THIS IS A STANDARD DVD WITH AUDIO ONLY (NO VISUALS). IT IS NOT A DVD-AUDIO AND WILL PLAY ON ALL DVD PLAYERS.

String Quartet No. 2 (1983)
FLUX Quartet
Tom Chiu, violin
Cornelius Duffalo, violin
Kenji Bunch, viola
Darrett Adkins, cello

Feldman's monumental String Quartet No.2 is in one unbroken movement. The FLUX Quartet performance is complete, lasting a total of 6 hours 7 minutes and 7 seconds. Available in 2 Editions: a 5-CD set OR complete and uninterrupted on 1-DVD!

In the 1970s Feldman took up the study and collecting of antique Turkish rugs, a highly evolved and exquisite folk art. The rugs are intricately patterned, symmetrical in basic design but with constant variation and displacement in the detailed execution of that design; strikingly and subtly colored, including fine variegations of principal colors resulting from the dyeing process. Analogies are clear to Feldman's music as it takes up large-scale patterning, partly working with his familiar subtle gradations of rhythm and instrumental color and ostinati, loops or extended repetitions of a sounds, partly - and especially in this second string quartet - continually finding new and surprising qualities of color. There are a number of sounds in this piece unlike anything one has heard from a string quartet.

Lasting more than six continuous hours, it is "a disorienting, transfixing experience that repeatedly approached and touched the sublime." - Alex Ross, in his review of the FLUX Quartet's New York City performance in The New Yorker.

String Quartet 2's score is 124 pages, at one tempo marking of 63-66 beats per minute - as such, a slow tempo. Feldman idiosyncratically sets the bars, so one page may last as little as about half a minute or as much as nearly seven minutes.

"A very exciting quartet composed of four young men...who have lots of ideas and clearly enjoy making music together," - Anthony Tommasini, NY Times, the FLUX Quartet has performed to rave reviews at many music centers around the world. FLUX have performed Quartet 2 in concert numerous times and know the score intimately. The FLUX Quartet's repertoire consists of notable pioneers as well as visionaries of tomorrow - from "classics" by Nancarrow, Ligeti, and Cage, to works by John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Oliver Lake, and tenor balloonist Judy Dunaway.

This deluxe set features liner notes by Feldman's colleague Christian Wolff, mixing personal experiences and recollections with analysis; and by FLUX founder Tom Chiu who writes of the "experience" of performing such a large-scale work.

One can experience the work uninterrupted - complete, with no need to change discs - on the DVD Edition; along with the thrilling realism of uncompressed 24-bit PCM sound. This audio-only DVD can be played on any DVD player (note: there are no visuals).

For ease of navigation, both the DVD and CD versions have many track points (approximately every 5-6 pages of the score) which allow you to navigate through the disc(s) and the piece. The tracks are identical for both the DVD and CD.

Classical Music

In 1976, Morton Feldman accepted a commission from the opera in Rome for the opera Neither. The works Orchestra, Elemental Procedures and Routine Investigations, represented a "triology" for Feldman with which he prepared himself for the work on his opera. In all thre epieces, Feldman uses a characteristic complex of material, clearly differentiated from his previous type of textural treatment and inserted as a fixed element into the course of the music.

Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was and remains one of the giants of the "John Cage generation" of contemporary composers (if fact, he and Cage were friends). Feldman broke free of the serial school (Babbit, Boulez, etc.) and its adherents, and found more of an influence in the detail modern painters (such as Philip Guston, for whom he wrote and named a four-hour piece). It's this sense of detail that marks Feldman's later music: how long a flutist could breathe, how long before a note from a piano decays into nothingness.
In some respects, CRIPPLED SYMMETRY is "minimalist" in that the melodic fragments are brief and repeeated, yet it sounds nothing like Philip Glass or Steve Reich. Feldman's approach recalls the spare, spacious sound of Anton Webern and the piano music of Erik Satie, with the subtle repetition forming symmetry an almost imperceptible asymmetry. This 87-minute piece, for a trio of flute, piano and percussion, is gentle though not lulling or ambient (though it may certainly achieve that effect)--there is an elemental sense of tension to it. It's as if Feldman were trying to capture the sight AND sound of a snowflake melting in slow motion. CRIPPLED SYMMETRY is powerful and demanding music, but is so quiet and unassuming you may not notice.
REVIEWS:
International Record Review (4/00, p.52) - "...Feldman deals with sound, slowing the listener's attention-span until the merest gnat's crotchet of variation registers as a...seismic shift. His figures oscillate like the visual fields created by the giant canvases of Rothko or Newman..."
Billboard (11/27/99) - Recommended

“As we relate to music in an on-going condition of becoming, and not (like painting) a state of being, we're able to experience these works much as Morton Feldman did, as they happen, with an equal sense of wonder and delight.” (Art Lange) A major figure in 20th-century music, Morton Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of Composers. Feldman’s works are characterized by notational innovations that he developed to create his characteristic sound: rhythms that seem to be free and floating, pitch shadings that seem softly unfocused, a generally quiet and slowly evolving music, and recurring asymmetric patterns. He wrote the title track of this album, Atlantis, in 1959.

Find time to sit back and let infinity wash over you.



FELDMAN Piano and String Quartet • Vicki Ray (pn); Eclipse Qrt • BRIDGE 9369 (79:12)


Eighteen years ago I wrote a review of Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet (composed in 1985) for this magazine ( Fanfare 17: 4), and today, confronted with this new performance, I find myself no closer to unraveling the music’s mysteries or explaining why I find it so mesmerizing. Feldman, inspired by the work of abstract expressionist painter friends like Philip Guston and Mark Rothko, devised a manner of composition that confounds any preconceptions of musical form and expression the listener might have. Repeating and subtly altering the voicings of an arpeggiated chord and a few small motifs between the piano and strings, the music seldom rises above a measured, soft-spoken tranquility, and continues for more than an hour and a quarter—something akin to the delicacy and close-knit harmonic fabric of an Elizabethan viol consort extended to Brucknerian scale. The phrasing occasionally takes on the pattern of breathing—in and out—or of irregular clockwork. Somehow it manages to be wistfully contemplative and aggressively engaging at the same time.


Fortunately, over the course of his career and since his passing in 1987, Feldman attracted performers committed to his vision and fluent in the unorthodox requirements of that vision—among them careful, precise attention to his signature approach to nuanced tonal inflections, pace, and ambience. In the hands of pianist Vicki Ray and the Eclipse Quartet (violinists Sarah Thornblade and Sara Parkins, violist Alma Fernandez, cellist Maggie Parkins) the music emerges with an effortless, poised continuity, and is allowed to gradually reveal its intimations of tension and repose. The premiere recording featuring the score’s dedicatees, Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch), presents the music with a slightly softer focus and subtly accented points of attack, but the differences become less noticeable over the length of the work. (A third recording, by the Ives Ensemble on hat Art, is currently out of print.) All in all, an admirable release.


FANFARE: Art Lange


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Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet - any other composer than Feldman would simply call it a Piano Quintet and have done with it - written two years before the composer’s death, is a massive work. It’s nearly eighty minutes long and only just fits onto this CD. It is also extremely beautiful if extraordinarily slow-moving, as is most of Feldman’s late music. It opens with a series of slowly arpeggiated piano chords echoed by held strings which reminds one closely of Arvo Pärt at his most minimal. After that the music hardly changes at all during its very long duration, and one has either to accept it as background ambience – a sort of ‘accompaniment in search of a theme’ – or one must enter into its hypnotic world on the music’s own terms. There is nothing in the course of the music which disturbs the contemplative mood once it is established, and the work is a lot more extended than anything you would find even in Pärt; think of the last movement of Tabula rasa extended to four times its length!
 
There is an alternative recording by Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet - the artists who originally commissioned the piece - on Elektra/Nonesuch. As a performance it is almost indistinguishable from this one: it is just 27 seconds longer, a totally insignificant difference in a work of this duration. It has a slightly mellower and more resonant acoustic which makes the music, if anything, even more ‘laid back’. As sound it may be regarded as preferable because the strings are marginally less forwardly placed, but this is purely a matter of individual taste. There is also a recording by the Ives Ensemble which is some seven minutes shorter; although I have not heard this, I would suggest that this is music which needs time to breathe, and the slower and more meditative pace of the alternative recordings is of benefit. BBC Music Magazine described that version as “earnest and clear-cut”, which would tend to reinforce my suspicions.
 
It is important to be clear what this music is not: it is not minimalist. At least if you understand that often misused word in its technical context. There is a degree of subtle change which moves the music forward throughout. So far as I can tell no single phrase is ever repeated without some such change. But what the music is is mini-textural. There are no surprises, no contrasts. Once the music begins the nature of the writing for each individual instrument undergoes an absolute minimum of metamorphosis. It is quite easy to write music like this, but it is much more difficult to make it effective. After a certain period of time there is a very real danger than the mind of the listener will ‘switch off’. Either they will find something else to do with their hands, relegating the music to a sort of background aural wallpaper, or they will find their mind wandering into other realms, be it conscious thought or contemplative meditation. That said, if you can find time to sit back and let infinity wash over you, this is the music for you. You may even find yourself wishing it were longer – and if you do, there are plenty of other late Feldman scores to enjoy, some of which are considerably longer.
 
The insert notes include a highly interesting memoir by David Lang in which he recalls incidents during the dress rehearsal in 1986 of Feldman’s Coptic Light by the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra “booed him, threw their orchestral parts around, and literally barked at him like dogs.” I can think of many other contemporary composers performed in New York during that era who would have been much more deserving of such a reception.
 
-- Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International

I leave the discovery of favorite episodes or events to you. But it's important to remember that despite Braxton's compositional craft - the motivating factors behind the music and the formal glue that holds it together - this is, as Braxton intended all along, music that emerges from the particular combination of musicians. George Lewis is one of Braxton's favorite collaborators, for reasons that should be immediately audible. Muhal Richard Abrams is a rare and fascinating addition to this group. Bassist Mark Helias and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw have not often been documented in Braxton's music, yet they were occasional contributors during this period, and their familiarity with and commitment to the music is obvious. Despite the temporary, even fleeting nature of this ensemble, for me, what emanates from these performances is a spirit which exemplifies the life-affirming status of Anthony Braxton's music, reveals new information about the past, and gives us hope for the future. (Art Lange)

FELDMAN String Quartet (1979) ? Group for Contemporary Music ? NAXOS 8.559190 (78:35)


The Group for Contemporary Music made several CDs of American music for Koch in the early 1990s, the above being one of them. Now here it is, reappearing as part of Naxos?s ?American Classics? series. I expect one of Fanfare ?s resident Feldman specialists covered it back then?I think Mike Silverton was doing it in those days?but I have been unable to locate any review. According to the CD information, this was a world premiere recording.


Although not to be confused with his monumentally long second string quartet, this late work of Feldman?s still runs for almost 80 minutes. (Well, it doesn?t exactly run .) Readers unfamiliar with this composer?s music but interested in experimenting at the low Naxos price should dispense with any normal idea of the passing of time. Feldman?s work unfolds at a snail?s pace, with the result that every musical incident is examined in minute, close-up detail. Imagine walking down your garden path to the mailbox; now imagine doing it on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass, taking over an hour to complete the journey. You would know a heck of a lot more about the nature of your garden path by the end of it.


Of course, it?s not entirely as simple as that. Feldman understood the big picture, form-wise: the apparent randomness of the sounds he dwells on in his own good time is kept in balance by a fierce musical intelligence. These sounds include rocking motifs, chords, and often even single notes, usually separated by moments of complete silence. Feldman requests the quartet to play without vibrato and, most of the time, using mutes. Much of the material consists of high harmonics. It is nearly all pianissimo or softer, except for some sudden loud interruptions?for example, at 26:00 and 33:30 respectively. (The Eastern-bloc composer Kancheli appears to have known his Feldman. Unheralded fortes are a fingerprint of his as well.) As the work progresses, earlier motifs or textures are revisited and developed, providing at least an unconscious sense of structure. In the end, the painstaking process undertaken together by the composer, the performers, and the listener creates a unique, mesmerizing context where sudden shifts of emphasis are almost seismic. The forte s mentioned above seem earth shattering. The occasional consonant harmony, unnoticed in another context, becomes pure balm. The slightest rhythmic acceleration feels like panic. High, quiet harmonics from the solo violin assume the cloak of unbearable loneliness.


For those readers already conversant with Feldman?s world, it need only be said that this performance seems to me as good as it could possibly be. (I don?t have access to a score.) The internal balance is finely judged, and all four members of the group must have spent many hours in meditation to be so at home in this time span. By the way, the stalwart players are Benjamin Hudson and Carol Zeavin, violins; Lois Martin, viola; and Joshua Gordon, cello. Recorded sound is first-rate. One can only hope Naxos will reissue the other recordings in the Koch series, particularly those of Wolpe and Wuorinen.


Morton Feldman?s mind worked in a manner unlike that of any other composer. This fact alone makes him important and his music riveting.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott