Performers: Aleck Karis (piano), Curtis Macomber (violin), Danielle Farina (viola), Christopher Finckel (cello)
Playing time: 75'
Recording date: December 2013 (San Diego); released: 2015
This recording had been the latest addition here, and in fact was released a few years after I finally wrote (originally) the Feldman page. I'd been (at the time) unable to locate a copy of either of the two previous recordings of this piece, but as of this addition, there were already three more. And this Bridge recording does use a different set of musicians from their earlier Feldman ensemble recordings (although pianist Aleck Karis had already recorded a solo piano disc for them, including Palais de Mari), so it feels like a different series in some sense. However, there's still a great feel for the music here, plus precision & a resulting tautness, making for an excellent interpretation.
(I didn't get around to hearing the recording with John Tilbury, which is inconveniently on a DVD, but a recording by the Quartetto Klimt also appeared in 2015. They apparently believed — per their website — that they were making the premier recording, rather than the fifth, and their interpretation is more generally wistful & less precise.)
Inserting this paragraph at the beginning of 2018: A 2017 recording appeared on the Another Timbre label — a label that mostly publishes even more contemporary music — by a quartet of previously unknown performers working in London, and released without liner notes. (This item wasn't released as by Apartment House, but those are the musicians.) I actually enjoy this interpretation, but opted to keep the Bridge album for the main list. I might describe the latter as relatively more earthy & assertive, and certainly closer mic'd, while the English album has more of a smooth elegance, generally feeling rather somber at some points....
And then another insertion, now Spring 2024: The latest release of this work, suddenly seemingly popular to record, is from Leipzig's Ensemble Avantgarde & pianist Steffen Schleiermacher (who had already surveyed much of the late Feldman piano music, plus duos...), recorded in 2023. The group had already recorded Cage & Scelsi programs (although I only noticed the latter recently...), so they have some credentials in the groundbreaking music of this era. I actually didn't care for this interpretation much at first though, since it's kind of thin, but over time, I think I can say more delicate or even dreamy.... But it does also seem more neurotic than the present recommendation, less concerned with human collegiality per se (more post-Cage in that sense, I suppose...) or earthiness. (Perhaps this is more of a "sky" Feldman....) There's a kind of consequent timelessness conveyed as well, rather different from the tension of the Apartment House release emphasizing the passage of time.... So it's good to have another reading.
In any case, the present CalArts performance yields an excellent recording & interpretation, and the piece itself is one of Feldman's most compelling in its eschewal of extremes of pitch, dynamics, speed, etc. Such a compression of ranges, one might say, provides an impetus toward a full four-instrument tapestry (as opposed to the dual opposition that figures so much of Feldman's immediately preceding music) & serves even greater extremes of concentration. However, the strings do sometimes project a unified, almost organ-like quality in interacting with the piano, shifting though they are.... The result also happens to be in the classical format of the piano quartet, so perhaps this piece can be included more often in more general programs. (And it certainly does seem to be receiving more attention.)
To purchasing information for this disc.
To Feldman page.
Todd M. McComb Updated: 3 April 2024