The Squid's Ear Magazine


Feldman, Morton (Judith Wegmann): Triadic Memories [2 CDs] (ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)

The second of four connected solo piano works by Morton Feldman, Triadic Memories is about that reality, the acoustic space created by the piano's strings and soundboard, as Feldman attempted to expand the temporal frame of his music, heard here in Judith Wegmann's 2019 recording, where thThe second of four connected solo piano works by Morton Feldman, Triadic Memories is about the acoustic space created by the piano's strings and soundboard, as Feldman worked to expand the temporal frame of his music, heard her in Judith Wegmann's 2019 studio recording where that space is revealed by a magnificent Bosendorfer 280VC piano.at space is revealed by a magnificent Bosendorfer 280VC piano.
 

Price: $19.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 3.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Morton Feldman-composer

Judith Wegmann-piano


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 752156102526

Label: ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd
Catalog ID: ezz-thetics 1025-2
Squidco Product Code: 29557

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Groovefactory, in Bern, Switzerland, in December, 2019, by Simon Farkhauser.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Triadic Memories is the second of four solo piano works that Morton Feldman (1926-87) wrote during the last decade of his too-short life. The first, Piano (1977), is a densely abstract work, opening a creative portal through which Feldman chose not to go. Triadic Memories (1981) and For Bunita Marcus (1984) followed, each well over an hour long, part of a deliberate attempt by Feldman to expand the temporal frame of his music. Finally came the luminous Palais de Mari (1986), briefer - about twenty-five minutes - a distillation of Feldman's art.

The piano was at the centre of Feldman's musical world. Even when he was writing for other instruments he would work at the piano because, as he said in a 1975 interview that appears in Walter Zimmermann's book Desert Plants, 'it slows me down and you can hear the time element much more, the acoustical reality.' Perhaps more than any of his other piano music Triadic Memories is about that reality, the acoustic space created by the piano's strings and soundboard, and in Judith Wegmann's recording that space is within a magnificent Bösendorfer 280VC piano.

In the score Feldman instructs that the piano's sustaining pedal should be held halfway down throughout the piece, as if the resonance of the instrument is intended to become a means of remembering the music. For a performance in Buffalo on 18th March 1982 Feldman explained the use of the pedal to the audience, joking that he didn't want them to think that the pianist, Aki Takahashi (the work's co-dedicatee, with Roger Woodward), was 'one of those pianists that never take the pedal off'. Instead, he said, his intention was to create a sort of musical 'gesso', like the ground with which painters prime their canvasses. Specifically, Feldman was thinking of the way that Cy Twombly would scratch graffiti-like markings into a gesso 'where the tint changed ever so slightly.' Feldman wanted a tonal ground and took the idea of 'a little gesso' from Twombly, making music that, as he put it, is 'on this very precarious gesso smudge, so to speak.'

A 'gesso', a 'smudge', a 'memory'; so why 'Triadic Memories'? Perhaps it has something to do with Feldman's preoccupation with his position in music history. By the early 1980s the minimalist composers, especially Steve Reich and Philip Glass, had become the most fashionable figures in new music, displacing Feldman and John Cage from the centre of the downtown New York scene, and Feldman was aware of this. In a 1980 interview with Cole Gagne and Tracy Garas he told them that 'if you think I can sit down and write a piece and not be worried about Steve Reich, you're nuts. I worry about these people. I worry about strong alternatives. It is a contest.' Two years later, in a lecture in Toronto, he was talking about the competition again: 'I never really thought that I was gonna bring back a diatonic pattern. I'm not Phil Glass.'

Yet there, right at the beginning of Triadic Memories is a 'diatonic pattern': a G minor triad, the G and B flat high in the right hand, the D deep in bass. But because Feldman is Feldman, and not just a contestant, he smudges the triad, blurring the G with an A and a G sharp, the D with a C sharp. And, because this is music about the piano, he slowly moves the pattern across the entire range of the keyboard, drawing the hands together and then parting them again. Less than four minutes into Judith Wegmann's performance not only have we heard the 'acoustical reality' of the instrument but we have also lost any sense of a diatonic pattern.

There is repetition too, but this is not the minimalist repetition of Glass and Reich, in which patterns accumulate to articulate architectonic forms. Instead in Triadic Memories Feldman will repeat a short figure because he wants to hear it again, to hear how it sounds in its own resonance; or he will transpose it into a different octave to hear how it changes in a new register of the piano; or he will minutely vary the rhythms of the figure, to hear the effect of time on harmony. Once he has heard enough he moves on. In a lecture in Darmstadt in 1984 in which he was mostly talking about his Second String Quartet he said three things that could equally apply to Triadic Memories. How does one thing lead to another in this music? 'I'm doing it one way, and then I'm doing it another way, with a different kind of focus.' And why does the music go on? 'I don't have an anxiety that I've got to stop.' Most tellingly, 'my music is handmade': there is no system, only listening.

'Triadic' music that is not triadic; 'memories' (repetitions) that are not memories. This is a contradictory music in which nothing is quite as we remember it, music whose only subject is its resonance, first in the piano and then in our consciousness."-Christopher Fox, 7th June 2020



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

"Morton Feldman was born in New York in 1926 and died there in 1987. Just like Cage, a close friend, he was an American composer - an American artist - an American in the true sense of the word.

He identified himself by differentiating his views on composition from those of his colleagues in Europe. He was proud to be an American because he was convinced that it enabled him the freedom, unparalleled in Europe, to work unfettered by tradition. And, he was an American also in what may have been a slight inferiority complex in the face of cultural traditions in Europe, something he proudly rejected and secretly admired.

Like any true artist, Feldman was endowed with a sensitivity for impressions of a wide variety of sources, literature and painting in particular. His affinity to Samuel Beckett has enriched music literature by a unique music theatre piece, Neither, and two ensemble works. His friendship with abstract impressionist painters gave birth to a range of masterpieces, Rothko Chapel in particular. But even the knotting of oriental rugs gave Feldman musical ideas (The Turfan Fragments).

To the question as to why he preferred soft dynamic levels, he replied:

"- Because when it's loud, you can't hear the sound. You hear its attack. Then you don't hear the sound, only in its decay. And I think that's essentially what impressed Boulez . That he heard a sound, not an attack, emerging and disappearing without attack and decay, almost like an electronic medium.

Also, you have to remember that loud and soft is an aspect of differentiation. And my music is more like a kind of monologue that does not need exclamation point, colon, it does not need..."

Feldman also had an intriguing reply up his sleeve when it came to answering the question why he composed in the first place:

"You know that marvellous remark of Disraeli's? Unfortunately, he was not a good writer, but if he was a great writer, it would have been a wonderful remark. They asked him whydid he begin to write novels. He said because there was nothing to read. (laughs). I felt very much like that in terms of contemporary music. I was not really happy with it. It became like a Rohrschach test".

More than twenty years since his death, Morton Feldman's music is as alive as ever."

-Universal Edition (http://www.universaledition.com/composers-and-works/Morton-Feldman/composer/220/biography)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Swiss pianist Judith Wegmann started to play the piano at the age of six. Shereceived her education at the famous Jazz School of Lucerne and the Swiss Jazz School of Bern with Roberto Domeniconi, Olivier Truan and ChristyDoran, focusing on Modern Jazz and Free Improvisation. Subsequently she earned a Bachelor and a Master's degree with highest distinctions in Classical Studies(Pedagogy and Piano) from the Music Universities in Neuchâtel and Lucerne. She continued studying with renowned musicians including Sebastian Risler, Karl-Andreas Kolly, Tobias Schabenberger, and Gerardo Vila, and attended Master Classes in Switzerland, France and Austria. Recently,she completed a second Master's degree at the Conservatory of Basel (with Fred Frith and Alfred Zimmerlin), concentrating on free improvisation and Contemporary Music.

As a classical pianist Judith performs on stage on a regular basis and in different chamber music formations. Her ability to switch between different genres allows her to engage in classical, contemporary as well as improvisation-based projects. Judith frequently conceptualizes concert programs, taking management responsibilities from the early stages of planning to the public performance. Her concerts have been performed in Switzerland as well as abroad - for example "Bach, Schumann et l'ombre de Nico" with Alexandre Caldara (F/CH, 2006) or the performance series "Outdoor-Dialoge" with Claudia Bucher (2009/10). Cross-disciplinary projects are an important aspect of her work. Collaborations with composers, visual artists and writers foster new approaches and paths, as in"Schwarzberg" with Swiss composer Werner Bärtschi and Arno Camenisch (2011). She was hired bythe "Kunsthalle Basel" for the widely celebrated Swiss premiere of afro-american composer Julius Eastman's "Songs for a mad King"in 2013. In thesame year she participated in the production "Manon -Soundtrack des Lebens" for the "young stage" of the theater Biel-Solothurn. Further projects are planned for the near future.

In 2011 and 2015 she was awarded a distinguished grant "Förderpreis" by the canton of Zug, Switzerland, which supported some of her most innovative projects. In 2013 she founded the New4Art Ensemble. Her work with this ensemble was awarded a prize by the city of Biel "Werkbeitrag". This award she also received in the years 2014 and 2015. Judith has been a member of the board of the Society of Free Improvisation ("Werkstatt für die freie Improvisierte Musik") in Bern since 2015 and is head of their"open workshop-". In 2017 her first Solo CD was released by HatHut records,which received a positive international reiew."

-Judith Wegmann Website (https://www.judithwegmann.ch/biografie)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



CD1



1. Triadic Memories (Beginning) 1/2 26:08

2. Triadic Memories (Beginning) 2/2 27:28

CD2



1. Triadic Memories (Conclusion) 33:41

Related Categories of Interest:


Hat Art
Compositional Forms
Avant-Garde
Piano & Keyboards
Solo Artist Recordings
Ambient & Minimal Music
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Compositional Music
Top Sellers for 2020 by Customer Sales
Hat Hut Masters Sale

Search for other titles on the label:
ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Feldman, Morton
Neither
(Hat [now] ART)
Feldman, Morton
For John Cage
(Hat [now] ART)
Morton Feldman was a friend, flatmate and student of John Cage's innovative approaches to composition; he wrote this 3 part work for violin and piano in 1982 as a 70th birthday present for Cage, here performed by violinist Josje Fosie Ter Haar and pianist John Snijders.
Other Recommended Releases:
Gerszewski, Nikolaus
3 Works For Strings, Giusto Chamber Orchestra
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Giusto Chamber Orchestra performs three works for twelve strings by German composer and visual artist Nikolaus Gerszewski, whose music of shifting pitches, vibrations and volumes, compared with experimental sound & noise work, is influenced by composers Radulescu and Dumitrescu spectral music, James Tenney's "swell form" and Cornelius Cardew's graphic scores.
Inoue, Satoko / Jo Kondo
Presents Jo Kondo's Works for Piano, 2015-2020
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
The third album of piano works from Japanese composer Jo Kondo performed by pianist Satoko Inoue, known for her interpretations of Morton Feldman, John Cage, Luc Ferrari, &c., here performing Kondo works written between 2013 and 2020 that apply different methods and approaches to form and interpretation, including works that incorporate improvisation and choices left to the performer.
Feldman, Morton / Apartment House
Violin and String Quartet [2 CDs]
(Another Timbre)
One of New York School minimalist composer Morton Feldman's later works, this extended composition spread across two CDs invokes waves of beautifully suspended, weaving strings from four violinists and cello, performed by the UK Apartment House ensemble violinists Mira Benjamin, Chihiro Ono, Amalia Young & Bridget Carey and cellist Anton Lukoszevieze.
Sanna, Claudio
Compositori Sardi Contemporanei [2 CDs]
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
An astonishingly diverse album of solo piano works performed by pianist and composer Claudio Sanna, performing works from eight Sardinian composers including his own, weaving improvisation, acousmatic & musique concrete elements, turntablism, electronics, inside piano playing, chalk-board writing and more into lyrical and experimental pieces that flow together exquisitely.
Quatuor Umlaut (Karl Naegelen / Morton Feldman)
Calques
(Umlaut Records)
Founded by violinists Amaryllis Billet and Anna Jalving, with Fanny Paccoud on viola and Sarah Ledoux on cello, Quatuor Umlaut presents their first recordings, joined by clarinetist Joris Ruhl for two pieces: "Calques" by composer Karl Naegelen using effects of transparency and fusion of tones; and Morton Feldman's highly textured "Clarinet and String Quartet".
Fox, Christopher
Hieroglyphs
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Three works from English composer Christopher Fox performed by the five-member Ensemble SEV, with two renderings of his work "This is the Wind" along with three duos, each combining two of a set of six "Paralogos", a solo work for violin--"Planes and Folds"--and the title piece "Hieroglyph" about decoding the incomprehensibility of unfamiliar music.
Wegmann, Judith / Marlies Debacker / Lukas Biner / Nicolas Wolf
Things In Between
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Featuring two pianists--Judith Wegmann and Marlies Debacker--and two percussionists--Lukas Briner and Nicolas Wolf (a duo who play concerts in the dark under the name of Night Shadow Noise)--in collective improvisations of two pianists or as a quartet of duel pianists and drummers, for seven exciting and sophisticated recordings of instant composition.
Feldman, Morton (Judith Wegmann / Andreas Kunz)
For John Cage [2 CDs]
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
First performed in 1982, Morton Feldmans' monumental composition for piano and violin dedicated to peer John Cage creates a distinctive environment of instrumental interaction where patterns are subtly varied in a virtual suspension of time as the music drifts and reflects, beautifully rendered in this 2021 recording by pianist Judith Wegmann and violinist Andreas Kunz.
Von Orelli, Marco
The Unasked Answer
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
A remarkable album of solo trumpet improvisation of incredible and creative technique, performed on trumpet, cornet, piccolo trumpet and slide trumpet, from Swiss trumpeter Marco von Orelli, the album title referencing a work by Charles Ives for offstage string ensemble, woodwind quartet and, most significantly for this album, solo trumpet.
Gottschick, Sebastian
Notturni
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Seven works composed in the 21st century by Sebastian Gottschick, who arranges and conducts the Ensemble Fur Neue Musick Zurich, configured as an ensemble with percussion, a sextet, a chamber ensemble with baritone and soprano, and performing himself solo on viola; sophisticated and modern works that employ complex tonality, timbre and playing techniques.
Ives, Charles E.
Another Songbook
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Conductor Sebastian Gottschick presents an additional selection of songs and chamber music works from composer Charles Edward Ives that reflect this broad range, 20 mostly brief and innovative works composed between 1898 and 1921, blurring the boundaries between genres through unusual motifs, themes, gestures and phrases that appear in new vocal and/or instrumental contexts.
Fox, Christopher
Music For Piano
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Six compositions for solo piano written by English composer Christopher Fox between 1991 and 2015, performed by Netherlands pianist John Snijders at Abbey Road Studios in London, each work uniquely approached in both writing and performance, each a concept or style that brings something unique to Fox's music while still retaining his voice and character in composition.
Haubensak, Edu / Tomas Korber
Works For Guitar & Percussion by Buck-Wolfarth
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Active since 2010, the German/Swiss duo of classical guitarist Christian Buck and improviser Christian Wolfarth occupies a space between music and sound art, as they perform two works each by Ed Haubensak and Tomas Korber, pieces that make use of time, microharmonies, multiphonics, unusual tuning systems, interference patterns, and other conceptual approaches to music.
Wegmann, Judith
Le Souffle Du Temps II - Reflexion
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Through preparations, computers, contact microphones, gongs, feedback and other tools, Swiss pianist, composer & improviser Judith Wegmann's work transform the sound of the piano into an otherworldly instrument, set against more traditional acoustic pieces of a reflective nature, together creating a conceptual set of ten pieces in a uniquely flexible approach.
Hope, Cat / Erkki Veltheim
Works For Travelled Pianos
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
As part of her Colonial Piano Project, Australian pianist Gabriella Smart commissioned and performs "Kaps Freed" by Cat Hope, a contemplation of composer Percy Grainger's Free Music ideals, with Stuart James on electronics; and the alliterative "Two New Proposals for an Overland Telegraph Line ..." by Erkki Veltheim, inspired by the 1st piano to arrive in Alice Springs, AU.
Feldman, Morton (Philip Thomas)
Piano [5 CD BOX SET]
(Another Timbre)
Containing the majority of minimalist composer Morton Feldman's compositions for solo piano, 3 CDs of short works and 2 for the magnificent "For Bunita Marcus" and "Triadic Memories", performed by one of the foremost interpreters of Feldman's work, Philip Thomas, and presented in a sturdy 5-CD box set with a 52 page booklet of notes from the performer and artwork.
Wolpe / Feldman / Zimmerman / Seel
Four Generations
(Hat [now] ART)
Pianist and composer Daniel N. Seel plays four pieces from four generations of different composers including Stefan Wolpe, Morton Feldman, Walter Zimmerman, and his own work.
Feldman, Morton
Piano Three Hands, Intermission 5, Vertical Thoughts 2, Extensions 3, Four Instruments, Intermission 5, Piano Piece 1956 A + B, Intersection 3, Instruments 1
(Edition Rz)
A collection of Feldman compositions primarily for piano as recorded by his earliest interpreters: Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury, David Tutor, Cantilene Chamber Players, and Feldman himself.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Kaze (Satoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura / Christian Pruvost / Peter Orins)
Unwritten
(Circum-Libra / Libra)
The Kaze quartet of trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, pianist Satoko Fujii, trumpeter & flugelhorn player Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins, continues its avant-embracing and uniquely voiced project with this live performance at Lille, France, an episodic and spontaneously diverse set of three collective improvisations of intuitive, adventurous interaction.
Butcher / Prevost
High Laver Levitations Vol 1: Unearthed
(Matchless)
Long-time collaborators and iconoclastic improvisers, drummer Eddie Prévost and saxophonist John Butcher, met at All Hallows Church, in High Laver, Essex in 2023, using the natural ambience of the space to capture these three improvisations, Prévost playing primarily on a drum kit and both in a more jazz-oriented sax and drum duo, extended by both players' exceptional technique.
Tiner, Kris / Tatsuya Nakatani
The Magic Room
(Epigraph Records)
Continuing their collaboration from the trio of Nakatani / Tiner / Drake and the duo album Dagny on Nakatani-Kobo, trumpeter Kris Tiner (Empty Cage Quartet) and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani are heard in a recording from the top floor of the historic Woolworth's building in downtown Bakersfield, CA, adding a beautiful layer of resonance to their deceptively contemplative dialogs.
Amadou / Cambien / Rempis
On The Blink
(Aerophonic)
After sharing a stage with Belgium bassist Farida Amadou--whose collaborations include Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble, and Thurston Moore--Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis and Amadou sought an opportunity to record together, joining with Amadou collaborator, pianist Jonas Cambien, to record these startling studio improvisations during a 2022 tour in Belgium and The Netherlands.
Lytton, Paul / Erhard Hirt
Borne on a Whim: Duets, 1981
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
The first release from Corbett vs. Dempsey drawing on the Paul Lytton Archives, this recording of electronic & acoustic improvisation from UK percussionist Paul Lytton and German guitarist Erhard Hirt was recorded in Belgium in 1981 for the German Po Torch label, founded in 1976 by Paul Lovens & Paul Lytton to release forward-looking forms of free improvisation.
Anderson, Fred Quartet (w/ Brimfield / Drake / Hayrod)
Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 2
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
An original member of the AACM and owner & director of the Velvet Lounge jazz club leading Chicago's free and experimental music scenes, and a mentor to countless young jazz musicians, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson is heard in the counterpart to the 2000 Unheard Music Series album, The Milwaukee Tapes, this 2nd unissued volume of material from the same 1980 concert.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC