocturnes that have really sensuality, and then some of them are

247
00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:15,080
sweet.

248
00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:22,160
So number five to me sounded more like, reminded me of Eric Satie, like a mood.

249
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:25,640
Yes, that's the one in E minor, isn't it?

250
00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:26,640
I don't remember the key.

251
00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:27,640
Is it this one?

252
00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:28,640
Yeah.

253
00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:31,640
That one, I can't remember.

254
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:34,560
I've lost the music.

255
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:40,400
The music has been sucked back in to the vortex of stuff in this house.

256
00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:45,000
So it would come out again, but it's not on the panel at the moment.

257
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:47,200
I should have made more effort to find them.

258
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:51,440
Yes, that has a Satiesque beginning.

259
00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:57,520
I wanted to write something very, very simple and modal, but then I wanted to smudge that

260
00:19:57,520 --> 00:19:58,520
image.

261
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:01,840
So you can set up something that's nice.

262
00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:03,880
It's got that hypnotic appeal.

263
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:07,040
It has a pastoral quality to it, perhaps.

264
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:13,200
But then it's like you do a watercolour painting, but before the paint is dry, you take your

265
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:15,680
hand and you go...

266
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:20,920
And so in the subsequent verses, because I think it's basically in three verses, that

267
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:24,940
nocturne, the subsequent verses, they get progressively more chromatic.

268
00:20:24,940 --> 00:20:31,880
So that you end up, by the end of the piece, you've moved into a form of expressionism,

269
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:38,560
so that all of the simplicity of the opening harmonies are distorted to produce something

270
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:44,600
that's not just wistful and pastoral, but something that is almost agonised in its expressive

271
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:45,600
content.

272
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:46,600
That was quite deliberate.

273
00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:47,600
Wow.

274
00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:48,600
Okay.

275
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:49,600
Beautiful.

276
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:51,600
What a beautiful, beautiful nocturne.

277
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:52,600
And very...

278
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:57,840
I don't want to say strange, but it is like a very strange sound too.

279
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:02,320
It to me can often hover into the strange.

280
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:08,160
It might start out perfectly straightforwardly and simply, but it can then change.

281
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:12,280
I think it's the process of change that fascinates me.

282
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:27,800
How you get from A to B, where you've got an emotional trajectory that's taking you

283
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:33,480
away from an idealised form of expression, which you think, oh, that's nice.

284
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:36,480
That could go on like that for...

285
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:44,640
That could go on like that for five minutes and everyone thinks, oh, that was nice.

286
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,240
But to then do something else and think, oh God, what's he doing?

287
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:49,240
What's he doing?

288
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:50,240
Why is he doing that?

289
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:54,920
It's almost a challenge to the preconception of the listener.

290
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:56,760
I like composers who do that.

291
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:02,720
Yeah, it almost takes us to really the darkness, darkness within us.

292
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:04,280
We always want to try and be good.

293
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:08,600
I think most of us want to try and be good, but we also have the capacity for darkness

294
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:13,600
and mystery, even to the extent that we don't know what we are.

295
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:17,760
We don't know what's inside us and we don't know what sort of personality we are.

296
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:21,680
There's a self-questioning, which of course we try and push away because in our day-to-day

297
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:26,720
lives we just have to try and act as peaceably and as normally as possible in order to...

298
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,640
Negotiate ourselves through life and relationships.

299
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,480
We all have a dark side.

300
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:36,000
Yes, absolutely.

301
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,960
That's why Lowell's first piano album is The Personal Demon.

302
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,280
And we always battle with that personal demon, right?

303
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:45,280
Yeah.

304
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:49,760
I suppose it's a bit of a cliche to say that he's a neo-romantic composer, but he's capable

305
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:55,440
of writing the most gorgeous melodies and lush harmonies and he's got this virtuosic

306
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:59,520
piano technique, but where does the gargoyles set come from?

307
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:01,360
That's his dark side, isn't it?

308
00:23:01,360 --> 00:23:02,360
Those pieces where you...

309
00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:05,400
Oh gosh, you know, it's a bit disturbing.

310
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaking of disturbance, The Devil's Liar.

311
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:09,480
Oh my goodness.

312
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:11,600
The introduction.

313
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:17,440
How in the world you were able to create that sound.

314
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:18,720
Wow.

315
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:25,720
It really was like The Devil is playing the harp and luring you.

316
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:26,720
Scary.

317
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:33,120
I can't remember what scale I used, but it's something like that, isn't it?

318
00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:34,960
That starts the piece.

319
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,200
That's in the dream.

320
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:45,400
This weird creature, devil-like creature sitting on a rock literally strums the strings.

321
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,400
When I woke up, I was quite glad to wake up.

322
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:50,160
I thought, thank God I'm out of that.

323
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,640
So yeah, the piano piece really mimics that.

324
00:23:52,640 --> 00:24:00,160
That sound, that weird, strange scale was really as close as I could get to what I was

325
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:04,760
actually hearing in the dream because I heard that music in the dream.

326
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:06,440
It was very, very vivid.

327
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:11,240
So yeah, that's literally what I was trying to do at the start of that piece to create

328
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:13,840
that same rather oppressive, scary atmosphere.

329
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:23,200
But yeah, to do with a fairly standard impressionistic piano technique, but then to put it in a rather

330
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,640
mysterious context.

331
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:30,720
And it's just one of those strange things that the music comes out.

332
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:35,240
You think you know what you're doing, but sometimes it's a bit strange, the creative

333
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:36,480
process.

334
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:37,480
Sometimes you're not thinking.

335
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:38,480
You're listening.

336
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:44,440
Oh, I will invert that theme and do double counterpoint with the blah, blah, blah.

337
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:48,400
And then I'll use, no, I don't have any of those thoughts when I compose.

338
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:53,480
I mean, it might be that once I've written a piece, you can go back and analyze it and

339
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:56,680
see that that's exactly what I've done, but I won't be consciously.

340
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:01,360
I don't know what other composers think when they compose, but certainly for me, I might

341
00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:03,240
discover afterwards that I've done something.

342
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:04,240
Oh, that was quite clever.

343
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:09,200
I did a bit of that, but did a bit of a Stretto fugue there or whatever.

344
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,840
But normally it's the listening that dictates the process.

345
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,080
Often the music is already there.

346
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:19,800
It's kind of up there somewhere so I can see it and hear it, an object.

347
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,400
And all I have to do is bring it down and write it out.

348
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,000
And the writing out is almost non thought.

349
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,880
It's simply this.

350
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:35,840
Wow, that's you're like Mozart where the music is all inside and then no one's no one is

351
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,480
like Mozart except Mozart.

352
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:39,480
Yes.

353
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:45,000
I mean, Elgar said that the music was in the hills around him.

354
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,520
So I don't live anywhere near hills.

355
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:52,400
So I suppose I could say that the music is on Tooting High Street where I live.

356
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:57,000
Actually, where are you tuning in from today?

357
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:02,040
I'm in Tooting, which is a part of southwest London.

358
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,400
It's towards the end of the Northern Line underground.

359
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,440
So I'm within 20 minutes of Waterloo station.

360
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,780
So it's a great place to live.

361
00:26:11,780 --> 00:26:13,440
It's a wonderful community.

362
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:18,480
If you go into the center of Tooting, you can pick a restaurant from almost anywhere

363
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:22,360
in the world because it's a tremendously multicultural area.

364
00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:23,360
I love it.

365
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:26,600
I've been here for over 20 years now and I love it.

366
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:31,320
This episode is presented in collaboration with our good friends at Forte, a free alternative

367
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,120
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368
00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:39,880
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369
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370
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:45,920
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371
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:51,120
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372
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373
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374
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375
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376
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377
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378
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379
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,820
So you were born, raised in England.

380
00:27:26,820 --> 00:27:31,800
Can you tell us a little bit about how you discovered the love for music?

381
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,200
Where does your musical journey begin?

382
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:40,460
Well, it comes from my family essentially because my grandmother who was half German,

383
00:27:40,460 --> 00:27:48,040
she sang the Lieder of Schubert and Schumann and Brahms and Hugo Wolf.

384
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,040
So I had that from a very early age.

385
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:51,960
My mother also sang.

386
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,240
My father played the piano and was a conductor.

387
00:27:54,240 --> 00:28:02,520
I mean, he had a job in the city, but he in his spare time, he was a conductor and he

388
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:09,480
conducted a church choir, the choir of St. Boniface German Mission Church in Whitechapel,

389
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:10,480
which is still there.

390
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,240
It's a beautiful building, which if you ever come to London, you must visit.

391
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,320
It's a wonderful church.

392
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:23,360
And so I was from a very early age, from six, seven, I was aware of the masses of Mozart

393
00:28:23,360 --> 00:28:27,780
and Haydn and Schubert, which my father used to conduct with this choir.

394
00:28:27,780 --> 00:28:29,960
My brother, he was older than me.

395
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,280
He's three and a half years older than me.

396
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:37,920
He was both the best kind of musical brother and the worst kind of musical brother because

397
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,280
he's a brilliant pianist.

398
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,440
And he was winning silverware at all the local music festivals when I was very tiny.

399
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,480
And I was persuaded to have piano lessons.

400
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:52,840
And I thought, well, my brother is marvelous because I can just listen to him playing the

401
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:54,480
piano and it sounds absolutely wonderful.

402
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,600
I'm hearing all these wonderful pieces that he's playing.

403
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,280
Why should I bother learning the piano?

404
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:01,480
What's the point?

405
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:02,920
He's done it already.

406
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,840
So that was the worst kind of brother.

407
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,560
He's absolutely marvelous musician.

408
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:15,300
He actually went into pharmaceutical chemistry, but he still plays, he plays the metanus sonatas.

409
00:29:15,300 --> 00:29:18,760
He plays all the foray piano music.

410
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:23,120
When he was very young, he was already playing Debussy Preludes and Schubert sonatas and

411
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:24,840
the Chopin Nocturnes.

412
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,640
So I'm thinking, well, this is lucky.

413
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,820
I don't have to do any practice because I can just listen to him.

414
00:29:29,820 --> 00:29:33,360
So I was actually a very late starter with the piano.

415
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:39,640
I did have violin lessons when I was seven, but very late starter on the piano.

416
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:46,040
And I would have periods of flunking out completely where I wouldn't do any practice.

417
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,360
That changed actually a little bit later on when I got into jazz.

418
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:58,320
I went on a conducting course in Canford, which is in the south of England under George

419
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:02,280
Hurst, who was a wonderful conducting teacher, wonderful conductor.

420
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:07,720
But actually after the conducting lessons, we just used to muck around on the pianos

421
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:13,680
and there was a young student about my age, perhaps a bit younger actually, who was mucking

422
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:14,680
around playing jazz.

423
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:15,680
I said, what are you doing now?

424
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:16,680
What's that?

425
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,440
I mean, I'd heard some jazz, but I'd never tried to play any.

426
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:20,440
And he showed me the blues.

427
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,400
All I'm doing is the blues scales.

428
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:28,440
And he was called Tolga Kashif, who is quite a well-established conductor now.

429
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:29,440
And that was it.

430
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:30,440
I was off.

431
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,720
So I finally found something I could do.

432
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:36,600
I found something I could do on the piano.

433
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:38,320
I didn't have to look at any music.

434
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,820
I didn't have to read and learn pages and pages of piano music.

435
00:30:42,820 --> 00:30:47,720
I could just sit down and improvise using these building blocks that Tolga Kashif had

436
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:49,040
given me.

437
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,840
So I suppose that's the pianistic side of me.

438
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,320
I was lucky to have a very good violin teacher called Louis Rutland, who was in the Royal

439
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,440
Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra.

440
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:04,640
I then had singing lessons with Fabian Smith and Arthur Repklus.

441
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:10,640
I did actually study singing at the Guildhall with Arthur Repklus, who had been the teacher

442
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:12,840
of Sageraint Evans.

443
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:18,800
And at the same time as he was teaching me, there was a lad who used to come in after

444
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:20,840
my singing lessons.

445
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,440
Arthur Repklus was very cheeky, very naughty.

446
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,720
He used to say, oh, look, there's, oh, look, there's Brynn.

447
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,520
Brynn, come and show Dave how to do it.

448
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,320
It was Brynn Snout, Sir Brynn Turfell.

449
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:33,320
Can you believe it?

450
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:34,320
Wow.

451
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:39,240
And he would come in, blast the room apart with this fantastic baritone voice.

452
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:40,240
He was only 18.

453
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:44,200
And I thought, oh, why am I bothering with this?

454
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:49,560
So my early years were slightly checkered because I was always coming up against people

455
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:55,800
who were so incredibly talented, my brother, and then having Brynn come into my lessons.

456
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,480
I thought, gosh, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this.

457
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,440
I'm not in this league.

458
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:05,760
So I actually became a professional jazz musician for about 20 years because that was something

459
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,560
that was just me.

460
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:13,280
I was just working out my own thing and composing as well all the time.

461
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:18,040
But certainly performance career was almost entirely as a professional jazz musician.

462
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:19,040
Yes.

463
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:23,840
And then I watched some of the improvisation that you did on the YouTube.

464
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:28,960
And also, in fact, I don't know if it's a jazz style, but this morning you composed a

465
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:33,280
little song for this piano part.

466
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:34,800
It's not very jazz.

467
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:37,320
I can't resist envelopes.

468
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,520
I think envelopes are very good.

469
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:44,840
I don't know whether the camera is able to pick this up, but I find envelopes are extremely

470
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:53,560
useful as a compositional discipline because you're only allowed to write what fits on

471
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:54,660
one.

472
00:32:54,660 --> 00:32:56,720
So it teaches you something.

473
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:03,680
I ought to mention here one of my most inspiring people in my life, Ronald Stevenson, who is

474
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:10,960
a wonderful, he's passed away now, sadly, but he was a wonderful composer, pianist.

475
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,640
And he was particularly interested in composers like Liszt and Busoni and Edward Grieg and

476
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,640
Percy Granger.

477
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:23,640
And he said, you know something, David, I think it takes as much skill to write a Grieg

478
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,800
lyric piece as it does to write a Mahler symphony.

479
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:32,800
Now that's a point of discussion, but I knew what he meant.

480
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:35,680
And I quite like the discipline of the envelope.

481
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,200
I can play this for you if you like.

482
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:42,200
I reserve the right to make lots of wrong notes.

483
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,560
They'll simply be a new variant, an instant variant.

484
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:47,560
Sounds great.

485
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,800
So I hope the piano doesn't sound too echoey, just in case it will.

486
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,040
It is quite a slow piece, so maybe the echo will help it.

487
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,240
But I've called it, I don't know whether you can see the title.

488
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,440
It says Piano Pod Prelude.

489
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,120
Oh my goodness.

490
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:06,280
I want to take this photo of it and I want to play it too.

491
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,760
I will photograph it and send it to you later.

492
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:09,760
Sounds great.

493
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:10,760
Thank you so much.

494
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:12,720
I mean, it means so much.

495
00:34:12,720 --> 00:34:15,200
I feel so special.

496
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:16,760
And I want that envelope.

497
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:18,240
Oh, I want the envelope.

498
00:34:18,240 --> 00:34:19,640
Can you send it?

499
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:24,960
I mean, I better write it out more neatly because it's all terribly messy.

500
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:29,680
But it's another one of my rather strange meditations.

501
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:31,240
So it isn't particularly jazzy.

502
00:34:31,240 --> 00:34:57,880
But anyway, here goes.

503
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:08,320
Is that...

504
00:35:38,320 --> 00:36:06,320
or something like that.

505
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:15,320
Hey TPP friends and listeners, the PianoPod is in its third season.

506
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:20,320
Thanks to all of you for watching or listening to every episode since its launch in 2020.

507
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:26,320
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508
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:32,320
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509
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,320
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510
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511
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512
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518
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519
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520
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:51,320
Let's continue with the episode.

521
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:55,320
So you mentioned that you you learned to sing.

522
00:37:55,320 --> 00:38:06,320
So you were writing a song cycle or song cycles that set poems in French, German, and Old Norse, Elamite, and ancient Babylonian, as well as English.

523
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,320
Are you also a linguist?

524
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:15,320
Well, I tell you, I'm a lover of language, but I'm pretty useless at languages.

525
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:25,320
So I love particularly French and German literature, which I can just about read, but not always translate at sight.

526
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:33,320
My brain gets too tired. I'm not fluent in either of those languages, and I'm certainly not fluent in ancient Babylonian or ancient Elamite.

527
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:44,320
But I'm fascinated by the ways in which languages allow you to express things differently that don't translate and never can.

528
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:56,320
And in translation, of course, you're on a continuum between doing a literal translation of the original or making something slightly different in the in the new target language.

529
00:38:56,320 --> 00:39:03,320
But you can't really have it both ways because there are certain things in a language that obviously don't translate.

530
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:11,320
First and foremost, the actual sound and I think the actual sounds of words fascinate me and interest me, the colors of words.

531
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:22,320
And of course, if you if you grow up singing Schubert and Schumann, you learn about the color of the voice, how the voice colors words and how words color the voice.

532
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:33,320
It's a two way thing. So it always used to interest me when my my grandmother particularly used to sing in German exclusively, although she was an East End.

533
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,320
She lived in the East End of London. She was of German parentage.

534
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:46,320
So she only ever sang in German. I thought, well, I have no idea what she's singing about, but I understand something of what it is simply from the sounds.

535
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:50,320
And each language will have a completely different soundscape.

536
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:58,320
So I'm afraid I can't I can't I'm not like one of these people who can speak 11 languages. I'm very jealous of those types of people.

537
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,320
I struggle enough in English.

538
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:08,320
No, you're doing great. But this is a very maybe sort of simple question.

539
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:19,320
But do you think each language, let's say French, German and, you know, these all these ancient languages, do they affect the way you write music?

540
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:29,320
So let's say if you're writing a music to French poet, poet, poem or German, then does the music come out differently in each language?

541
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,320
Yes, of course. I think it does.

542
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,320
And that's partly because of what I've just said about the colour of language and the colour of word.

543
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:49,320
Also, it's to do with the fact that you can't pretend to be an island isolated from a musical past where those languages have a body of music attached to them.

544
00:40:49,320 --> 00:41:02,320
So there's an enormous difference between a who revolved from Claudio Bussi musically and in the way that they set words and in the way that words inspire them.

545
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:09,320
A huge difference, say, between between someone like Richard Strauss and Gabriel Fore.

546
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:16,320
Again, I mean, you could explain these things technically and we could be here for hours talking about the musical reasons why they're different.

547
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:27,320
But I think it's plain just by listening to those composers that they have a different sound world that seems to somehow be symbiotic with the language that's being set at the same time.

548
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:35,320
And it's going to be partly with the word stress and what kind of rhythmic melodic figure will suit.

549
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:54,320
I mean, a great example is is Janacek, so that when when he's he's setting Czech language, I presume I'm not an expert that has distinctive speech patterns that dictate his rhythmic and melodic shapes.

550
00:41:54,320 --> 00:42:01,320
And it's clear with Bartok's folk music as well. These are rhythms and shapes that you don't find, for instance, in English.

551
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:11,320
There's a lovely comment by the composer, Louis Andreessen, who said all English music sounds like green sleeves to him.

552
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:19,320
Because of the way English English people don't know they're doing it, but we all speak we all apparently speak in iambic pentameters.

553
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:26,320
We speak like that's the way it sounds. I must buy some carrots and bread today.

554
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:38,320
We speak in these iams, apparently. I mean, sometimes it's quite fun. You get on a bus and you listen to people speaking and they're just speaking about what they're going to do that evening or see you later, darling, or whatever.

555
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:51,320
I'm on the bus. See you later. But they're speaking in these iams. We don't speak like this. We don't speak like that, which is the sort of rhythm you might get in a in a Middle or Eastern European language.

556
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:55,320
That's going to affect the music that gets written. I'm certain of it.

557
00:42:55,320 --> 00:43:06,320
Yeah, interesting, because I live in New York City and then each, you know, we have five boroughs here, you know, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx.

558
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:18,320
And I mean, it's all, you know, here in America, we say melting pot. But however, you really hear specific accent the way they speak in specific section of the town.

559
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:31,320
Well, I'm sure that's right. I mean, as a family, our favorite show on TV, which we used to sit down Saturday nights was Kojak. Do you remember Kojak starring Telly Savaris?

560
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,320
I'm not really familiar.

561
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:45,320
You can watch it on YouTube. And if I remember correctly, it's set in Brooklyn. So when they go into they go into a bar and they they order a cup of coffee, I want a cup of coffee.

562
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:50,320
So it's like this. We thought this was brilliant. We thought it's absolutely brilliant. We were sitting there watching this.

563
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:57,320
And my father would turn to me laughing. He said, I've absolutely no idea what any of them are saying. I said, no, dad, neither do I. It's brilliant, isn't it?

564
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:06,320
Because we couldn't quite catch that the accent was so strong, but you could you could still work out what was going on because it was so expressive.

565
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:15,320
It was so it was so musical. So I love that. Now I'm addicted. My opus numbers are ridiculously high.

566
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:22,320
But believe me, they'd be a lot higher if I was able to suppress my addiction to American B movies and film noir.

567
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:30,320
Accents are really fascinating. I mean, I don't want to stereotype anyone, but stereotypes, you know, some it does exist.

568
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:39,320
And then, you know, let's say, for example, if you go to the borough like in the Bronx and that's where the hip hop music was born, basically.

569
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:45,320
So obviously, their language, the way they speak really is does affect the music.

570
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:52,320
Yes. And what I what I don't like is language totalitarianism, where somebody is saying, oh, you shouldn't speak English like that.

571
00:44:52,320 --> 00:45:02,320
You should speak it like this. I don't agree with that. I think if you start to suppress people's natural way of speaking, you can end up suppressing their culture.

572
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:14,320
So don't think it's a very good idea. And I think what what allows us to live together, even though we're different, just recognizing difference and celebrating it.

573
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,320
I mean, we've had this terrible problem in this country. I don't know whether it's quite as bad now.

574
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:26,320
But certainly when my parents were growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, we were a class ridden society.

575
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:38,320
And one of the ways in which class you gave yourself away class wise was through language, through your accent, so that people literally had a scale of accents.

576
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:42,320
And the more posh your accent was, the better you were.

577
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:48,320
But if you went down the scale and you like all my my mother's side, they're all companies, they're all from.

578
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,320
So they talk like that, you know, I mean, it's all like that.

579
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:54,320
I'm going down the shot. I'm going to get a bit of butter and a bit of bread.

580
00:45:54,320 --> 00:46:04,320
Now, if you spoke like that, people would make automatic assumptions about your your intelligence, your abilities, your cultural position in society.

581
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:10,320
And they can be completely erroneous. You can make all sorts of wrong assumptions about people just by the way they speak.

582
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,320
I don't think we should make assumptions in that way.

583
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,320
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Well said. Yeah, I agree with you.

584
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:25,320
I want to specifically ask you about the calligraphic poems in the Devil's Liar album.

585
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:35,320
So what are those pieces? Well, those pieces were inspired by a book I have again buried upstairs somewhere, which was a calligraphy.

586
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:42,320
It's the catalogue of a calligraphy exhibition that, if I remember correctly, was held in Washington, Washington, D.C.

587
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,320
I think that is in the 1970s somewhere.

588
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:52,320
It's something I picked up in a in a secondhand shop or I should say thrift shop for American listeners.

589
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:58,320
I brought it home and it's got these fantastic reproductions with just the ink brushstrokes.

590
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:05,320
And I thought they were like musical compositions because they have line and they have form and structure.

591
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:10,320
And it suddenly occurred to me that I could write a set of pieces that was inspired by that.

592
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:18,320
They're not inspired by individual drawings or paintings, but just the idea of creating lines.

593
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,320
You'll notice that most of those pieces have quite a simple texture.

594
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:28,320
It's almost as if there's a single line being drawn across the piano to make a shape.

595
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:36,320
So it's really a form of translation from the look of a painting to the sound of a short piano piece.

596
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,320
And so I did six of them.

597
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:45,320
And, yeah, I sent those to Lowell and he thought they fitted well with the idea of a recital.

598
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:47,320
And I was interested at that time.

599
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:52,320
And again, it was part of this rather maverick exploration that I go on.

600
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,320
I thought, well, you know, I was exploring.

601
00:47:55,320 --> 00:48:00,320
Also, I wrote a piano sonata based on Korean ceramics at around the same time.

602
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,320
And that was a rather interesting project.

603
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,320
Again, that was from stuff that I'd seen in museums.

604
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:08,320
How many piano sonatas do you have?

605
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,320
Well, there's 18 in total.

606
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:17,320
And to my knowledge, none of them have been performed in public.

607
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:21,320
I mean, where can we have the access to scores?

608
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,320
Well, I don't have a publisher.

609
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:30,320
This is another aspect of my life that I've been particularly lazy about is actually finding one.

610
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,320
And I don't have one.

611
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:36,320
So it's all buried there in corners.

612
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:43,320
So at some point I have to get it out and disseminate it more effectively, I think.

613
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:53,320
That concludes the first half of this fun episode of the PianoPod with David Hackerich Johnson, composer and multi-instrumentalist.

614
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:59,320
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review it wherever you listen to your podcasts.

615
00:48:59,320 --> 00:49:03,320
You can also watch this episode on the PianoPod's YouTube channel.

616
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:08,320
And don't forget to follow the PianoPod on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

617
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,320
The links are listed in the show notes.

618
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:34,320
Tune in this Thursday, June 22nd at 8 p.m. to hear the rest of the interview with Mr. Hackerich Johnson.