Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet - Contemporary Classical Music for Relaxation, Study & Meditation | Vinyl & Digital Download

When I asked earlier reviewers of recordings of music by Morton Feldman, weirdears and Edward Wright, where I should start with the music of Morton Feldman, I asked if I should go for the monumental - five hours long - Second String Quartet. They steered me away from that and suggested others. I chose this one. I had only a vague notion of what the music of Feldman would be like. I knew that it tended to go on for a long time, that it was 'minimalistic' (although it's not like other minimalists like Reich, Glass or Riley), and that it tended to be subdued. All those things are true, I found, with this piece, the Piano and String Quartet. What I didn't realize was that it would be hypnotic and, to borrow weirdears' assessment, 'addictive.'The first time through I found myself gritting my teeth wanting more to happen. And it never did. And I was impatient and frustrated. The second time through I simply let it play in the background as I did something else. The third time through, having determined that it was not 'awful' and probably really quite good if I'd let it be, I decided to really listen through its entire length and see what I could hear. That's when I came to understand that Feldman's music repays close listening. There are very subtle happenings--phase changes, harmonic changes, minuscule 'events,'--and I came to really admire the concentration of the musicians involved--in this recording pianist Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet. And then I recalled reading somewhere that the Kronos Quartet has given up playing the Second Quartet--that five hour span--because, as I remember it, they said they'd gotten 'too old.' I can understand that. This is, for all its minimal dynamics and slow tempo, enormously difficult music to play because of the intense concentration involved.What of the music itself? I felt my pulse and breathing slowing down, my tension easing away and yet an inability to pull myself away from concentrating on it. In some ways it must be like meditation, except I found my mind active, not lulled. It became a puzzle whose solution I needed to find, even as I felt calmed by it.What I'm trying to say is that this is not like any music I've ever listened to before, and it took new 'ears' and 'mind' to take it in, but once I did I was repaid. The general layout is delicate arpeggios or single notes in the piano against slowing evolving mostly diatonic chords in the strings, never rising above a modest mezzo piano. Simple enough. But strangely evolving. And it goes by slowly enough that one has time to really think deeply about what is happening.I think there are two valid ways to hear this music. One is to let it pass over you, or through you, without your giving it much attention. But the more rewarding way is to HEAR what is happening.Thank you, weirdears and Edward Wright. And thank you, Aki Takahashi and Kronos.Scott Morrison