Morton Feldman's Intermission 6 (1953) is a sparse piano piece that typically lasts between 3 and 12 minutes in standard performances. Finnish experimental musician Antti Tolvi has created a radical 72-minute realization that extends the work's meditation on silence and resonance to an unprecedented duration. Tolvi discovered the piece through Philip Thomas's five-CD Feldman Piano box set on Another Timbre, becoming fascinated by Intermission 6 as "the piece which has the most silence in it, and silence has been one thing in which I've been very much interested." As a non-classically trained pianist, he appreciated that "one of my favourite pieces of Feldman was something I could pretty easily play myself." Over two years, he studied the piece, eventually recording a two-hour version before creating this 72-minute interpretation for CD.
The performance embraces a particular randomness. The grand piano used "would definitely need making more sensitive to the pianist's touch in most contexts. It was sometimes very very hard to make quiet sounds with this piano! The notes sometimes almost exploded out, no matter how gently I pressed the key." Rather than seeing this as a limitation, Tolvi found it "gave the piece more depth, different levels and liveness. It was pretty random when the piano decided to be a bit louder, and when not." He notes that "Feldman composed his piano music on his particular instrument, which shaped the way his compositions unfolded. So for me this performance still stays nicely in line with what's there at the centre of his pieces: some freedom and some kind of randomness."
On the extended duration, Tolvi reflects: "This randomness really starts to increase if you play a longer version of this piece. It can suddenly take you somewhere you haven't had any idea that it would take you. And then suddenly it throws you back where you just came, or maybe somewhere completely new... Somehow these chords and notes are chosen with such genius that they remain varied and keep taking you new places for a very long time."
Tolvi's musical background encompasses free jazz (playing sax and clarinet in Rauhan Orkesteri), North Indian classical music, and the Finnish experimental collective Forest folk. His recent work explores extreme durations, including a 17.4-day composition For piano and pause and performance art pieces that question the boundary between concert and installation. He has also worked extensively with Wandelweiser composers including Manfred Werder, Eva-Maria Houben, Stefan Thut, and Antoine Beuger.
The music is intended to be played very quietly, with the softest sounds on the edge of audibility.
