The 2nd volume of "Music for Piano and Strings" by Morton Feldman is performed by The Smith Quartet with John Tilbury, presenting "Patterns In a Chromatic Field", and "Piano, violin, Viola, Cello", on DVD audio to allow for the length of these large works.
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Sample The Album:
Deirdre Cooper-cello
John Tilbury-piano
Nic Pendlebury-viola
Darragh Morgan-violin
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DVD Audio, PAL format, region free. This disc can only be played on a DVD player or on a computer with a DVD drive.
UPC: 502049250229
Label: Matchless
Catalog ID: MRDVD02
Squidco Product Code: 16799
Format: DVD
Condition: New
Released: 2012
Country: Great Britain
Packaging: DVD Digipack
Recorded live in 2006 at the Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music.
"This second volume of 'Music for Piano and Strings by Morton Feldman' brings together two fairly lengthy pieces for piano & Strings. Both pieces on offer here date from Feldman's latter work in the mid to late 80's, and both pieces here are played with wonderful precision, feeling & angular grace by pianist John Tilbury & The Smith Quartet.
This release comes in the form of a DVD, so both pieces could be fitted on one disc. The two pieces on offer here are: 'Patterns In a Chromatic Field' from 1981, and 'Piano, violin, Viola, Cello' from 1987- which was one of the last pieces Feldman wrote. The wonderful performances of both pieces were recorded live at the Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary music in 2006. The DVD comes in a cd sized gatefold slip sleeve which also includes a eight page booklet, which features an essay on both pieces by The Wire writer & composer Philip Clark. The DVD offers up a total running time of two hours & fifty six minutes.
First up we have 'Patterns in a Chromatic Field' which brings together pianist John Tilbury with cellist Deirdre Copper, for an hour & twenty seven minute version of this Feldman piece from 1981. The piece is quite active & shifting, by Feldman standards, with the pair altering the pace & patterns in a effortless manner. It all starts with a fairly fast angular/ rhythmic mixture of sawing cello work & stabbing/ jerking piano notation. But as the piece progress the pair slip from: eerier 'n' slowed piano pitter patters & cello drifts, onto to cello string picks & jaunting yet haunting piano runs, through to low end piano runs & sawing cello textures, onto creepy 'n' tumbling piano patterns that brood on a angular sea of cello dwell, and beyond. The patterns seemingly shift from one to another every few minutes or so, but sometimes a single pattern with stay in place as long as five minutes- this seemingly un-predictable nature of the piece really makes it a wonderful ride, and the near on hour & a half runtime seems to fly by.
The second & last piece here is 'Piano, violin, Viola, Cello', and as it title suggest it's built around: piano( played by John Tilbury), Violin( played by Darragh Morgan), Viola( played by Nick Pendlebury), and Cello( by Deirdre Copper). This version of the piece runs for one hour & twenty eight minutes, and compared with the first track this is a lot slower, less shifting & more haunting in its feel. The piece drifts into sonic view with a wonderful slow-mo mixture of the carefully placed, eerier & spaced piano notation, which are hovered under by a brooding & skeletal string drifts/ebbs. The whole track drifts along in a captivating & chillingly slow 'n' ebbing manner, with sparse piano notation either drifting on it's on or been wrapped in a sad/ contemplative slowed/ thin string saw or ebb. Later on in the tracks life time the string elements seem to hover more on their own creating sombre sustains. Once again there are patterns present here, but they stay at the same deeply slowed & considered pace through-out, so you literal find yourself slowing down to the tracks lingering & sombre pace.
Both tracks here are played with both wonderful precision, feeling & thoughtfulness- I've heard quite a few of Feldman's pieces played by John Tilbury in the past, and he really does seem to nail the slow, sad yet captivating feeling of Feldman's work perfectly. Yet he's also very at home playing the composer more angular & rhythmic work too- which of course both of these tracks showcase. And of course the other players here also manage to put on great considered & controlled performances too.
All told this is a wonderfully recorded & played collection of Morton Feldman's later pieces, and I can see this of course appealing to fans of the great mans work. But it's also a excellent introduction to the work of one of the 20th century greatest and most dramatic minimalist/modern classical composers."-Roger Batty, multi genre music
See also Volume 1.DVD Audio, PAL format, region free. This disc can only be played on a DVD player or on a computer with a DVD drive.
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for John Tilbury "John Tilbury (born 1 February 1936) is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM. Tilbury studied piano at the Royal College of Music with Arthur Alexander and James Gibb and also with Zbigniew Drzewiecki in Warsaw. 1968 he was the winner of the Gaudeamus competition in the Netherlands. During the 1960s, Tilbury was closely associated with the composer Cornelius Cardew, whose music he has interpreted and recorded and a member of the Scratch Orchestra. His biography of Cardew, "Cornelius Cardew - A life unfinished" was published in 2008. Tilbury has also recorded the works of Howard Skempton and John White, among many others, and has also performed adaptations of the radio plays of Samuel Beckett. With guitarist AMM bandmate Keith Rowe's electroacoustic ensemble M.I.M.E.O., Tilbury recorded The Hands of Caravaggio, inspired by the painter's The Taking of Christ {1602). In this live performance, twelve of the members of M.I.M.E.O. were positioned around the piano in a deliberate echo of Christ's Last Supper. The thirteenth M.I.M.E.O. member (Cor Fuhler) is credited with "inside piano" as he interacted and interfered with Tilbury's playing by manipulating and damping the instrument's strings, essentially doing piano preparation in real time. Critic Brian Olewnick describes the album as "A staggering achievement, one is tempted to call The Hands of Caravaggio the first great piano concerto of the 21st century." Another notable recent recording of Tilbury's was Duos for Doris (like The Hands of Caravaggio also on Erstwhile Records), a collaboration with Keith Rowe. It is widely considered a landmark recording in the genre of electroacoustic improvisation (or "EAI"). In 2013 he collaborated with artist Armando Lulaj in FIEND performance at the National Theatre of Tirana (Albania)." ^ Hide Bio for John Tilbury
10/2/2024
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Track Listing:
Track 1. Patterns In A Chromatic Field 1:27:49
Track 2. Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello 1:28:40
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