MORTON FELDMAN et al.: “For Feldman.” Pieces by Morton Feldman, John Prokop, David Beardsley, David Kotlowy, David Toub – Rangzen Quartet/ Christina Fong, violin – OgreOgress Productions stereo-only DVD-Audio, 1 hr. 30 min. ***½:
Long before Ashton Kutcher’s reality show Punk’d, more than half a century before stunt shows like I Get That A Lot, fledgling composer Morton Feldman punk’d his audience. In 1954 he wrote Two Pieces for String Quartet, then For String Quartet, and in 1956 he came out with Three Pieces for String Quartet. This latter composition was just a joining of the first two works, paraded as a new third one! Most people didn’t even notice.
In For Feldman, OgreOgress Productions’ tribute to the quirky composer, both works are reproduced—although mercifully spaced apart. They mention Feldman’s trick in their program notes, then proceed to give us four other works by different composers, most of whom approximate Feldman’s style or spirit. David Toub’s mf is one of the works closest to Feldman’s weltanschauung. It’s comprised of a treble ostinato and a simple melody on bass. Once or twice the functions switch, but most of the time it’s that treble line that rarely flags your attention. You’re waiting for the melody to vary, and it does, subtly, Feldman-style.
John Prokop’s New England, Late Summer features more lush ensemble playing; in spirit more like early works by Alban Berg or Arnold Schoenberg. Yet there the resemblance to the Second Viennese School ends. Very soon it leaps on the Feldman local: repetition, slight variation, yet with enough key changes to keep it interesting.
David Beardsley goes all the way with As Beautiful as a Crescent of a New Moon on a Cloudless Spring Evening. Infused with the talent of redoubtable violinist Christina Fong, this 30-minute piece features a formidable ostinato (first one instrument, then two, then more). With devices such as that immutable drone and forty B-flats in a row, the work may be channeling John Cage more than Morton Feldman. But who’s keeping score?
Of Shade to Light by David Kotlowy gives us what he dubs “semi-static cells” of sound, two intersecting musical textures like the slow decaying of paint and rusting hinges on an old shed. Quite picturesque actually, and so Feldman-like it fooled my wife.
The Feldman pieces are played really well, with their wispy clusters of single tones and slow pizzicato arpeggios. However, instead of performing the same piece twice, I wish the musicians had done his more intriguing 78-minute String Quartet (1979). It certainly could have fit on the DVD-A with the other works.
TrackList:
1. mf
2. Two Pieces for String Quartet
3. Of Shade to Light
4. For String Quartet
5. New England, Late Summer
6. Three Pieces for String Quartet
7. As Beautiful as a Crescent of a New Moon on a Cloudless Spring Evening
— Peter Bates
