Morton Feldman/Earle Brown split release

Morton Feldman/Earle Brown - split release

I had to deal with some issues with my computer, so I had to go the past few days without posting. Now I return to regular posting with an LP of music containing beauty and depth. If you have been a regular visitor of this blog, you're most likely already familiar with Feldman and Brown. Feldman's music is on the first side of the LP and Brown's music is on the other side. This was first released by Time Records in the early 1960s then re-released by Mainstream Records in the later half of the decade. There are explanations of their music from the liner notes given by both Feldman and Brown.


Performers:

Durations (1960-61)

Don Hammond - alto flute
Don Butterfield - tuba
David Tudor - piano
Philip Kraus - vibraphone
Matthew Raimondi - violin
David Soyer - cello

In Durations I arrive at a more complex style where each instrument is living out its own individual life in its own individual sound world.
In each piece the instruments begin simultaneously, and are then free to choose their own durations within a given general tempo. The sounds themselves are designated.
The pieces, while looking identical on paper, were actually conceived quite differently. In Durations I the quality of the particular instruments together suggested a closely written kaleidescope of sound. To achieve this I wrote each voice individually, choosing intervals that seemed to erase or cancel out each sound as soon as we hear the next.
In the Durations with the tuba, the weight of the three instruments used made me treat them as one. I wrote all sounds simultaneously, knowing that no instrument would ever be too far behind or too far ahead of the other. Through thinning and thickening my sounds I kept the image intact. In Durations IV there was a combination of both. Here I was a little more precise in that I gave metronome indications. I also allowed the instruments to have their own individual color more pronouncedly than in the others. (Morton Feldman)


Performers:

Music for Violin, Cello and Piano (1952)

Matthew Raimondi - violin
David Soyer - cello
David Tudor - piano

Music for Cello and Piano (1955)

David Soyer - cello
David Tudor - piano

Hodograph I (1959)

Don Hammond - flute
Philip Kraus - orchestra bells, vibraphone, marimba
David Tudor - piano, celeste

In [Alexander] Calder, the construction of units and their placement in a flexible situation which subjects the original relationships to constant and virtually unpredictable but inherent change (the movement of the units as well as the movement of the viewer), led me to construct units of rhythmic groups, (with assigned intensities but "open" timbre possibilities subject to an independent timbral-density plan) modify them according to previously mentioned "generative" techniques, and assemble them rather arbitrarily ... accepting the fact that all possible assemblages were inherently possible and valid. This is, in general, the technique used in three "twelve-tone" works, using rows but no other rules of twelve-tone writing, between 1950 and 1952. Music for Violin, Cello and Piano is the second work in this group, the last being "Perspectives" (1952) the title of which refers to the "mobile" concept.
In works from 1952 and 1953, assembled under the title "Folio," the concept of mobility, which previously resulted in one static version of compositionally mobile elements, was extended to include the physical mobility of the score itself and attempts to encourage conceptual "mobility" in the performers approach to the score ... the scores being in different invented notations of a highly ambiguous graphic nature, subject to numerous different but inherently valid realizations. The notation used in Music for Cello and Piano is developed from graphic experiments of "Folio." It is what I have called a "time notation" because of its lack of dependence on any rational metric system and its reliance upon the performers' actions relative to their "time sense" of the graphic spatial relationships. The notation intentionally encourages varying realizations of the given material; between the instruments in any one performance, and from performance while at the same time presenting the performers with an unequivocal basic graphic situation.
There are two very different notations used in Hodograph I. The first is the "time notation" of "Folio" and Music for Cello and Piano, called in the preface to the work, "explicit"; explicit in that frequency, intensity, timbre, modes of attack, and relative duration are given. The second notation is called "implicit," in that it implies the amount and character of activity (all of the above characteristics of sound) by means of line drawings. There are three, fifteen second, "implicit" areas in the score, interrupting the "explicit" areas sporadically.... The juxtaposition of the two notations produces a result which is a spontaneous correlation between the performers individual responses, and the varying degrees of ambiguity and explicitness in the notations. (Earle Brown)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Morton Feldman - Durations I: Violin-Cello-Alto-Flute-Piano {8:01}

2. Morton Feldman - Durations II: Cello-Piano {6:34}

3. Morton Feldman - Durations III: Violin-Tuba-Piano {8:52}

4. Morton Feldman - Durations IV: Violin-Cello-Vibraphone {4:15}

Side 2

1. Earle Brown - Music for Violin, Cello and Piano {2:57}

2. Earle Brown - Music for Cello and Piano {9:04}

3. Earle Brown - Hodograph I {3:30}

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