Search - Morton Feldman, Flux Quartet :: String Quartet 2

A Force of Nature!

Christopher Forbes | Brooklyn,, NY | 01/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Late pieces by Morton Feldman are daunting to listeners and performers alike. Their extreme length, finnicky rhythms, strange chord spellings and long sustained tempi are scare off many performers. And the long durations and surface repetitions can scare off audiences as well. But if you listen underneath the surface, the music is brimming with telling detail and an almost rapturous love of sonority. It becomes hypnotic. The Second String Quartet has an almost legendary reputation among Feldman's late works. Played without cuts and with all of Feldman's repeats, the work can last anywhere from five to six hours. The Kronos Quartet played excerpts of the work in concert, but balked at doing the entire score as written, feeling that it was more effort than they could sustain in performance. So the work has remained unheard but not untalked about since it was composed in the 80's. Now, in the last year two recordings have surfaced of the complete work, a reading by the Ives Quartet on Hat Hut and this recording by the Flux Quartet on Mode. Each reading has much to recommend it and Feldman fanatics will want both. But for me, Flux edges out the competition by just a little. The String Quartet is a monumental work. The score is only 127 pages long, and layed out in Feldman's "gride style". Measures are laid out in nine sections on each page, regardless of time signature or number of notes in the measure. And yet, with repeats and at the speed Feldman requires the piece extends out almost infinitely. The language is one of minimalist repetition, but never simpleminded repetition. The first hour functions as an exposition, with a great variety of events in succession Events appear and disappear without fanfare. Some fade without ever reappearing and others come back hours into the piece, like ghost of themselves. In this way, Feldman explores the nature of memory as fully as Proust. Gradually, as the work progresses the dynamic range narrows to the very soft and the latent tension of the opening unravels over the last two hours until the whole piece comes to a lovely conclusion. The Ives and the Flux ensembles take different approaches to the work. The Ives play without vibrato and with an ear toward microtonal flucuations in tone that are implied in Feldman's unorthodox note spelling. It is an entirely effective reading, clocking in at just over five hours. Fluxus' reading has a slightly more leisurely pace, coming in at a little over six hours. At this scale the differences in tempi are really minimal at the microlevel. But the reading is also more energetic, with a stronger contrast between dynamics. The few fortissimo sections are played full out, as opposed to the Ives more muted reading. As such to me, this gives the Flux reading a slight edge over the Ives, though I think both are excellent documents of this important work. Incidentally, the Mode CD is available as a standard Audio CD but it is also available as an Audio DVD. I have the DVD version and I think for this work, that is the preferred mode for this piece. The DVD format allows the work to be presented complete, with no breaks for CD changes. So while you can listen to sections of the piece at a time if you choose, you also have the opportunity to hear the entire work as it would be presented in concert. The increase of cost is negligible, so I would highly recommend buying this work in DVD. You won't be sorry."

IS

Phil Avetxori | 06/21/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perhaps I'm overstepping the bounds of my understanding, but the music of Morton Feldman seems to exemplify what Adorno refers to as the "objectification" of music. That is, this is sound that, through distinctive form and intentional inexpressiveness, achieves an existence of its own, apart from any sort of signification or narrative. The long (very, very long) late pieces by this composer seem to have this quality in particular, as if their heroic durations and interminable reworkings of a small number of basic elements explore every possible angle of a an undeniably present THING. Feldman's second string quartet is by far his longest work, lasting over 6 hours, in this particular performance. I may be wrong (and these thing are difficult to gauge over such long durations), but it seems to me that there is a greater variety of musical material here than in other hour-plus late Feldman epics, such as For Philip Guston, Crippled Symmetry, For Christian Wolf, and For John Cage. As I write this, I am only four hours into my first listening, but I feel compelled to put down my thoughts on a marvelous piece of work that already feels like a long time companion. Where have we been? Where are we going? These questions are pointless in the timeless present of Feldman's music. Although there have been recurring elements that I recognize upon their return, their constant transformations and variations make it difficult to remember just how much has changed, or how manty times this or that has re-occured. Although the familiar Feldman hush and sparseness predominates, there are rich, indescribably, beautiful tonal segements (at 4 hrs, 8 mins, I can remember two of these), as well as uncharacteristically rough textures and knotty tangles. Feldman was the master of intuitive subtlety, and although his style is instantly recognizable, he's always presenting things in ways that baffle one's preconceptions of his work. After a couple of hours of music without thematic development, in a conventional sense, memory and analysis go out the window, and all that's left is living, breathing sound. Perhaps I have overstepped the bounds of my understanding. I'm beginning to feel that, just maybe, that's where Feldman's music really comes to life.[I have the continuous dvd version. If you have a dvd player, it's the way to properly experience this work]"

6 Hours, 7 Minutes and 7 Seconds of pure bliss

Sor_Fingers | Boulder, CO USA | 02/21/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Morton Feldman took quite a chance writing a six hour piece. The length makes it awfully hard to perfrom and a trying experience for the listener. The Flux Quartet has produced a brilliant recording of it and any fan of Morton Feldman or contemporary classical music should have this recording in their library. While it's not fo the faint of heart, the patient listener will feel truly enlightened after finishing this marathon piece.



Now I know what one of the questions you may be asking yourself could be: How can a piece stay interesting for over six hours? I can answer that question with four words: "Feldman's Second String Quartet." Feldman takes you on a surreal journey of color, texture and sound that will take you straight to your happy place. Using minimalist style composition Feldman takes the listener to places they've never been before. The piece just breathes. The length can be trying but any lover of minimalism will truly enjoy this piece. You will recognize recaped themes and really get a sense of form even though it may be a full hour before you hear a theme recalled.



It may be more valuable to pick up the DVD instead of the CDs as the DVD plays uninterupted. Even if you rip the CDs to a digital device, the transisitons aren't as smooth as some may like.



However this piece is not for the faint of heart. The length is just as definitive of the piece as it is hindering the piece from being universally enjoyed. I don't like to think of it as a piece, but a journey. So if your ears are up for a listening challenge, there's none more challenging than Feldman 2."