Feldman: The Viola in My Life II

This page lists all recordings of The Viola in My Life II, by Morton Feldman (1926-87) on CD. Generally, more recent CDs are listed first, but with priority given to items that are in stock.

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Morton Feldman - The Viola in my Life

Feldman:

The Viola in My Life I

The Viola in My Life II

The Viola in My Life III

The Viola in My Life IV

Marek Konstantynowicz (viola)

Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Cikada Ensemble, Christian Eggen

Polish viola player Marek Konstantynowicz and his colleagues in the Cikada Ensemble, one of Europe’s leading contemporary music groups, perform The Viola in My Life by American composer Morton Feldman (1926-87). A four-part cycle characterized by soft dynamics, stillness and melodic fragments, it climaxes in a movement for viola and orchestra, here the Norwegian Radio Orchestra with conductor Christian Eggen.

Feldman wrote all four of The Viola in My Life pieces in the early 1970s for American viola player Karen Phillips: "[It] was begun in Honolulu in July 1970 and consists of individual compositions utilizing various instrumental combinations (small and large) with viola. Unlike most of my music, the complete cycle is conventionally notated as regards pitches and tempi. I needed the exact time proportion underlying the gradual and slight crescendo characteristic of all the muted sounds the viola plays. It was this aspect that determined the rhythmic sequence of events.” Scored for viola with flute, violin, cello, percussion and piano, the first part is dedicated to the Pierrot Players who premiered it under Peter Maxwell Davies in London in 1970. The last was commissioned by the Venice Biennale for its 1971 Festival, and is an orchestral 'translation' of material used in the three chamber pieces preceding it. “My intention was to think of melody and motivic fragments somewhat the way Robert Rauchenberg uses photographs in his painting and superimpose this on a static sound world more characteristic of my music."

ECM New Series - 4765777

(CD)

£12.99 (£11.06 ex. VAT)

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