Canadian violinist Marc Sabat with an extraordinary solo program (unreleased radio recordings):Walter Zimmermann, IMO highly underrated, was Feldman's student in the 80s and has published some essential essays - including texts on Feldman as well as on his own musical concepts. Zimmermann's "Lokale Musik", developed from the late 70s to the early 80s, was based on his own research in the field of traditional German folk songs and dances, mainly from the region of Frankonia. Similar to Cage, but in a more pragmatic way, Zimmermann is also influenced by far-east philosophy. "Die Sorge geht über den Fluss", a composition in just intonation, is based on the 220th fable by Hygin(us). Beautifully picturesque. You'll be hearing more of him here soon...
Sabat's own two studies on Feldman's use of accidentals as means of creating sound/color nuances were written in the "Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation", developed by Sabat with german composer Wolfgang von Schweinitz. Compared to more conventional - or convenient - intonations, these systems do sound more interesting, but they also require some getting-used-to for the unaccustomed listener.
Morton Feldman, master of orchestration and instrumental color, is featured with two pieces, both discovered postmortem in the Feldman archives in Switzerland. "For Aaron Copland", a rather short and very subtle hommage to Feldman's long-time friend and mentor Copland, opens the set aptly. The second Feldman piece,"Composition", is an unfinished violin solo: It would probably have grown into something considerably longer if Feldman hadn't abandoned it when he started working on "Violin and String Quartet".In fact, this fragment reminds a lot of "Violin and String Quartet": the patterning is similarly careful and searching, and Feldman's use of accidentals provides Sabat with an excellent opportunity to apply his own intonation system (see above). Maximum microtonality, highly recommended.
1 Morton Feldman: For Aaron Copland (1981)
2 + 3 Walter Zimmermann: Die Sorge geht ueber den Fluss I + II (1993/2000)
4 + 5 Marc Sabat: Intonation after Morton Feldman - Study I + II (2004)
6 Morton Feldman: Composition (1984)
thanks for this, I'm looking forward to listening.
ReplyDeleteIs this your cover? Nice. Thanks for bringing us Feldman's for Aaron Copland...i'm addicted to his later works and never found this one. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, love Feldman.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have a number of Riley Lee Shakuhachi cds (the solo ones, the classic repetoire, nothing new age about it (unfortunately they are mp3 @ 128) and other less well known shakuhachi masters (also mp3 @ 128) I got these a long time ago from a shakuhachi fanatic. Unfortunately there are no track titles and no tag info, only know the artist name and sometimes title.
also, I lived in Korea for a few years and before I left I bought about 30 or 40 cds of Korean classical music. I had ripped them many years ago before I knew what was a good rip, so they are at 128 or 160 mp3, and of course not much info about the albums, and as they were mostly in korean difficult to find any info on the net. But any case, I still have the original cds but they are in a different country and don't know when i'll get around to re-ripping it all.
But I do have flac rips of Hwang Byung Ki (4 albums). He is a master of the kayagum and has made some of the most amazing recordings.
If you are interested in these, let me know.
Quite interesting stuff, even for those of us branded in Feldman and Co, thanks a lot.
ReplyDeleteHope you'll come up with more Zimmermann, as promised, it would be simply great. And, Nono, Scelsi, Clementi, Grisey, Radulescu and the like, will be always mostly welcome.
Cheers.
Very happy to have this, particularly this Feldman piece. Solo violin/viola/cello settings have been a recent interest of mine, and this looks like the heady goodness.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind comments, y'all.
ReplyDeleteAdam Eleven: yep, I did the cover. I hope it'll look good in printout.
Grasprelease & Anon.: No Nono coming soon, sorry, but some really rare Morty music very soon.
Bryan: if you'd like to, please post the kayagum flac albums. I could put the links on the Closet page.
Best
H.C.E.
It's been re-upped.
ReplyDelete