Feldman: For Philip Guston

“This immaculately committed performance lasts almost four and a half hours, and shows how For Philip Guston, a trio for flutes, tuned percussion, and piano and celesta, defines the whole essence of what Feldman's late music was about. Listening to it is to become immersed in a unique musical world, one built from the simplest of four-note motifs, in which the smallest detail or change of emphasis assumes huge, expressive significance. Every so often the original motif returns, but each time its significance has shifted, because of a new context and the experience of what has happened since it was last heard. In that way Feldman maps his way around this unique, fragile musical space. It's the most extraordinary journey.” The Guardian, 25th July 2008 ****

Morton Feldman stands as one of our century’s darkest and quietest musical poets. His music seems a muffled yet spiritually inspired reaction to the speed, noise and horror of the events of the 20th century-much as in the work of the painter, Mark Rothko. For Philip Guston, a composition from Feldman’s last years, is music that attempts to suspend time, but without the nervous "sequenced" energy that dominates so much of today’s "process art." In for Philip Guston, the gigantism of Feldman’s time-scale is offset by the extreme intimacy and seductiveness of the composer’s expression. As Bridge Record’s annotator, Alan Rich, puts it: "This is music of an outward immobility and inward irresistible propulsion, random yet purposeful-its construction, intricate and precise."