This is a long way from the accessible Feldman of the film music (Kairos, 3/03) or from the fourth and fifth volumes of Mode’s admirable Feldman Edition (12/02). As an extended work from the composer’s last years, Violin and String Quartet (1985) is closest to String Quartet II (6/02): not as long but less varied. The choice of string quartet plus a solo violin means that the ensemble often converges into its repeated single attacks. But there are exceptions, such as CD 1, track 1 (tracks are merely for convenience, not formal divisions) at 11'32" and 28'46" where the solo violin gazes down at the quartet, which is mostly clustered in middle register. In context this moment becomes harmonically sensuous at 29'23" and it is echoed at the very end – almost an hour and three-quarters later.

Otherwise vast tracts of Violin and String Quartet are obsessed with the two notes, A and G in middle register, usually in different octaves and not next door to each other. This is overt on CD 1, track 2, from 24'18" to 26'11" where there is little else going on. CD 2, track 1, opens with an exacting high G harmonic repeated for more than 12 minutes. The A comes back at 14'12" and both pitches are re-asserted from 21'05". Then low notes emerge in the cello; there are pauses; pizzicato notes enter the texture; and so on. That’s one way of listening to Feldman whose patterning is often compared to avant-garde painting or literature – Mark Rothko or Samuel Beckett – or designs in Turkish carpets. What happens in the end? The main characters in this spectral drama, A and G, seem to have become submerged. Waiting for Godot? A dedicated performance all round, recorded rather close.