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FELDMAN: Intermission 5; Piano Piece 1952; Extensions 3; Palais de Mari; CRUMB: Processional; A Little Suite for Christmas – Steven Osborne, p. – Hyperion

by Audiophile Audition | Nov 24, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

Piano music that quiets the mind and intrigues the senses. FELDMAN: Intermission 5; Piano Piece 1952; Extensions 3; Palais de Mari; CRUMB: Processional; A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 – Steven Osborne, p. – Hyperion CDA 68108, 62:46 ****: Put the wife and kids to bed, dim the lights, and enter a sound world of musical quietude. Barely audible individual notes juxtaposed with forceful chords, long silences, glacial speed and lengthy reverberations echo in the sound world of Morton Feldman (1926-1987). This is piano music meant for meditation and drifting into the recesses of the mind and the ether of the senses. It’s also pregnant with subtle beauty, nuances of tone color, and moments of new sounds from the piano. As recounted by Alex Ross in a 2006 New Yorker article, Feldman met one of his major influences, John Cage, in 1950 after they walked out of a concert in Carnegie Hall, just after the New York Philharmonic had performed Anton Webern’s 12-tone Symphony. Feldman remarked to Cage, “Wasn’t that beautiful?” Both had left early to avoid Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, the next work on the program. Feldman grew up in the 30s and 40s of New York City and […]