Morton Feldman Thomas

Overlapping textures and soft, shifting timbres are the most recognizable features of Morton Feldman's music, and his attractive sonorities draw listeners in ways other avant-garde sound structures may not. This music's appeal is also attributable to its gentle ambience, a static, meditative style that Feldman pioneered long before trance music became commonplace. The three works on this disc are among Feldman's richest creations, yet the material in each piece is subtly layered and integrated so well that many details will escape detection on first hearing. In Piano and Orchestra, the piano is treated as one texture among many, receding to the background and blending with muted brass and woodwinds in a wash of colors. Cello and Orchestra might seem like a conventional concerto movement, especially since the cellist is centrally placed on this recording and plays with a rather lyrical tone. However, Feldman's orchestral clusters are dense and interlocked, which suggests that the cello should be less prominent and blend more into the mass of sounds behind it. No such ambiguity exists in the performance of Coptic Light, which Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony Orchestra play with even dynamics and careful attention to the work's aggregate effect, which is mesmerizing.

The Morton Feldman Piano box set is the most extensive survey of Feldman’ s piano music to date. Released exactly 20 years after John Tilbury’ s long unavailable 4-CD set, the new box includes several pieces which weren’ t included there, and has three works which have never been released on disc before. Philip Thomas has been playing Feldman’ s music for 25 years and is one of the foremost interpreters of his work with an extraordinary gentle touch. He and John Tilbury combined forces to produce the highly acclaimed Two Pianos double CD, which featured Feldman’ s music for multiple pianos.

The four chamber works by Austrian Thomas Larcher recorded here show that's he's a composer to watch out for. His compositional voice is strikingly unencumbered by adherence to any orthodoxy, and his work is direct in its emotional and intellectual communication. My Illness Is the Medicine I Need, for soprano, violin, cello, and piano, is particularly effective; its aphoristic texts come from a Benetton "Colors" magazine that included photographs of psychiatric hospitals and quotations from their patients. Larcher's understated text setting allows the voices of the patients to be heard with unaffected bleakness and it is strongly moving. Even though it uses a contemporary harmonic language, the string quartet Ixxu (1998-2004) is old-fashioned in its emotional clarity. Its last movement, "ruhig," is genuinely peaceful and brings to mind the serenity of Arvo Pärt's Fratres. His 1990 quartet Cold Farmer is similarly direct and generous in inviting the listener in, and here again the slow movement is especially deeply felt and engaging.

While she made her much-lauded ECM debut with a thought-provoking account of Schumann’s violin sonatas last year, German violinist Carolin Widmann’s reputation as a pioneering interpreter of contemporary music is spreading continiously. “The new record brings me back to my roots”, says Widmann. Teaming up with Simon Lepper, one of Britain’s foremost lied accompanists and a particularly fine chamber musician, she now presents a most varied spectrum of 20th century duo literature. “For more than a year we worked on the repertoire selection.

Four American composers, all pianists, all prizewinners at the height of their powers. It is not surprising that the works collected here are idiomatic to the instrument and gratify ing to play. Augusta Read Thomas explores the piano’s natural resonance and beauty. Wayne Peterson’s expressive, sweeping virtuosic lines reflect his past as a jazz pianist. Charles Wuorinen’s bracing rhythms leap across the instrument in a modernist romp that echoes the wit and humor of his opera. Eric Moe’s Afro-bebop encore rounds out the program.

Michael von Biel - Michael von Biel (2004) {Edition RZ ed. RZ2002 rec 1962-1968}
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© 1962-68, 2004 Edition RZ | ed. RZ 2002
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Experimental / Electronic / Avant-Garde

Gatefold slipcase with 12-page booklet containing scores, photos and liner notes. One of only two CDs to bear his name at the top, Edition RZ’s Michael Von Biel collection presents a hardcore haul from the nebulous 1960s avant garde, including one blinding, 13 minute piece of electronic composition commissioned from Von Biel by Karlheinz Stockhausen - his tutor at Darmstadt - which resulted in him repeatedly breaking the sliders on the desk during its creation! No messing, it’s worth it for that one alone - you won’t find it anywhere else! (just checked youtube and discogs) - but his patent taste for noisy dynamics and twist on convention elsewhere on the CD also make this a bit of a must, if you’re into that kind of thing.