American composer Morton Feldman is best known for being a founding member of the New York School, a group of musicians and artists that pursued an experimental style of composition in the 1950s and 60s. His works for cello and piano are included in full in this special collection. Among the composer’s earlier works is the Two Pieces (1948), characterised by its emphatic chromaticism, in keeping with the avant-garde style of the era. After having met John Cage in 1950, and forming the New York School, there was a change in Feldman’s compositional style. Among the works from this era are several indeterminate works, such as Projection 1 and Intersection 4. The final stage in Feldman’s compositional career dates from the post-1970s, when Feldman had moved from New York to take up a professorship at the University of Buffalo. Compositions from this time include Patterns in a chromatic field, a work full of chains of melodic cells repeated with subtle variations in pitch or melody, which relies on the impulses of the performer.
The works are performed here by the Italian musicians Marco Simonacci (cello), Giancarlo Simonacci (piano), Fabio Frapparelli (horn), and Paola Ronchetti and Ilaria Severo (sopranos), Each has an international reputation as a performer and recording artist.
Other information:
- Recorded in 2012.
- Morton Feldman is without doubt one of the most remarkable and influential composers of the second half of 20th century America. His experimental works (where the course of a composition is often open to multiple interpretations) are based on melodic cells which are endlessly and subtly varied and developed in immensely long and slow moving structures (sometimes of several hours), producing a hallucinatory effect on the audience. Especially over the last few years Feldman became an iconic cult figure, an antidote against modern time’s stress.
- Excellent performances by father and son Simonacci, who proved their innate feeling for the idiom in their many recordings of the works of John Cage on Brilliant Classics.
- Contains liner notes on the composer and works.
- Contains performer biographies.
