Review 4. Tempo

Feldman: Music for Piano and Strings, Volume 1:
For John Cage1; Piano and String Quartet.

The Smith Quartet (Ian Humphries, 1Darragh Morgan, vlns; Nic
Pendlebury, vla; Deirdre Cooper, vlc) with John Tilbury
(pno).

Matchless Recordings MRDVD-01.

It is important, first of all, to note that this release is a DVD that can be played only on a DVD player or a computer with a DVD drive. The playing time is some three hours (2:58:31). The DVD is not quite sound-only, in that images are used for the menu and the first 25 seconds of each track.

The recordings are taken live from the 2006 Huddersfield Festival (which focused on Feldman’s music). There are two more issues to follow: Volume 2 will feature Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981) and Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (1987) while the third volume will feature eight pieces, including The Viola in My Life (1970). All performances originate from the same festival.

Both of the works on Volume 1 last just under 90 minutes. For John Cage (1982) is scored for violinand piano. John Tilbury’s incredibly subtle, understated pianism seems ideal for these scores (in addition to his superb playing, readers will surely be familiar with Tilbury’s major book, Cornelius Cardew, A Life Unfinished). It matches, also, the fact that the decision has been made to use baroque bows on the stringed instruments. This comes in response to Feldman’s indication to use bows with the hair as loose as possible in order to sustain low dynamics for long periods. The lightness of baroque bows also makes the music less gruelling for the player in terms of stamina, and its arc shape works well for the contours of Feldman’s own melodic shapes. The result is more than mesmeric. It speaks of an impossibly interior world, of whispered secrets. More, Darragh Morgan’s technique in For John Cage (1982) enables the high harmonics to exhibit iron security in conjunction with other-worldly fantasy.

The recording is exemplary. There seems to be no audience noise whatsoever to interrupt this most rarefied of universes. The eschewing of vibrato on the violinist’s part also aids the projection of the purity so vital to this music’s success. All credit to Morgan and Tilbury for sustaining the tension for
this extended span so creditably.

There is strong competition for this piece, notably from a performance on OgreOgress by Christina Fong and Paul Hersey. Fong is a fine string player, as her disc For Feldman (also on OgreOgress) also attests. Their performance lasts a mere 66 minutes in comparison with this one. Marc Sabat and Stephen Clarke on Mode also put forward a creditable account. In Piano and String Quartet (1985) it is Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet’s revelatory, rapt account on Nonesuch that is the main rival (they take 80 minutes as opposed to the present performance’s 90). The Smith Quartet’s vibrato free approach leads to a blanched-out sound that here is more melancholy than pure. Tilbury’s playing is of the utmost delicacy. The sense of space, so evident in the Nonesuch version, is here even more entrenched – there is almost a feeling of risk in how long the gaps between statements of the prevailing arpeggio figure can last.

Howard Skempton provides the fine liner notes, and the CD can be unhesitatingly recommended.

Colin Clarke
Tempo, Volume 64, Issue 253, July 2010