L’art de toucher le clavecin, 2 for piccolo with violin [2009] (with Karin Hellqvist, violin)

with works by Malin Bång, Richard Barrett, John Croft, Brian Ferneyhough, Dominik Karski, Salvatore Sciarrino

“In its own way, Johnson’s ‘L’art de toucher le clavecin’ for piccolo and violin similarly toys with boundaries. But here the path is more tentatively trodden; at times even the border itself seems to evaporate. The dialogue – hence the reference to Couperin’s instructional pamphlet – is between ground and ornament, but everything is ultra-cautiously proposed, bundled under fantastic layers of contingencies and securities. It sounds like the recipe for a health and safety nightmare, but Johnson’s skill is for extracting something rare and precious from out of such pressure.”

— Tim Rutherford-Johnson

“Flautist Craig is either unaccompanied, or the accompaniment is subdued, in a superbly conceived programme that includes […] world premiere recordings by younger composers Dominik Karski, Evan Johnson, John Croft, and Malin Bång.”

— Andy Hamilton, The Wire

“Richard Craig’s collection of flute music […], recorded with close immediacy, places the listener in a wind tunnel whose walls are of flesh and metal, these sometimes heard as simultaneous alternatives, sometimes in undulating union. Altogether this is remarkable playing, remarkable possession of the music by the performer through a wide range of styles and situations – or of the performer by the music. Hard to say which. The rhythm of the record is that of the music exerting itself. […] Evan Johnson’s ‘l’art de toucher le clavecin, 2’ (2009) sends piccolo and violin, playing harmonics, along a line of intense light, like a horizon between blackness and blackness. It is wounded light, with occasional groans and gasps from the flautist; it is also light of – however flickering the sound – immense expressive reserves.”

— Paul Griffiths

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