Recordings of Morton Feldman continue to appear, with both these discs worth attention from newcomers to his unique idiom. Increasing concert performances would be equally welcome, though without sustained concentration, the live experience is rendered futile.
Such is the case with Durations II, the poise of De Saram’s and Mikashoff’s account cancelled out by offstage interference. This 1960 piece typifies the calm abstraction of earlier Feldman: the remaining works date from the first half of the 1970s, when a new emotional ambience, intuition if you will, infuses the compositional process. The first two The Viola in my Life works are masterpieces of discreet characterisation; to which the wordless mezzo in I met Heine on the Rue Furstenberg adds a wry twist, as if evoking that imagined encounter. Vocalise plays a more complex role in Rothko Chapel, perhaps the masterwork of Feldman’s middle phase, its rapt contemplation enhanced by the introduction of a soprano melisma and a pastoral viola melody from the composer’s past. The sometimes threatening choral dynamics aptly evoke the brooding introspection of Rothko’s canvases. As with late Nono, this is spiritual music without religious connotations.
For Frank O’Hara brings an emphasis on instrumental unisons, and punctuating silences. It could be said that while Cage conceptualised silence, Feldman personalised it. The formal demarcation in Piano and Orchestra is that between sound and silence, the ‘soloist’ more a pacifier of the orchestra’s fleeting gestures of aggression. This is the bleakest of these works, anticipating the Beckett-inspired pieces of Feldman’s last years. Routine Investigations is its emotional pendant, the sudden crescendoing tones having an emotive quality rare in his music.
There can be little but praise for Ensemble Recherche’s immaculate performances on the Montaigne disc. The Woodward/Zender premiere of Piano and Orchestra must yield in expressive subtlety to Feinberg and Tilson Thomas, but the Col Legno release is still essential for the well-nigh perfect account of Rothko Chapel. As Kyle Gann aptly comments in the Montaigne notes, ‘… the amazing quality of his aural balance in these middle works makes them uniquely precious for the Feldman fan.’ And one day, one hopes, for many others too.'