String Quartet 2 [Box set]

Morton Feldman (Artist), Flux Quartet (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 26, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 5
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Mode
• ASIN: B00006SF9I
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,354 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. String Quartet No. 2

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Force of Nature!, January 7, 2003

By 

Christopher Forbes "weirdears" (Brooklyn,, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: String Quartet 2 (Audio CD)

Late pieces by Morton Feldman are daunting to listeners and performers alike. Their extreme length, finnicky rhythms, strange chord spellings and long sustained tempi are scare off many performers. And the long durations and surface repetitions can scare off audiences as well. But if you listen underneath the surface, the music is brimming with telling detail and an almost rapturous love of sonority. It becomes hypnotic.

The Second String Quartet has an almost legendary reputation among Feldman's late works. Played without cuts and with all of Feldman's repeats, the work can last anywhere from five to six hours. The Kronos Quartet played excerpts of the work in concert, but balked at doing the entire score as written, feeling that it was more effort than they could sustain in performance. So the work has remained unheard but not untalked about since it was composed in the 80's. Now, in the last year two recordings have surfaced of the complete work, a reading by the Ives Quartet on Hat Hut and this recording by the Flux Quartet on Mode. Each reading has much to recommend it and Feldman fanatics will want both. But for me, Flux edges out the competition by just a little.

The String Quartet is a monumental work. The score is only 127 pages long, and layed out in Feldman's "gride style". Measures are laid out in nine sections on each page, regardless of time signature or number of notes in the measure. And yet, with repeats and at the speed Feldman requires the piece extends out almost infinitely. The language is one of minimalist repetition, but never simpleminded repetition. The first hour functions as an exposition, with a great variety of events in succession Events appear and disappear without fanfare. Some fade without ever reappearing and others come back hours into the piece, like ghost of themselves. In this way, Feldman explores the nature of memory as fully as Proust. Gradually, as the work progresses the dynamic range narrows to the very soft and the latent tension of the opening unravels over the last two hours until the whole piece comes to a lovely conclusion.

The Ives and the Flux ensembles take different approaches to the work. The Ives play without vibrato and with an ear toward microtonal flucuations in tone that are implied in Feldman's unorthodox note spelling. It is an entirely effective reading, clocking in at just over five hours. Fluxus' reading has a slightly more leisurely pace, coming in at a little over six hours. At this scale the differences in tempi are really minimal at the microlevel. But the reading is also more energetic, with a stronger contrast between dynamics. The few fortissimo sections are played full out, as opposed to the Ives more muted reading. As such to me, this gives the Flux reading a slight edge over the Ives, though I think both are excellent documents of this important work.

Incidentally, the Mode CD is available as a standard Audio CD but it is also available as an Audio DVD. I have the DVD version and I think for this work, that is the preferred mode for this piece. The DVD format allows the work to be presented complete, with no breaks for CD changes. So while you can listen to sections of the piece at a time if you choose, you also have the opportunity to hear the entire work as it would be presented in concert. The increase of cost is negligible, so I would highly recommend buying this work in DVD. You won't be sorry.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IS, June 20, 2003

By 

Phil Avetxori - See all my reviews

This review is from: String Quartet 2 (Audio CD)

Perhaps I'm overstepping the bounds of my understanding, but the music of Morton Feldman seems to exemplify what Adorno refers to as the "objectification" of music. That is, this is sound that, through distinctive form and intentional inexpressiveness, achieves an existence of its own, apart from any sort of signification or narrative. The long (very, very long) late pieces by this composer seem to have this quality in particular, as if their heroic durations and interminable reworkings of a small number of basic elements explore every possible angle of a an undeniably present THING.

Feldman's second string quartet is by far his longest work, lasting over 6 hours, in this particular performance. I may be wrong (and these thing are difficult to gauge over such long durations), but it seems to me that there is a greater variety of musical material here than in other hour-plus late Feldman epics, such as For Philip Guston, Crippled Symmetry, For Christian Wolf, and For John Cage.

As I write this, I am only four hours into my first listening, but I feel compelled to put down my thoughts on a marvelous piece of work that already feels like a long time companion. Where have we been? Where are we going? These questions are pointless in the timeless present of Feldman's music. Although there have been recurring elements that I recognize upon their return, their constant transformations and variations make it difficult to remember just how much has changed, or how manty times this or that has re-occured. Although the familiar Feldman hush and sparseness predominates, there are rich, indescribably, beautiful tonal segements (at 4 hrs, 8 mins, I can remember two of these), as well as uncharacteristically rough textures and knotty tangles.

Feldman was the master of intuitive subtlety, and although his style is instantly recognizable, he's always presenting things in ways that baffle one's preconceptions of his work. After a couple of hours of music without thematic development, in a conventional sense, memory and analysis go out the window, and all that's left is living, breathing sound. Perhaps I have overstepped the bounds of my understanding. I'm beginning to feel that, just maybe, that's where Feldman's music really comes to life.

[I have the continuous dvd version. If you have a dvd player, it's the way to properly experience this work]

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing performance, July 23, 2006

By 

Steward Willons (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: String Quartet 2 (Audio CD)

If you're reading a review of this CD, you probably know what you're getting into. This is definitely one of Feldman's most intriguing works not only because of its incredible length, but also because of the way Feldman engages the listener in a very active way for such a long time. A personal critique would be superfluous - you can decide for yourself whether the work has artistic merit, whether or not its length is justified, and the amount of aesthetic pleasure contained within. Regardless of personal feelings, the work exists and, thanks to a brave performance by the Flux Quartet, is now available on CD and DVD (but, good luck finding the Audio DVD!).

I tried in vain to find a copy of the DVD Audio version of this recording as five CDs in definitely an inferior way to experience this piece. It would be much better to press play and let the world drift away. The performance is quite remarkable. Flux maintain an intense interpretation throughout. The listener may break up the experience over time and revisit certain sections with fresh ears. Flux had one marathon chance to get it right - no edits, no stopping for a break. They treat SQ2 with respect, not as some sort of endurance/novelty challenge. At this point, a few string quartets have performed this work, but I would definitely place this performance among the top.

The one unfortunate aspect other than the 5 CD treatment is the packaging. The CDs come in paper sleeves housed in a flimsy cardboard container. We're lucky to have a performance of this caliber, but it's still unfortunate that the box is so worthless. The liner notes aren't bad, but a nice analysis of the work would have been helpful, but there is an interesting account of the preparation that went into the performance.

Overall, the CDs are worth the fairly high price. If you're familiar with Feldman, this will definitely interest you. If you're new, there are better places to start such as "Piano and String Quartet", "Crippled Symmetry", and "Triadic Memories". This is a wonderful document of an amazing performance.