music by john cage and morton feldman
Posted by David Toub in CD Review, David Toub, New World, Uncategorized
John Cage: Music for Keyboard 1935-1948
Jeanne Kirstein, prepared piano, piano, and toy piano
Morton Feldman: The Early Years
David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Edwin Hymovitz, Russell Sherman, pianos; Matthew Raimondi, Joseph Rabushka, violins; Walter Trampler, viola; Seymour Barab, cello
New World Records
This is a 2-CD release of a historic recording of early music by Cage and Feldman. Even though I already own a lot of this music (this is something the fourth version of Cage’s Bacchanale that I have on my iPod), these represent important early performances from Columbia Record’s “Music of Our Time” series that was overseen by David Behrman. The Feldman CD represents a 1959 LP that served as the first major recording of his music. The Cage CD is from another LP that contains classic performances by Jeanne Kirstein.
The Cage CD contains the following:
Two Pieces, Metamorphosis, Bacchanale, The Perilous Night, Tossed As It Is Untroubled, A Valentine Out of Season, Root of an Unfocus, Two Pieces for Piano, Prelude for Meditation, Music for Marcel Duchamp, Suite for Toy Piano, Dream
The Feldman CD consists of:
Piece for Four Pianos, Intersection 3 for Piano, Extensions 4 for Three Pianos, Two Pieces for Two Pianos, Projection 4 for Violin and Piano, Structures for String Quartet, Extensions 1 for Violin and Piano, Three Pieces for String Quartet
A few comments about selected tracks—all of the performances of Cage’s piano and prepared piano works are outstanding. While there’s a lot to be said for Markus Hinterhauser’s performances of many of these works on his CD set of Cage’s works for prepared piano, Kirstein’s performances are similarly inspired, and are said to have been highly regarded by Cage himself.
I was particularly interested in hearing the recording of Feldman’s Piece for Four Pianos. This is one of Feldman’s most noteworthy works, in which the four pianos paly the same notes but on their own time frames, and this means that each performance is particularly unique. I own a recording by Le Bureau des Pianistes that is amazingly beautiful, and clocks in at just over 16 minutes. This recording by David Tudor, Russell Sherman, Edwin Hymovitz and Morton Feldman is less than half the length of my other recording, and is very different in other ways as well. Yet it is just as valid and captivating. Similarly, I have recordings of Structures and Three Pieces for String Quartet by the Concord and Rangzen Quartets respectively, and these are captivating performances. The recordings on the New World CD by a string quartet consisting of Matthew Raimondi, Joseph Rabushka, Walter Trampler and Seymour Barab are different in some ways but offer an engaging sonic experience. The repetitive section with mostly string harmonics in Structures is perhaps better accentuated in the New World CD performance. The included performance of Projection 4 by Matthew Raimondi and David Tudor is as definitive as that of the recent recording by Christina Fong and Paul Hersey on OgreOgress.
So even if you might have some or all of these works on other recordings, this is a very special 2-CD set, both from historic and listening perspectives.
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