Morton Feldman: Orchestra auf CD

Despite the explosion of Feldman’s popularity and recordings of his works in recent years, his orchestral music has not received the attention it deserves. This new CD presents four first recordings plus the first recording of Intersection I with full orchestra — all performed in the studio, a coproduction between Deutschlandradio and Mode.

Intersection I is a pivotal early graphic score, presented here in a realization by Samuel Clay Birmaher. Muscular and dynamic, it sounds like nothing else in Feldman’s oeuvre — the raw sound of an orchestra untamed.

Structures and On Time and the Instrumental Factor are sister works from a transitional period in Feldman’s music. Both pieces explore an atmosphere of suspended time, with the instruments acting like an orchestra of tolling bells.

Voice and Instruments puts the sibylline voice in a wordless dialogue with the orchestra. Emphasis here is on the beauty of a single sound, with each moment connected to the next by a spider’s thread.

Orchestra is a walk through the orchestral landscape. Patterns come and go of their own accord as the music moves into unexplored territories. An important bridge between Feldman’s middle and late works.