Morton Feldman

Hi Herm
It is a single movement piece 79 minutes long, the piano plays a slow series of apegiated chords and the quartet [sorry I said quintet before] slowly plays a series of sutained chords. I have not got past 39 minutes, yet.
Steve

hi steve,

yep, that's Morton Feldman, though at 79 minutes it has to be a short minor opus of his. They used to have a Feldman Festival on an island out here, with things like a five-hour string quartet, with miniscule (if any) harmonic of rythmic shifts.

So 39 minutes ain't half bad. I guess as a listener you're not supposed to wait for things to happen. You're rather waiting for things to unhappen. State of mind etc.

Herm

Hi Herm
You're right. I have now listened to all of, whilst driving [if that counts?], and I found my self almost startled when it ended.
Steve

There is an excellent new album 'Something wild: music for film' on KAIROS 0012292KAI, ensemble recherche, both sound and music-wise. Don't worry, this music would not fit any ordinary film, except perhaps about abstract art. He's not bothered with any rhythms, tunes or things like that, so the normal hi-fi adjectives don't apply :-) It goes no-where and is so beautiful. Perhaps surprisingly, the disc has 33 tracks that mostly flow together, though many were written at different times. Small forces are used (also therefore this is relevant to the thread on 20thC chamber music) with some really startling colours sometimes. The sleeve notes make some comparisons with Satie for one of the pieces, and suggests 'Satie for lovers?' One piece even has a recognizable theme.

IMHO a must for 20C explorers. You won't be frightened off. www.kairos-music.com might help if you have difficulty finding it.

SteveC