MORTON FELDMAN : For Bunita Marcus (Hildegard Kleeb) (1994) Hat NOW Series | Two Version | APE + FLAC (image+.tracks+.cue), lossless

This piano work, composed near the end of Feldman's life, is perhaps his signature composition for the instrument, and reveals his truly original method of opening up time and space by restricting the movement of sound within them. As Feldman grew older and his compositions became longer (for example, the 4 CD-long "For Philip Guston"), his obsession with the space between sounds (how long it took to hear one before another was introduced) became a driving force in his work. It moved him to constrain the palette he wrote from, in this case to contain only two pitches (C sharp and D), and within these two pitches, an equally restrictive and systematic sequence of meters (alternating 3/8, 5/16). Add to this his direction to the pianist to push the keys just enough to make the slightest sound (ppp), and directions to the listener to playback at very low volume, and you have a very small world to peer into.

The paradox is what emerges from this tiny space, played out over an hour. Time and space drop away. Inside the intervals where notes are played, and chords are built in miniature, is the role that silence itself plays, where it becomes the biggest presence in the work. Pianist Hildegard Kleeb understands these methods instinctually; there isn't so much as an extra nuance here. Her ability to exercise the tension and restraint in performing such a lengthy work creates for the listener an endless expanse. For Bunita Marcus reveals Feldman thinking not only of musical forms, but also of memory forms, in which memory is formed as a relationship, not of the fragment to the whole, but rather, from fragment remembered as fragment to the next, unto the entire work. While Feldman would make time "disappear" into his works, his intent here is not so much putting weight on time itself, but on time as a visual analogy of structure and duration. With For Bunita Marcus, he has created a memory system in which lapses are freely accepted, because resolution doesn't happen within a structured piece of music, but in the memory of silence itself. 
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <- 
MORTON FELDMAN (1926-1987)
1-3.    For Bunita Marcus (1985)    (1:11:41)
Piano – Hildegard Kleeb

MORTON FELDMAN : Neither (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra · Sarah Leonard · Zoltán Peskó) (1998) Two Version | APE + FLAC (image+.tracks+.cue), lossless

This unusual, highly emotional fifty-minute work, performed here by soprano Sarah Leonard and the Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt conducted by Zoltan Pesko, with text by Samuel Beckett, is an "opera" perhaps only in the New Narrative Opera sense--the delivering of messages or meaningful images through words and music without the standard plot forms, dramatic contrasts, even casts of characters of traditional European-based opera. The soprano voice is obsessed with punctuated single tones, or, by contrast, bizarre melisma. Repeated, slowly phase-shifted pulses of astonishing harmonic color and melodic pattern are the basic gesture throughout the work--far more eerie and foreboding, with an interior tension not normal for, which is to say expected of, Feldman--"from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither ... as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close, once away turned from gently part again." This piece is an intense evocation of existentialist awe, the infinitely extended discovery of the present moment, the awareness of the impossibility and irrelevance of final definition. Sarah Leonard delivers a powerful and richly modulated realization with a great range of emotional energy and remarkable technique."Blue" Gene Tyranny
MORTON FELDMAN (1926-1987)
1.  Neither    50:26
Credits :
Conductor – Zoltán Peskó
Orchestra – Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt
Soprano Vocals – Sarah Leonard
Words By – Samuel Beckett

MORTON FELDMAN : Piano And String Quartet (Ives Ensemble) (2001) Two Version | APE + FLAC (image+.tracks+.cue), lossless

MORTON FELDMAN (1926-1987)
1-3.    Piano And String Quartet (1985)
Ives Ensemble :
Cello – Job Ter Haar
Piano – John Snijders
Viola – Ruben Sanderse
Violin – Janneke Van Prooijen, Josje Ter Haar

MORTON FELDMAN : Violin and String Quartet (Peter Rundel · Pellegrini Quartet) 2CD-SET (2002) hat NOW Series | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

MORTON FELDMAN (1926-1987)
Violin & String Quartet (1985) 2:13:58
Credits :
Peter Rundel - Violin
Ensemble – Pellegrini Quartet :
Cello – Helmut Menzler
Viola – Fabio Marano
Violin – Antonio Pellegrini, Thomas Hofer

ANTHONY BRAXTON — Compositions No. 10 & No. 16 (+101) (1998) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

 It has always been baffling why the work of certain contemporary composers like Anthony Braxton, whose work spans the jazz and classical genres, has not been more widely performed by musicians outside of their own immediate sphere as "standards" of modern repertoire. After all, pieces by modern composers of the generation prior to his, like Ornette Coleman or Charles Mingus, are routinely covered by performers in and outside of jazz. One would think that Braxton's more overtly jazz-oriented and bop-inflected compositions would be natural vehicles for improvisation. But with certain scattered exceptions (the Jump or Die album by members of the Splatter Trio and Debris and the occasional cover version by Roscoe Mitchell or James Carter), one searches in vain for elaboration on and interpretations of his work. Thus, writer and arranger Art Lange's decision to record two of Braxton's more abstract works comes as a very welcome effort and, moreover, results in a superb and lasting performance.

Crucial to the success of his conception, Lange enlisted the aid of five outstanding musicians from Chicago's vibrant late-'90s scene, players with a range of experience across many fields including jazz, contemporary classical, electro-acoustic improv, and rock. The two pieces chosen ("Composition 10" is performed twice, with two wildly different outcomes) each use graphic notation and generalized musical commands necessitating a great deal or interpretation and input from the performers; happily, this group is more than up to the task. The rich palette utilized (clarinets, vibes, hurdy-gurdy, and accordion, among others) makes for delicious and warm textures and is deployed with wondrous imagination throughout. The Argentinean reedmaster Guillermo Gregorio is especially enjoyable, his dry, airy tone providing an ideal foil for the lower range clarinets and deep arco bass patterns generated by Michael Cameron. The general feel of both pieces is one of considered calm and sustained, thoughtful ruminations, where turmoil bubbles to the surface here and there, unpredictably, but is subsumed into the larger, more serene flow. The lines between improvisation and composition are utterly blurred.

Composition 10 & 16 (101) is easily the most successful interpretation of Braxton's music not done under the direct supervision of the composer. Art Lange has performed an enormous service, not only for the beautifully realized project at hand but also for demonstrating that Braxton's work can be taken just as seriously as compositions by other, more recognized, modern masters and that his music deserves its place in the "standard" contemporary repertoire. This disc is very highly recommended to both longtime Braxton fans as well as to listeners interested in the best of late-20th century "serious" music. Brian Olewnick  
Tracklist :
1    Composition No. 10¹ 11:38
Accordion – Jim O'Rourke
Alto Saxophone – Guillermo Gregorio
2    Composition No. 16 (+101) 17:02
Alto Saxophone – Guillermo Gregorio
Conductor – Art Lange
Hurdy Gurdy – Jim O'Rourke
3    Composition No. 10² 38:44
Clarinet – Guillermo Gregorio
Electronics – Jim O'Rourke
Credits :
Bass – Michael Cameron
Bass Clarinet – Gene Coleman
Vibraphone, Percussion – Carrie Biolo
Written-By – Anthony Braxton