Morton Feldman - Four Instruments (1965)

Four Instruments, for violin, cello, chimes & piano (1965)

Ensemble Avantgarde

Morton Feldman's "Four Instruments" for violin, cello, chimes (tubular bells) and piano was created in 1965. The duration is open but a typical performance lasts approximately 12 minutes. After composing works in the early 1950's that were in graphic notation and left most of the musical parameters (pitch, duration, timbre, event occurence) to the discretion of the performers, Feldman became dissatisfied with the result because although this manner of composing freed the sounds it also freed the kind of subjective expression of the performers that could not create the kind of pure sound-making that Feldman envisioned. He briefly returned to strictly notated works, found these too confining, and then created works in which most of the parameters were given except for duration and, consequently, coordination among the parts ("The O'Hara Songs" [1962], "For Franz Kline" [1962]). Following this, Feldman began to create works, like "De Kooning" (1963), "False Relationships and the Extended Ending" (1968) and others, which alternate fully determined and indeterminate sections within the same work. "Four Instruments" has coordinated events (chords or verticalities) and sequences of single events in which a performer must enter before the previous event from another performer has died away, forming a pure modal continuity, a surface. The tempo is slow, and the overall dynamic is quiet and peaceful. Yet the astonishing variety of the timbral combinations may imply shifting imagery to the listener. Or, for another listener, the joy may simply be in sheer richness of the sonic experience, for the sounds themselves. [allmusic.com]

Art by Olivier Debre

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