While a professor at the University of Illinois in the 1960s, the composer Ben Johnston devised a system of musical notation that expanded the typical twelve-note subdivision of the octave — for centuries, the underpinning of Western harmony — to include hundreds of potential notes. Comprehending Johnston’s schema and producing these “microtones” demands an unusual set of skills: a Good Will Hunting-esque ability to instantaneously compute highly complex ratios, the hair’s breadth finesse and fearlessness of a free soloing rock climber, and an elementary school orchestra teacher’s tolerance for outrageous dissonance.
The Milwaukee-based Kepler Quartet was formed in 2002 with the express purpose of recording Johnston’s ten string quartets and, with the composer’s assistance, completed their three-volume survey in 2016. That they were even able to perform these works is a tremendous feat in and of itself; that they managed to find the heart, humor, humility, and humanity within them suggests their namesake’s once-in-a-generation genius.