Morton Feldman

Here, collected for the first time, are all of Morton Feldman’s compositions for violin and piano. It is also a kind of walk through his compositional development, from the Webernesque early Piece for Violin and Piano (1950); through the experiments with graphic notation in Projection 4 (1951); followed by an excursion into the jungle-like density of David Tudor’s energy in Extensions 1 (1951); to the cryptic notational riddles of Vertical Thoughts 2 (1963); from the dry carpet-dusting Spring of Chosroes (1977) to the extended sound canvas of the late Feldman in For John Cage (1982). He remarked, with an eye twinkling: “My music is just like Webern. Only a little bit longer.”

Sabat/Clarke, from Toronto, have performed together since 1996 and are specialists in this special “world” (their repertoire also consists of the complete violin & piano music of Christian Wolff and James Tenney. They have recorded works of Tenney (on HatArt) with plans for a future disc of Wolff’s pieces for violin and piano on Mode.

The liner notes by German composer Walter Zimmermann are interspersed with Feldman’s own comments culled from various interviews with Zimmermann and others.

CD 1: Piece for Violin and Piano (1950) 1:55; Projection 4 (1951) 5:08; Extensions 1 (1951) 5:28; Vertical Thoughts 2 (1963) 3:04; Spring of Chosroes (1977) 15:27; For John Cage (1982), beginning, 40:42
CD 2: For John Cage (1982), conclusion, 41:14 (total duration of For John Cage: 81:56)

Marc Sabat, violin
Stephen Clarke, piano