Feldman, Morton

[Bryn]

To get the ball rolling, and to encourage others to invest in the Atopos project's Feldman issues, here are the sleeve notes for the three Atopos Feldman releases to date. All the recordings are from concert performances with minor edits from rehearsals where apposite.

Actually, the whole of Chris Villars's 'Morton Feldman Page' is well worth exploring. Not so much a page as an encyclopaedia.

I would also again draw attention to the now complete Matchless audio DVD series of Feldman's "Music for Piano and Strings". Sales of this series of 3 audio DVDs have suffered somewhat from misleading early publicity, both from Matchless Recordings itself, and from a Guardian review, which suggested that the discs could only be played on a computer with DVD drive. This is far from the case. Some may further have assumed that there were DVD Audio format. They are not. They are standard DVD Video format and thus play their 48kHz sample rate, 24 bit quantization content on any DVD player compatible with the PAL video standard, i.e. all DVD players produced for the U.K. market. The video content is minimal and the audio may well also play perfectly well on DVD players restricted to the NTSC standard.

The discs in question are:



and



and are readily obtainable from Matchless. The recordings are not as yet available for download from the Matchless tie-in with OTOROKU.

[I note that the graphics for the three audio DVDs seem not to get displayed. There appears to be a security issue with the Matchless Records site. However, FLACs or mp3s can be downloaded from jtilbury.com.]

[Beef Oven!]

Those talk-notes by Jon Tilbury are fascinating - too much to take in in one go, of course. Prompted me to listen to my recording of Feldman’s Late works with Clarinet. I’ll probably only have time to listen to ''Three Clarinets, Piano & Cello''. I have the Quatour Diatima, Carol Robinson and other soloists, pictured below.

I also have Feldman recordings by the Flux Quartet and Eclipse Quartet, but not Smith. You’ve mentioned the Smith Quartet a few times in relation to Feldman. Is there a particular reason why you favour this ensemble?

[french frank]

Bryn, you started a thread (now Feldman, Morton) in 2012 with 61 posts on it. I suppose it's all right to merge this?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bryn, you started a thread (now Feldman, Morton) in 2012 with 61 posts on it. I suppose it's all right to merge this?

Well - he did and he didn't. That Thread is what resulted from a merging of the various Feldman-based Threads from the "Archive". These all appear on the "index" in the Composers subForum with the earliest post credited as having "started" the whole merged Thread. This cross-posted with Bryn's new one.

There are now two Feldman Threads, which is fine - the current new one can keep going independently until it ceases to attract new posts, then I'll merge it with the other. Once a composer Thread starts getting too large and unwieldy, then we can add that composer's name to those of Bruckner and Mahler as having a sub-forum of his/her own.

[Bryn]

Those talk-notes by Jon Tilbury are fascinating - too much to take in in one go, of course. Prompted me to listen to my recording of Feldman’s Late works with Clarinet. I’ll probably only have time to listen to ''Three Clarinets, Piano & Cello''. I have the Quatour Diatima, Carol Robinson and other soloists, pictured below.

I also have Feldman recordings by the Flux Quartet and Eclipse Quartet, but not Smith. You’ve mentioned the Smith Quartet a few times in relation to Feldman. Is there a particular reason why you favour this ensemble?

It is in particular re. their work with John Tilbury that I find their Feldman performances so idiomatic. For instance, for the performances of Piano and String Quartet and Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello recorded at Huddersfield, they made a point of working with fairly loose haired baroque bows in order to achieve the very low dynamics called for by the composer. I also went up to Glasgow when they played SQ2 there. They played the shorter, four and haf hour version, but still the Feldman idiom was very much in evidence. The other important aspect is that these are essentially recordings of live performances, albeit lightly patched from rehearsals, (manly to deal with incidental sounds from passing traffic, respiratory interruptions, etc.). One aspect easily overlooked when it comes to studio multi-take and live recordings is the impact of fatigue. That is lost in multi-take recordings. After 90 minutes of the intense concentration demanded by Trio for instance, fatigue necessarily takes its toll. Again, the Smith Quartet members play on the edge, and deal with the pulse by feeling it, rather than counting (the approach Feldman looked for, as he mentioned to Xenakis). There is more ebb a flow in their playing than in some players of Feldman's music (no names, no pack drill). It's something that also characterises the Diotimas in that Mode CD too, don't you think? Indeed, most of the Mode Feldman series is worth hearing, though Marilyn Nonkens's Triadic Memories has rather lost some of its lustre for me since I attended, and then listened to the second of Tilbury's recordings of the work (an opportunity he jumped at, not being entirely happy with the earlier one in the London Hall "All Piano" set).

[Beef Oven!]

It is in particular re. their work with John Tilbury that I find their Feldman performances so idiomatic. For instance, for the performances of Piano and String Quartet and Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello recorded at Huddersfield, they made a point of working with fairly loose haired baroque bows in order to achieve the very low dynamics called for by the composer. I also went up to Glasgow when they played SQ2 there. They played the shorter, four and haf hour version, but still the Feldman idiom was very much in evidence. The other important aspect is that these are essentially recordings of live performances, albeit lightly patched from rehearsals, (manly to deal with incidental sounds from passing traffic, respiratory interruptions, etc.). One aspect easily overlooked when it comes to studio multi-take and live recordings is the impact of fatigue. That is lost in multi-take recordings. After 90 minutes of the intense concentration demanded by Trio for instance, fatigue necessarily takes its toll. Again, the Smith Quartet members play on the edge, and deal with the pulse by feeling it, rather than counting (the approach Feldman looked for, as he mentioned to Xenakis). There is more ebb a flow in their playing than in some players of Feldman's music (no names, no pack drill). It's something that also characterises the Diotimas in that Mode CD too, don't you think? Indeed, most of the Mode Feldman series is worth hearing, though Marilyn Nonkens's Triadic Memories has rather lost some of its lustre for me since I attended, and then listened to the second of Tilbury's recordings of the work (an opportunity he jumped at, not being entirely happy with the earlier one in the London Hall "All Piano" set).

Interesting point on fatigue. It never occurred to me (I guess it’s not only an issue in Parsifal!). I really only know the three Mode CDs that I have (plus the Eclipse quartet on Bridge) so I can’t easily compare - but I just took it that the ebb and flow is in the music, anyway.

[Mandryka]

Anyone heard the Russian Piano and String Quartet? Should I buy it for nearly £30 imported?

https://www.longarms.net/cddetail?id=2196

[Bryn]

I wouldn't. For a recording from 2014 of such a work to not be available for download, streaming, or available on CD from other sites suggests to me that it might not be up to much. We are not that short of alternative recordings of the work, after all. My own favourite remains the 'live' recording from the HCMF with John Tilbury anD the Smith Quartet, available on an audio DVD from Matchless Recordings or as a download from http://www.jtilbury.com/catalogue/ I'd recommend the audio DVD, which comes with For John Cage: https://matchlessrecordings.com/musi...-feldman-vol-1 Ignore the "Format: CD", it's definitely a video standard DVD with the audio at 48/24 and is playable on any DVD player. Just feed the audio output through a hi-fi system to get the benefit of the higher audio quality.

[Mandryka]

I wouldn't. For a recording from 2014 of such a work to not be available for download, streaming, or available on CD from other sites suggests to me that it might not be up to much. We are not that short of alternative recordings of the work, after all. My own favourite remains the 'live' recording from the HCMF with John Tilbury anD the Smith Quartet, available on an audio DVD from Matchless Recordings or as a download from http://www.jtilbury.com/catalogue/ I'd recommend the audio DVD, which comes with For John Cage: https://matchlessrecordings.com/musi...-feldman-vol-1 Ignore the "Format: CD", it's definitely a video standard DVD with the audio at 48/24 and is playable on any DVD player. Just feed the audio output through a hi-fi system to get the benefit of the higher audio quality.

The Tilbury/Smith is very good I agree. And it is by far the longest. In late Feldman I generally find that the longer the performance, the better.

[Bryn]

The Tilbury/Smith is very good I agree. And it is by far the longest. In late Feldman I generally find that the longer the performance, the better.

In many cases, I would concur, though not where Triadic Memories is concerned. I feel Sabine Liebner goes well over the top with her over 2 hours and 4 minutes. John Tilbury's (80-minute) first recording, made shortly after a Conway Hall performance which I was down to record but didn't due to equipment failure, was found by JT to be unsatisfactory. However, His live recording, made at a St John's Smith Square concert dedicated to the late Sue Skempton, lasts closer to 90 minutes and was, rightly, well received. Here's Mark Sealey's review (Mark was one of the founders of this forum):

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/a/atp12013a.php

[Mandryka]

Is anyone here thinking of going to this?

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-wed-like-to-hear-morton-feldman-tickets-713560206787?aff=oddtdtcreator