Browse by Artist: FELDMAN, MORTON

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:
Label:	EDITION RZ (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	RZ 1010CD

Beautiful collection, primarily made up of Feldman's earliest, shorter piano works from the early 50s, going through the late 70s. A much needed compendium to all the essential documentation of his later, intensely long works that have been coming out (mainly on Hat Art). Performances here by Feldman himself, David Tudor, Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury and others. "In his compositions for piano, which make up a central part of his oeuvre and in which all of his experience is accumulated, it is the play of Feldman's hand whose touch is intended precisely for the 'untouchableness' of sound. The clear character of the 'attack' thus displays the paradox of such playing: it is just as much about concealing the idiosyncrasy of the piano sound, the precise point of attack while, at the same time, the structure and tension of those sounds are formed by the hand." --Stefan Schadler. Typically nice RZ packaging. Includes the following works: "Piano Three Hands" (1957, performed by Feldman & Tilbury); "Intermission 5" (1952, performed by Feldman); "Vertical Thoughts 2" (1963, performed by Janos Negyesy: violin & Cardew: piano), "Extensions 3" (1952, performed by Feldman); "Four Instruments, 1975" (1979); "Intermission 5" (1952, performed by Tudor), "Piano Piece 1956 A" (1956, performed by Tudor); "Piano Piece 1956 B" (1959, performed by Tudor); "Intersection 3" (1953, performed by Tudor); "Instruments 1, 1974" (1975, 24 minute piece performed by Eberhard Blum: flute, Nora Post: oboe, Garrett List: Posaune, Joseph Kubera: celesta, Jan Williams: drums).

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Give My Regards To Eighth Street: Collected Writings Of
Label:	EXACT CHANGE
Format:	Book
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	EC FELD

Originally released pre-9/11, finally reprinted in 2007! "What was great about the fifties is that for one brief moment -- maybe, say, six weeks -- nobody understood art. That's why it all happened." -- Feldman. "Morton Feldman (1926-1987) is among the most influential American composers of the 20th century. While his music is known for its extreme quiet and delicate beauty, Feldman himself was famously large and loud. His writings are both funny and illuminating, not only about his own music but about the entire New York School of painters, poets, and composers that coalesced in the 1950s, including his friends Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank O'Hara, and John Cage. Together with John Cage, Feldman is the principal representative of the New York School of composers, a group of American avant-gardists who in the 1950s and 1960s challenged the European music establishment with their use of graphic scores, chance techniques, and indeterminate compositions. Yet despite Feldman's devotion to these radical innovations, his music was known above all for its sensuousness and melancholy. 'There never was and there is not now in my mind any doubt about its beauty,' wrote John Cage in his landmark book Silence. "'t is, in fact, sometimes too beautiful.' It is Feldman's intuitive, almost spiritual approach to music that has caused him to become one of the most performed composers of our time; since his death in 1987, no fewer than 80 CDs of Feldman's music have been released, and his works can now be heard in classical music halls worldwide. His music has also won a large following outside the classical establishment; Feldman is one of the most listened to and discussed composers among fans (and practitioners) of avant-garde rock and techno music. Give My Regards to Eighth Street is an authoritative collection of Feldman's writings, culled from published articles, program notes, LP liners, lectures, interviews, and unpublished writings in the Morton Feldman Archive at SUNY Buffalo (where Feldman taught for many years). Feldman's writings explore his music and his theories about music, but they also make clear how heavily Feldman was influenced by painting and by his friendships with the Abstract Expressionists. As editor B.H. Friedman notes in his introduction, Feldman's 'writing about art is also of lasting importance.'"

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Triadic Memories
Label:	LONG ARMS RECORDS (RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CDLA 3049

Russian-only release, in clear-acetate cover. Performed by Anton Batagov, piano. Recorded in February 1992 at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. "Morton Feldman, whose only technical comment on 'Triadic Memories' was that grace notes were to be played not crisply, but somewhat delayed, each with its own isolated ring, described his work as "probably the largest butterfly in captivity concerned with the shape of a leaf and not the tree"?Batagov's performance of 'Triadic Memories' is an extraordinary combination of sensuality, tenderness, virtuosity, and almost unbelievable concentration on the part of the performer for longer than one-hour period of time."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Aki Takahashi Plays Morton Feldman
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 054CD

2006 repress, new 24-bit hi definition remaster. First release in Mode's Feldman Edition, of shorter solo piano works, performed by Aki Takahashi, recorded 1995. "Morton Feldman's sound-world no longer needs an introduction. Feldman was especially fond of Aki's playing, so much so that he had selected certain works particularly for her. Together they toured this program, with Feldman speaking about the compositions and Aki performing them. The CD contains selections from those recitals as well as works close to Aki's heart, many receiving their first recording and available on CD for the first time. Of particular note is the premier recording of Feldman's earliest published composition -- ILLUSIONS -- which is unique in his oeuvre: it is mostly loud and fast!"

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	First Recordings: 1950s
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 066CD

"A remarkable discovery of over 75 minutes of Morton Feldman's music. This disc represents 13 unrecorded early works spanning 1950 to 1953, many previously unpublished. Highlights: his only works for magnetic tape, 'Intersection,' realized in 8-channels by Feldman with John Cage and Earle Brown. Considered lost, the work has been restored and presented here for the first time in 40 years. Also: his score for 2 cellos to Hans Namuth's film of Jackson Pollock, presented in its entirety including narration by Pollock himself; the solo piano collection 'Nature Pieces' which combine elements of Feldman's youth with his mature style; previously missing works from the Extensions and Intermission cycles. The performances are superbly played by pianist Philippe vandré and the Turfan Ensemble from Frankfurt."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Complete Works for Violin & Piano
Label:	MODE
Format:	2CD
Price:	$31.00
Catalog #:	MODE 082/83CD

Repressed for the first time in a number of years. "Here, collected for the first time, are all of Morton Feldman's compositions for violin and piano. It is also a kind of walk through his compositional development, from the Webernesque early 'Piece for Violin and Piano' (1950); through the experiments with graphic notation in 'Projection 4' (1951); followed by an excursion into the jungle-like density of David Tudor's energy in 'Extensions 1' (1951); to the cryptic notational riddles of 'Vertical Thoughts 2'(1963); from the dry carpet-dusting 'pring of Chosroes'(1977) to the extended sound canvas of the late Feldman in 'or John Cage'(1982). He remarked with an eye twinkling: 'My music is just like Webern. Only a little bit longer.'"

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	The Straits of Magellan - Indeterminate Music
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 103CD

"A unique collection of Feldman's 'indeterminate' works; incorporating new types of notation (including graph scores) and involving a considerable degree of indeterminacy in regard to pitch, dynamics, etc. This is the first time the complete Durations and Projections series have appeared on a single disc. It is a rewarding experience to hear the Durations and Projections played together, imparting a sense of Feldman's mastery of instrumentation and timbre while savoring the metamorphosis of its shifting colors, weights and densities of sound. The Two Pieces (first recording) reveal techniques which evoke a piano's resonance, as Feldman uses chords in which most tones immediately fade after their entrance, leaving only one or two sustained tones. The Straits of Magellan focuses on static the and 'vertical' experience, as well as on the constantly changing and fluctuating density of their sonic events allowing one to relish the subtlety and sensuousness of this music which startlingly also conveys a jazzy character. The superb performances, recorded in Germany, are by acclaimed pianist Philipp Vandré and the Turfan Ensemble."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	The Barton Workshop Play Voices & Instruments
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 107CD

"This CD is comprised of works from Feldman's Early Period (late 40's until the late 60's) and Middle Period (late 60's/early 70's until the early 80's). In the beginning, like all young creative artists, Feldman was working through alluring influences as well as the influence of his teachers, towards the moment when he would find his personal creative voice. With the exception of the vocal solo Only, this disc documents all the earliest works that Feldman chose to publish. Journey to the End of Night (1949) shows unmistakable influences from his study with Stefan Wolpe, yet it also shows a clear command of this musical language. This dramatically clear and forceful work -- with extremely high vocal writing -- is set to texts extracted by Feldman himself from the long novel of the same title by Céline. In 1957, Feldman began to use repetition of material to make a homogeneous texture, static yet with small degrees of movement. By the early 1960's, he created timbral ambiguity by having all instruments play very softly, with a minimum of attack."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	String Quartet No. 2
Label:	MODE
Format:	5CD
Price:	$57.00
Catalog #:	MODE 112CD

"Feldman's monumental String Quartet No.2 is in one unbroken movement. The FLUX Quartet performance is complete, lasting a total of 6 hours 7 minutes and 7 seconds. Available in 2 Editions: a 5-CD set OR complete and uninterrupted on 24-bit audio DVD! In the 1970s Feldman took up the study and collecting of antique Turkish rugs, a highly evolved and exquisite folk art. The rugs are intricately patterned, symmetrical in basic design but with constant variation and displacement in the detailed execution of that design; strikingly and subtly colored, including fine variegations of principal colors resulting from the dyeing process. Analogies are clear to Feldman's music as it takes up large-scale patterning, partly working with his familiar subtle gradations of rhythm and instrumental color and ostinati, loops or extended repetitions of a sounds, partly -- and especially in this second string quartet -- continually finding new and surprising qualities of color. There are a number of sounds in this piece unlike anything one has heard from a string quartet. One can experience the work uninterrupted complete with no need to change discs on the DVD Edition."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Triadic Memories
Label:	MODE
Format:	2CD
Price:	$25.00
Catalog #:	MODE 136/37CD

Performed by Marilyn Nonken, recorded 2003. "The place Triadic Memories takes us is full of illusions, not only of function and direction but also of timelessness and stasis. This almost 90 minute, single movement work for solo piano is available in two formats: as a specially priced 2-CD set and complete and uninterrupted on one DVD-Audio. There is no indication of tempo. For this recording, Ms. Nonken chose a steady eighth-note pulse throughout that approximates the heart rate at rest. Unfolding in time at this rate, the work's geography its rapturous peaks and long, low valleys is brought into relief. Of Ms. Nonken's October 2003 performance of Triadic Memories, John Rockwell wrote in The New York Times:'Ms. Nonken played it with a relaxed, almost rubber-wristed calm, caressing the keys without losing rhythmic definition. A lovely performance of a lovely piece'."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Composing By Numbers - The Graphic Scores 1950-67
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 146CD

Performed by The Baron Workshop. "When Feldman met Cage in the winter of 1949, they quickly established a friendship based upon a similarity of intent and a mutual respect for the work each was doing. Soon thereafter, Feldman showed a string quartet he had been writing to Cage. Cage's enthusiasm for this work, and delight in Feldman's being unable to explain 'how' he had written it, gave Feldman an all important 'permission' to follow his intuition. This period of time marks the beginning of Feldman's 'graph music', so named because it was written on graph paper, but also because it is part of a larger movement in 20th century music during which music notation departed from the traditional staff notation and began to incorporate a great deal of graphic symbols. In these 17 works, Feldman was working towards a vision of plasticity and freedom. One hears in these works the micro-polyphony of later Ligeti, noise which he later rejects, and often a ferocity within the sound/performance --characteristics which he eschewed in his later work. Of the 17 works he composed in the graphic style, this recording offers a total of 13 of them." 'Projection' (complete), 'Intersection' (complete), 'Marginal Intersection', Out of 'Last Pieces', 'The Straits of Magellan', 'In Search of an Orchestration'.

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Rothko Chapel/Why Patterns?
Label:	NEW ALBION
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	NA 039CD

Another essential Feldman document, featuring two key works: "Rothko Chapel" performed by the University of CA Berkeley Camber Chorus, recorded 1990. "Why Patterns?" performed by the California EAR Unit (flute, piano, glockenspiel), recorded 1990. Feldman, re: "Rothko" -- a haunting, minimalistic orchestral work: "The total rhythm of the paintings as Rothko arranged them created an unbroken continuity. While it was possible with the paintings to reiterate color and scale and still retain dramatic interest, I felt that the music called for a series of highly contrasting merging sections. I envisioned an immobile procession not unlike the friezes on Greek temples." "Why Patterns?" is one of Feldman's classic small ensemble works for shifting patterns and colors, a simply yet stagging palette of sound.

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	The Viola in My Life
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	NW 80657CD

"The music on this recording illustrates the essential integrity of the work of Morton Feldman (1926-1987) and one of its fundamental strengths -- its continuously unfolding unanimity of purpose. There are few composers of his generation whose first and last published work (in Feldman's case 'Journey to the End of Night' of 1949 and 'Piano and String Quartet' of 1986) span youth and final years with such a concentrated viewpoint. There are, however, landmarks in the music of Feldman that are largely technical and notational. There are the graphic pieces, the first from 1950 and the last from 1964, in which some parameter of composition is not specified (often pitch). There are the 'free duration pieces,' both solo and ensemble, in which there is instruction either for sections of the piece or for its entirety. 'False Relationships and the Extended Ending' (1968) is a late example of this kind, although 'Why Patterns?' (1978) is a variant of the principle. There are also the conventionally notated works in his oeuvre, one of which is 'The Viola in My Life' (1970). It may be that Feldman's music will always strike a certain kind of listener as idiosyncratic -- a denial of the time-honored ways in which music articulates itself. I think that Feldman was deeply offended by this response, by this notion that his music was singular because it was, as some might say, 'missing something.' Though it is true that his values of graduation can be exceedingly fine, when one enters this scale and comprehends it, something truly new and wonderful opens up in the art of music -- a world in which the relative and the absolute become engaged with themselves."

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Last Pieces (Performed By Stephane Ginsburgh)
Label:	SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SR 189CD

"This new release on Sub Rosa is the third in a series of three concentrating on avant-garde piano compositions (prev. volumes: Triadic Memoris, Piano Pieces For More Than 2 Hands). American composer Morton Feldman, born 1926, is now recognized as an one of the most important composers of the 20/21st century. After he met John Cage in the late forties he developed a method of intuitive composing which allowed Feldman to work on the outside of the strict classical system. On this recording pianist Stephane Ginsburgh plays three piano compositions which capture the essence of Morton Feldman's artistry, pure moments of sound and infinity. Or as Ginsburgh quoted: 'Ask the music first and use your concentration.'"

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	For Bunita Marcus
Label:	SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SR 246CD

Morton Feldman (1926-1987) remains a legendary and key figure in modern American composition. A pioneer of aleatoric and indeterminate music, he was a master of minimal improvisation. Despite many thematic fluctuations in Feldman's compositional style throughout his career, a significant turning point took place in 1949, when he met John Cage, commencing an artistic association of crucial importance to music in America in the 1950s. Cage was instrumental in encouraging Feldman to have confidence in his instincts, which resulted in totally intuitive compositions. He never worked with any systems that anyone has been able to identify, working from moment to moment, from one sound to the next. His friends during the 1950s in New York included the composers Earle Brown and Christian Wolff; painters Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg; and pianist David Tudor. As Feldman himself stated, "My past experience was not to 'meddle' with the material, but use my concentration as a guide to what might transpire. I mentioned this to Stockhausen once when he had asked me what my secret was. 'I don't push the sounds around.' Stockhausen mulled this over, and asked: 'Not even a little bit?'" The piano music on For Bunita Marcus slowly draws you towards silence by a process of atomization or repetition -- as do some of Beethoven's or Schubert's late compositions. You realize therefore how useless it is to try to act, to push his music against its own will. Playing or listening to Morton Feldman leads you to very unique moments, like those you feel when you look at a starry summer sky, unable to measure its dimensions because it is beyond your understanding. A sense of infinity within a finite space. This particular piece was written in 1985 and named after a composer and student of Feldman's. Performed by Stephane Ginsburgh on a Bösendorfer 225, and recorded in 2006.

Artist:	FELDMAN, MORTON
Title:	Patterns In A Chromatic Field
Label:	TZADIK
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	TZ 8002

Performed by: Charles Curtis (cellos), Aleck Karis (piano); recorded 2003. "The definitive recording of one of Morton Feldman's most important and challenging pieces, played at the composer's marked tempos, and taking all the notated repeats. Fitting neatly onto one CD, this is Feldman at his most extreme. A dramatic display of virtuosity performed with passion and precision by two of the leading exponents of new music in the world. Out of Feldman's enormous oeuvre, Patterns in a Chromatic Field stands apart as a work of sudden change, contrast and surprise, and as such fits perfectly into the Tzadik catalog."

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