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CD Review

Morton Feldman

• For Frank O'Hara
• Bass Clarinet and Percussion
• De Kooning
• Instruments I

New Millennium Ensemble (and guests)
Koch International Classics 3-7466-2H1 DDD 59:47

This is a great CD, but there's a production problem: the four pieces are not individually accessible. Although the booklet notes promise separate tracks for each work, there's only one track on this disc, and you need to fast-forward 43 minutes into it if you want to hear just Instruments I, for example. (Update: Koch International informs me that this problem has been fixed, and those properly tracked replacements are in the stores.) Apart from that, the production and engineering (both by Judith Sherman) are first-class. You won't hear a more luminous presentation of Feldman's music than this.

These are four of Feldman's more concentrated works. They come from the 1960s and 70s, before the composer began seriously experimenting with longer time frames. (The booklet notes don't say when Bass Clarinet and Percussion was written – another oversight, but it seems to come from the same period.) This "middle period" of work has not received the same attention on CD that the later works have, so this disc is doubly welcome. It was during the 60s and 70s that Feldman began meticulously notating rhythms and durations; earlier works gave the performers more freedom in these areas. The middle period was a time for intense investigations into instrumental sonority. As the booklet notes point out, this was a time when Feldman was more interested in sound than in pitch. Many of the era's visual artists were exploring the ramifications of creating a predominantly flat surface, and these visual experiments find a parallel in Feldman's music. In For Frank O'Hara, for example, only a precipitous snare drum roll almost ten minutes into the piece disturbs the music's crystalline construction. These works are richly varied in timbre, yet exquisitely fragile; one holds one breath for fear that a sudden move will send them crashing down "about our ears."

For Frank O'Hara is one of Feldman's masterpieces, and the New Millennium Ensemble pulls it off beautifully. For me, the big discovery on this disc is Bass Clarinet and Percussion. As the title suggests, it is scored for bass clarinet (played here by Marianne Gythfeldt) and two percussionists (John Ferrari and Tom Kolor). In spite of its hazy contours, this piece generates a great deal of tension (pleasant tension, mind you) through the accelerating evolution of instrumental timbres, and through piquant timbral contrasts between the three players. This is, admittedly, not a description that will send the average consumer running to the record store. However, the listener willing to give this music his or her attention and an open-mind will come out the other side – I do believe it – a better person, with a higher level of sensitivity to the surrounding environment. The world is full of beautiful noises, and Feldman's music, at its best, is like a laboratory exercise that helps you to appreciate not just the music, but the music around the music. No wonder he and John Cage were friends.

In short, this CD can be recommended to the converted (who don't need my words anyway) as well as to the newcomers. These bite-sized bits of Feldmania are most inviting, and the New Millennium Ensemble handles them with care.

Copyright © 2000, Raymond Tuttle