Triadic Memories

Morton Feldman - Triadic Memories

Excerpted remarks on Triadic Memories by Morton Feldman during a speech made for the American premiere of the piece on March 12, 1982 at Baird Hall, the State University of New York at Buffalo:

...Takahashi appears to be absolutely still. Undisturbed, unperturbed, as if in a concentrated prayer. Kafka writes about approaching his work as if in a state of prayer.

And the painter Philip Gaston also talked about the state similar to this, and marvelled how Piero della Francesca or Montagna could bring it to all their work, as Aki Takahashi does. The effect of her playing to me is that I feel privileged to be invited to a very religious ritual.

And then there is the music itself. Without getting overly technical, the music is made of essentially just two different kinds of intervals: a minor second, a major second which of course is also a minor seventh and a major seventh. And it is by superimposing other like intervals that the chord formations are made. I was always very interested in writing music, where you thought one way and yet it sounded another. And this piece is really no exception

....I just want to make one very important point, actually, because Miss Takahashi keeps the pedal half-down throughout the piece, and I don't want you to feel in a sense that she's one of these pianists that never take the pedal off. And the half-pedal down changes something, it's like a thin jig saw in which the music works very very well with, also it does produce, in a sense, and actually added various problems to the piece; because anyone who knows, or composes or who even plays the piano knows that things tend to get a little muddy or they start to buzz at certain places. And so it was very interesting for me to actually find a new palette that worked very, very well with just this half-pedal down. And now Aki Takahashi.

Tracklisting:

1. Triadic Memories {60:16}

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