7 Nocturnes
Bell-Fanfare, Op. 369
Barcarolle Elegies, Op. 160
Calligraphic Poems, Op. 224

British composer David Hackbridge Johnson (b. 1963) has produced a body of more than 400 works, including 15 Symphonies, 3 Operas, 10 String Quartets, choral works, and many works for piano solo, and is also active as a jazz musician. And yet up until now I hadn't heard one single note of his music, and it seems that most of his output has yet to be performed. I can't speak for his orchestral writing, but as far as his piano music reveals, this is a composer concerned more with the euphonious and sonorous qualities of the instrument, rather than with form and structure. He himself states within the booklet notes: "I had a chance to get a feel for the resonance of the instrument through its sustaining and colouristic qualities." Some of his pieces, like the Third and Fourth Nocturnes for example, do present structural and harmonic development through the use of repeated patterns, motifs and sequences, and a hint of late Scriabin harmonic textures, but generally speaking, sound rather than substance drive a piece forward. He often combines, to great effect, notes that produce a sound similar to the subharmonic sonic characteristics of chimes or bells.

Needless to say that this casts a shadowy, ethereal, almost nightmarish pall over the music. Expressive touches that pianist Lowell Liebermann, to whom the Nocturne No. 7, Op. 405 "The Devil's Lyre" is dedicated, captures and projects all too well. Liebermann's own compositions on a recent recording titled Personal Demons, touched upon the same nightly apparitions. He avoids applying his own persona or perspective on the music, allowing it instead to speak for itself through its multifarious tones and colours. This is not music to be assimilated through the scaffolding of the intellect, but rather music to cause the mind to drift, and impress on the senses.