8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great traverse through Feldman's career, April 19, 2000
This review is from: VIOLIN & PIANO WORKS (COMPLETE (Audio CD)
Next to his solo- and multiple-piano works, Feldman's writing career can be well encapsulated in his violin and piano pieces, as each period is represented. For his early Webernesque style, there is the Piece for Violin and Piano (1950), with its brief outbursts and brevity (it's only 1½ pages long). Projection 4 is an example of his "graphic" score from 1951, where sound events are indicated on graph paper rather than regular staff paper. Extensions 1 (1951) bring further the gestures from the 1951 Piece, with (for possibly the only time in a Feldman notated piece) many changes in tempo throughout the course of the piece. In the notes Feldman stated that he was influenced by Milton Babbit's Composition for Four Instruments, but I have also heard traces of Webern's Quartet, Op.22, especially at a point in the middle where the activity is reduced to only a few notes before continuing. Although he didn't write anything in the notational manner of "Durations" (the closest to this instrumentation would be Durations 3), Vertical Thoughts 2 comes close as it was written in the manner that alternates between the free durational and metered sections, between silence and its interruptions. Spring of Chosroes (1977) continues the long melody that he was tooling with in the seventies, but also has hints of the varied reiterated motifs that will come into more focus in For John Cage (1982), that "little piece for violin and piano that does not quit" (Feldman). Glad to see that Feldman's entire oeuvre for the two instruments are gathered together into a single package, the performances are top-notch all around. On another level one could see this entire set as one long piece for violin and piano, again bringing home John Cage's assertion that "Feldman's music seems more to continue than to change." [Note: These notes was written before the official release; some might find similarities to the liner notes, meaning we're all on the same wavelength.]
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