Morton Feldman
1926–1987. American composer. in the New York School tradition.
Morton Feldman is a key figure of the New York School alongside John Cage and Earle Brown. His music is characterized by extremely soft dynamics, slow tempos, and an indeterminate, suspended quality that makes 'contemplative' and 'serene' genuinely defining traits rather than generic placeholders. Later works are notably long-form and hypnotic.
Signature works: Rothko Chapel, For Philip Guston, Palais de Mari, Triadic Memories, For Samuel Beckett.
19 products
Feldman: Rothko Chapel, For Frank O'Hara / Williams, Gregg Smith Singers
Feldman: Patterns in a Chromatic Field / Saram, Schroeder
Feldman: for Philip Guston
Feldman: Crippled Symmetry / California Ear Unit
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
Feldman: Patterns in a Chromatic Field / Mayr, Anissegos
Morton Feldman's Patterns in a Chromatic Field is a major composition, not only in modern American music but in 20th-century music per se. The composer plays with the musical memory of his recipients and thus creates timeless spheres: In minimally varying patterns, the listener experiences a trance-like avant-garde event in which past, present and future cancel each other out. Patterns in a Chromatic Field is based on the principle of differentiation and repetition. The composition functions like a still life, using the color variations of Middle Eastern rugs as a basis: Even a pattern that appears to repeat itself exactly is actually slightly different in its iterations because of slight changes in hue. In his piece for piano and violoncello, Morton Feldman now creates a large-scale auditive pattern whose sound aesthetics from the layers of notes is no less than a transformative and meditative experience of music. With Antonis Anissegos on the piano and Mathis Mayr, this recording unites two performers who not only are excellent instrumental players but also feel at home in electronic music – a fact that is of benefit to their version of Morton Feldman’s minimalist soaring tonal architecture. Anissegos and Mayr create a detailed and intimate sound quality which can be regarded as referential in its antithesis of the ‘dramatic’.
American Classics - Feldman: String Quartet
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
Feldman: The Northern Shore
Feldman Edition Vol. 6 - String Quartet No 2 / Flux Quartet
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.
Feldman: For Bunita Marcus / Takahashi
For Bunita Marcus opens with a clear call to our attention. With these first six notes, we step over the threshold and into the journey of the piece. We know that we are in this for the long haul: Morton Feldman’s late works are notorious for being marathons. He composed For Bunita Marcus in 1985, immediately after his four-hour For Philip Guston, and two years after his six-hour String Quartet (II). These earlier works make an hour-long solo piano piece seem short. Still, it is a long time to sustain a single movement, a single journey, and we inevitably have this in mind as we take the first step: so this is how it starts.
Feldman: Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello
Feldman: Atlantis / Vis, Frankfurt Radio Symphony
“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.
NEITHER
Trio (Remastered)
Feldman: Patterns in a Chromatic Field / Giger, Schleiermacher
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REVIEW:
This is very satisfying and musically highly refined. There is a balance to be struck between enigmatic modernity and romantic affection for an abstract tradition which is in line with both Mark Rothko’s New York and Beethoven’s Vienna, and this is beautifully struck by these musicians. If you are a Feldman fan then this will be a very satisfying addition to your collection. Feldman newbies might find an 80 minute duo for cello and piano on a single CD track more than a little daunting, but, as with his other extended works, if you allow the piece its own space and inhabit it as you would an art gallery, then you will gradually sense your cells and synapses aligning themselves to something rather special.
– MusicWeb International
VIOLIN & PIANO
Feldman: Coptic Light, String Quartet & Orchestra / Boder, Pomarico, Vienna Radio Symphony, Arditti Quartet
Meditative sound magic from New York City: Together with colleagues and friends such as John Cage, Christian Wolff and Earle Brown, Morton Feldman formed a circle of pre-eminent individualists within the American avant-garde movement of the 20th century, which, commencing in New York, founded a current of international significance. Crucial for his artistic development was undoubtedly his meeting with John Cage (1912–92), with whom he was in close contact after 1950. They mutually inspired each other to create music away from the compositional techniques conventional up to then, which particularly applied to the definition of specific notes, pitches and note durations or regular rhythm. It was also a commission from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and its Principal Conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas that led to the composition of String Quartet and Orchestra in 1973. Feldman’s final completed work Coptic Light, written in 1986, displays an even more gigantic orchestra than that in String Quartet and Orchestra. In his sensitive works we always gain the impression that they are cautious attempts to achieve coherent musical results, without running against the character of the instruments.
Feldman: Triadic Memories and Piano
Feldman: Complete Music for Cello & Piano / Marotto, Nonken
This release brings together ALL of Morton Feldman’s compositions for cello and piano, including unpublished works and a first recording.
Together, these works tell the story of Feldman’s music. They span 35 years — over half his lifetime — from when he was searching for his voice as a student to when he was opening new doors in the last years of his life.
The album is bookended by two realizations of the graphic score “Durations 2” (1960), giving an opportunity to hear what the flexibility of graphic notation can bring.
The “Sonatina” (1946) is the earliest work here, and a first recording. Displaying the influence of Béla Bartók, Feldman wrote for the cello sound he loved without fully understanding the realities of playing the instrument. The resulting solo part is naively virtuosic and often even impossible to play. For this recording, Stephen Marotto keeps as close as possible to the written score, aiming to fulfill what Feldman heard in his mind’s ear.
By 1948, Feldman had been studying privately with the composer Stefan Wolpe for several years. The unpublished “Two Pieces,” from that year is a fluctuating music held together not by logic, but through its carefully poised gestures — what Wolpe called “shape.” While the emotional drama of this and other early works would soon disappear from Feldman’s music, it was above all the idea of “shape” that remained with him for the rest of his life.
In 1950, Feldman met John Cage, who shepherded him into the world of the New York avant-garde. The unpublished, compact “Composition for cello and piano” (1951) is a sudden breakthrough, yet it already contains the DNA of his very last works in its minimal material and blurred memories of sounds.
“For Stockhausen, Cage, Stravinsky, and Mary Sprinson” (1972) is an ephemeral, unpublished piece, a shard of music broken off from the main body of work Feldman was producing at the time. It consists of just two musical moments separated by silence — the same chord expressed in two different ways.
At almost 1 hour and 29 minutes, “Patterns in a Chromatic Field” (1981) is one of Feldman’s late, long-duration works, and it is perhaps the best known of the works recorded here.
Liner notes by Samuel Clay Birmaher.
