Customer Reviews

Morton Feldman: For Samuel Beckett

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Feldman's late works are really entities rather than compositions. They are closed worlds, sealed off by their limited means and extraordinaty length. But For Samuel Becket is one of the more extreme of these pieces, not in length but in character. The work is close, almost claustrophobic and yet deeply alluring. It is rare in Feldman's output, closer to Coptic Light than to any other Feldman work that I know.

The work is scored for solo strings, winds and brass in pairs and a small Feldmanesque group of piano, mallet instruments and celeste. The winds and strings create sustained sound clusters while the small group contributes small splashes of dissonant color chords. The basic material of the piece is set up at the beginning of the work and doesn't vary greatly throughout it's 40 plus minutes. Small variations in chords, rhythmic placement, tonal color and pattern make the interest in the piece. It is in Feldman's "oriental carpet" mode, in which the surface effect is static and symmetrical, but a closer listening reveals a wealth of subtle variations on a level just below the surface. This work will not reveal itself in casual listening. It requires a deeper concentration on the part of the listener, just as the work of Rothko or Clifford Still require a greater active role on the part of the viewer. Also unlike much music by Feldman, this work does not contain much silence. It is a close and crowded score, and when brief moments of silence are detected it is like a wisp of air from a crack in a window. This fits the dedication to Becket, who used silence, repetition and a certain hysterical claustrophobia in his writing to make his existential points.

I have not heard the competition for this disc so I can't make much of a comparison based on that. The timing on this CPO disc is about 10 minutes faster than the Kairos disc. Timing is everything in Feldman, so you may find that the Kairos disc has less of a claustrophbic feel. This all may be a matter of preference, as Feldman allows a wide range of tempi in this work, between 66 and 88 MM. CPO takes the fast edge of this and Kairos takes the slow edge. Both are sanctioned by Feldman's score.

Any difference between this interpretation of "For Samuel Beckett" and the Ensemble Modern's version (HatART 6107) is for my unprofessional ears virtually inaudible, except that the sound quality is much, much better in the present CD. However, my personal preference is for the Klangforum Wien's rendering (KAIROS #0012012KAI; it should get "six stars" by comparison), which is about 10 minutes longer and that permits to discriminate very delicate details of this most beautiful piece.

Imagine being in a wooded glade with filtered sunlight speckles that move, combine and overlap as gentle breezes move some branches overhead. The view slowly changes as the light, wind, temperature change, but it is all very gradual. This is a visual metaphor of For Samuel Beckett. Sonically, it stands out with smoothly blended woodwinds and horns, filled in with strings and chimes. It is deep and sonorous, but always calmly dissonant. There are constant changes, some of which are barely perceptible. This album is recorded with excellent acoustics and tone qualities. The sound is always peacefully, richly dissonant - calming. For me, this is one of Feldman's best pieces because it is long enough to get immersed into it and perceive it deeply, but it is not one of his 4 hour pieces that stretch one's endurance.

So you want to know: Which version of Morton Feldman's "For Samuel Beckett" should I buy? Let me help you solve this common, vexing problem.

There are, as far as I know, five recordings of this work: by the Ensemble Modern on Hat Hut, by the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin on CPO, by the Klangforum Wien on Kairos, by the S.E.M. Ensemble on Dog With A Bone, and by a group conducted by Stephen Lucky Mosko on Newport. Let us set aside the last because you will never find it. Let us set aside, also, the penultimate recording, which is problematic because the conductor, Petr Kotik, decided that Feldman's original orchestration for string quintet ranged against fifteen winds and three percussion was imbalanced, so he beefed up the string section to full-size. Notwithstanding the fact that Feldman was once of the greatest orchestrators of all time and thus probably knew what he was doing, this version doesn't really represent the way the work should be heard, at least not initially, which is too bad, because it's paired with "The Turfan Fragments", one of Feldman's most unusual works, and my personal favorite in his large oeuvre. And then there were three.

The earliest recording is by the group for which it was written, the Ensemble Modern. Unusually for Hat Hut, the sound is sort of muzzy, and the individual instruments blend into an overall haze. Now, this is a hazy sort of work, to be sure, but at the same time it would be nice to have a little clarity so that each entrance in the constantly shifting web of sound can be differentiated; otherwise the intended effect of a single object slowly turning in the light is lost. The performance is good, if one-dimensional. This can be an extremely claustrophobic work, especially in live performance, and more shape would have been appreciated.

The most recent recording, by the Klangforum Wien on Kairos, has much to recommend it. This version inevitably makes the work seem more connected to the hardcore European modernist repertoire that is Kairos's speciality than the more laid-back New York School to which it historically belongs, but there's nothing wrong with that. In contrast to the Ensemble Modern's version, every instrumental punctum is sharp and hard, and the performance has an almost brittle clarity. Part of the reason for this is the slower tempo. Since the early 70s Feldman indicated the same tempo for all his works, quarter note = 63-66, although he said this was more of an upper-bound and the Klangforum take him at his word, producing a 55-minute album as compared to 44 minutes for both of the other versions under review. If you like this sort of thing - and if you're still reading this, I guess you are - more might seem better, but I get bored listening to this recording in spite of the excellent recording and precise, historically informed performance. I think the problem is that Feldman can also be too slow. The Flux Quartet's recording of the 2nd String Quartet has the same longeur for me; I find the Ives Ensemble's recording, which is nearly two hours shorter, far more bracing and fascinating, even at four-and-a-half hours.

You will by now have guessed I am therefore recommending the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin's recording on CPO. Not because it's especially brilliant or expertly recorded or performed, but because it doesn't have anything wrong with it, really. The tempo is just right, the instrumentalists are well-balanced and fairly careful with their entrances, and the sound is good. One thing is that the harp, piano and vibraphone are slightly prominent in this version, where they fade into the background in the others, but I like the shimmer they provide, and serve as sort of landmarks in the undifferentiated landscape drifting past.

But really, and of these three will do, and you should get at least one of them because Feldman is awesome and "For Samuel Beckett" is awesome and this took a lot longer to type than I expected.

Samuel Beckett was not an easily approachable persona,even for those working in the direct production of his plays. Feldman I believe wanted to write an opera,or some dramatic invention with text, and Beckett refused,as he did to countless others.

This was one of Feldman's last works 1987,and it's always wonderful to experience his longer works for the sheer physicality of their content,much like the blackly-wrought massive plates of Richard Serra.This is music you feel the weight of its sonoric mass.My speakers became like sculptural objects.

This work is deadly serious however,not spacious at all, claustrophobic and disturbing,with its repetitive impacted chords,which reiterates itself,almost like a death stroke.And the timbres that make up this chord cannot be deciphered,whose playing what tone. But more Feldman I beleive wanted to impart Beckett's direct sense of the mindlessness of our age, and the irrational lifeworld,yet with a deep sense of conviction in the necessity of art,the last bastion of emancipation. Feldman's music,at times, can be relativily light in its explorations of differing regions of timbre, but here as I said, it is dense affair, impacted,not allowing the timbres the space they need, denying them a life.

Klangforum Wien also has recorded this work and it seems a t bit lighter,although ever bit as serious. It is scored for double winds,two flutes,two horns,with a string quintet and piano. Feldman seemed to reserve his work for these larger scaled pieces. Although all this late music delves into the set of problematics of the extended work. Which did have mixed results.