Morton Feldman

In the early 1970s, Feldman increasingly turned his attention to works for orchestra, in most cases combined with a solo instrument. The compositions dating from this period include, among many others, Cello and Orchestra (1972) or Oboe and Orchestra (1976). One aspect that was important to him in all of these works was a research into sound, an "unceasing effort to create, by way of exclusion and integration, by operating with colored projection surfaces and various spatial levels, a kind of self-supporting structure elastic enough to take up the exactly fixed initial impulse and continue it of its own accord." (Ulrich Dibelius) And whereas in Piano (1977) Feldman still aimed at uniting contrasts, breaks and polymorphous structures, he appears to have foregone the pursuance of any object at all in his last work for piano, Palais de Mari (1986): gentle, transfigured, with the variety of sound reduced to minute emotions, the music seems to continuously dissolve into nothingness. A unique listening experience, especially if a pianist like Markus Hinterhäuser succeeds in eliciting even the quietest, most transitory "sounds that breathe" (Feldman) from his instrument with such wondrous soulfulness.