Onze laatste liverecensie.
Onze laatste albumrecensie.
Ons laatste interview.
Onze laatste video.
"Notes breathe in and out, or push and pull like brush strokes. The sound
creates its own form, its own metaphors, its own meaning. What are they?
That's your job. How, and why, they got that way is another story"
(Art Lange)
Where to start when you want to write a review about one composition that lasts almost five hours? Of course, it isn't a task that can live up to the achievement of the composer himself, let alone the masochistic musicians who chose to sit in a chair for five hours and also had to play their instruments. But still, writing something meaningful about a CD, or four of them in this case, that covers only one composition, isn't something you do every day.
The subject of writing is 'String Quartet (II)' from the late American composer Morton Feldman, and it's being played by members of the Ives Ensemble, a Dutch new music collective. They achieved something that even the famous Kronos Quartet weren't able to do: record the composition in its entirety. 'String Quartet (II)' is one of the later works (1983) of Morton Feldman, and in that later phase of his life he composed only immensely long pieces of music. This one is the longest he ever wrote, and it's not that hard to understand why nobody dared to record it before: For the listener, the task of listening to the whole composition and keeping your attention span at the same concentrated level is virtually impossible; for the musician, it has to be an other-worldly experience to notice that one is able to play this composition as a whole.
"Disorder is merely the order you are not looking for." (Henri Bergson)
For the first-time listener, 'String Quartet (II)' can be a disturbing and slightly discomforting experience. It is very complex; patterns appear and disappear seemingly at random, most of the notes sound very atonal, and any known structure that lives in your mind as a reference is not applicable in this situation. After that first listen, it would be easy to dismiss the records as too long and too difficult, but it would be a real shame, yes, even an outrage, if you would deny the music and yourself a second and third chance. Because the music is shaped in a form that is incomprehensible at first, you simply cannot listen to it once and then decide whether you like it or not. That would be like going to Rome, seeing one museum and one cathedral, both of which you unfortunately expected more, and then deciding you don't like Rome at all. It wouldn't do justice to that magnificent city. Same goes for the music. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes patience. And if you're willing to use those three things, then you'll be able to see the beauty of the notes, the logic of the structures, the natural complexity of the patterns and textures. The music consists of a limited amount of themes, but those themes are constantly shifting in tone and time signature, creating a new reality. On the first two discs, especially the first, the themes follow each other quite rapidly, making the music wild and sometimes even aggressive. It is that directness that can make you uncomfortable in the beginning, and it really is an unexpected feature in a five hour composition. On the other two discs things tend to get a bit more quiet, the themes are being stretched out over longer periods, while at the same time the atonality stays very much present. The composition has a certain sadness, an uneasy form of melancholy, and while the beginning of the music contains anger and resistance, the latter two discs speak more of acceptance. Not a voluntary one, but still.
"My paintings are more 'unfinished' than ever, because I unfinish them as I paint." (Fairfield Porter)
Towards the end, the pace gets slower. But it never really reaches its
destination, the end. Morton Feldman didn't compose a closing movement; the
music simply ends. The story stays unfinished, and leaves you with your own
imagination. As it should be, in situations like this.
The four members of the Ives Ensemble do one hell of a job in recording this
masterpiece. It's not likely they recorded it in one take, but they deserve
much respect for doing something that has always been regarded as
impossible. An interesting aspect of their strings work is a total lack of
vibrato in the tones; probably as Feldman intended it, of course, but the fact
remains that false notes would have been much more easily detected played
like this, if they were present. But they aren't. The Ives Ensemble complements the
composition in an extraordinary way, and it's because of their tremendous
efforts that not only the lucky few who can visit a performance are able to
experience this amazing piece of both beauty and hard labour.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/morton-feldman-ives-ensemble/string-quartet-ii/1390/
Meer Morton Feldman / Ives Ensemble op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/morton-feldman-ives-ensemble
Deel dit artikel: