Johnson over Jordan was a "modern morality" by J.B. Priestly. Taking its inspiration from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it tells of the death of an "Everyman" figure, most of the story taking place in a hallucinatory state between Life and Death. The play culminates in the protagonist's release from this state into Death. Britten composed a fine set of incidental music for it.

The work has a similar basic content to Richard Strauss' Death and Transfiguration. A difference is that Strauss' hero seems to be a nobly artistic soul with only positive things to think about on his deathbed, while Priestly's hero possesses the normal person's baser side, which is depicted in this suite in a movement drawn from British dance-band music of the '30s.

Paul Hindmarch provided a great service by devising a 15-minute suite from this score; it allows us to hear some very interesting music by Britten. The suite is unified by a recurrent "death motive" and ends with a very Brittenesque D Major, depicting the hero's release at the conclusion. Britten's tone painting is very creative, particularly in the mysterious music depicting the suspension between life and death. The work is perhaps a little more remote, emotionally, than one might have expected from Britten on this subject. But the suite is also very illuminating, highlighting as it does the fact that Britten in fact spent much of his creative energy during this decade writing such little-remembered "background" music.

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