| Piece for Four Pianos | |
|---|---|
| by Morton Feldman | |
 Morton Feldman | |
| Composed | April 30, 1957 |
| Performed | 1957, New York City |
| Published | 1962: |
| Scoring | Four pianos |
Piece for Four Pianos is a musical composition for four pianos by American composer Morton Feldman. It was finished in 1957.
Feldman's Piece for Four Pianos was first conceived as a result of the composer's fascination with the timbral and spatial possibilities of the piano, which he explored in many other compositions for two to five pianos in his lifetime, such as Extensions IV, Two Pieces, and Five Pianos . It was Feldman's first free durational composition with fixed pitches, as he grew more and more frustrated with the use of regular pulses and rhythmic placement. [1] [2] [3] A somewhat early chamber composition, Piece for Four Pianos was written on April 30, 1957. [4] It was premiered shortly after by John Cage, William Masselos, Grete Sultan and David Tudor, in the Carl Fischer Concert Hall, 165 West 57th Street, New York City. [4] It was then published by C. F. Peters in 1962. [4] [5]
Piece for Four Pianos is a single-movement composition scored for four pianos reading the same sheet of music. [5] [6] Its duration may vary widely, since Feldman specifies in the score that all beats are meant to be played slowly but not necessarily simultaneously—that is, each performer has it's own internal speed, which may be different from the rest. [5] [6] [7] However, most performances tend to be about 7 to 8 minutes long. As other early works by Feldman, this piece is meant to have an echo-like or reverberant quality. [8] Feldman attempted to remove what he believe to be a supposed virtue of traditional ensemble playing, stating that "It works better if [the players] don't listen [to each other]." [9] He then stated that the result should be "like a series of reverberations from an identical sound source" and that "the beginning of the piece is like a recognition, not a motif, and by virtue of the repetitions it conditions one to listen." [10]
The original score is one page, five systems long written in notation. [11] [5] Feldman only uses seventy-five musical events, including chords, single notes, and rests, arrayed in an arbitrary fashion. [12] [13] The piece requires all pianists to start simultaneously, all playing the same chord while slowly drifting apart in tempo. [14] [15] Notes are generally stemless, although stems can be found in some passages and grace notes, and some eighth notes with empty heads are present. [11] There is no measure division, time signature, key signature, and tempo markings. [5] [11] Feldman provides no indications as to how the notes written in the score can be read, which gives performers some space for artistic freedom. Even though there are no explicit dynamic markings present in the score, Feldman specifies that the piece has to be played with low dynamics with a minimum of attack. Despite the fact that the piece has no measures, players are expected to count beats, as fermatas, grace notes and silent beats are present and common in the piece. [5] [16]
In January 1960, music critic Alfred Frankenstein wrote on High Fidelity magazine that "although [Feldman denied] that his Piece for Four Pianos has anything to do with Webern's pointillism, the effect of [Feldman's] works is eminently Webernian" and "the final result is to compact hours into seconds with an almost overwhelming intensity and depth of feeling". [1] English composer Cornelius Cardew, who would later work with Feldman and premiere some of his works, also wrote that "possibly because it has been played so much, this piece has acquired a venerable quality; the notes themselves have an air of immutability, as though they were pre-determined in some non-human sphere, possibly by the instruments for which they were written." [1] Maurice Hinson wrote that "it is possible that Feldman's work was designed to reattract audiences largely put off by an extreme mathematical approach to music", and the piece contains "delicate textures and sonorities". [17]
The sounds follow one another in a slow, elastic chain. There are no loud sounds. All pianists have the same sequence of sounds to play, but in playing them they drift apart, each taking his own time, so that the reverberations of the same sound amongst the four pianos are often widely separated in time. But by sometimes having the same sound repeated several times by each pianist individually, Feldman manages to create areas, like plains, where the four pianos come together again, or are at least able to locate each other in the distance.
— Cornelius Cardew. [1]
The piece remains a popular experiment for chamber pianists to this day. Here is a list of recordings of Piece for Four Pianos:
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, and delay systems. His best known works are the 1964 composition In C and the 1969 LP A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock, and contemporary electronic music.
David Eugene Tudor was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.
Morton Feldman was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown. Feldman's works are characterized by notational innovations that he developed to create his characteristic sound: rhythms that seem to be free and floating, pitch shadings that seem softly unfocused, a generally quiet and slowly evolving music, and recurring asymmetric patterns. His later works, after 1977, also explore extremes of duration.
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music and classicist.
Earle Brown was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since—notably the downtown New York scene of the 1980s and generations of younger composers.
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a studio album by American jazz double bassist, composer, and bandleader Charles Mingus. It was recorded on January 20, 1963, and released in July of that year by Impulse! Records. The album comprises a single continuous composition—partially written as a ballet—divided into four tracks and six movements. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz records of all time.
Nicolas Hodges is a pianist living in Germany.
The Real McCoy is the seventh album by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner and his first released on the Blue Note label. It was recorded on April 21, 1967 following Tyner's departure from the John Coltrane Quartet and features performances by Tyner with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Elvin Jones. Producer Alfred Lion recalls the recording session as a "pure jazz session. There is absolutely no concession to commercialism, and there's a deep, passionate love for the music embedded in each of the selections".
The Klavierstücke constitute a series of nineteen compositions by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Atmosphères is a piece for orchestra, composed by György Ligeti in 1961. It is noted for eschewing conventional melody and metre in favor of dense sound textures. After Apparitions, it was the second piece Ligeti wrote to exploit what he called a "micropolyphonic" texture. It gained further exposure after being used in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Music of Changes is a piece for solo piano by John Cage. Composed in 1951 for pianist and friend David Tudor, it is a ground-breaking piece of indeterminate music. The process of composition involved applying decisions made using the I Ching, a Chinese classic text that is commonly used as a divination system. The I Ching was applied to large charts of sounds, durations, dynamics, tempo and densities.
Piano and String Quartet is a composition by American avant-garde composer Morton Feldman. It was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and pianist Aki Takahashi, who premiered the piece at the 7th annual New Music America Festival in Los Angeles and released a studio recording in 1993.
Dante Boon is a Dutch composer and pianist. A member of the Wandelweiser composers collective, he is perhaps best known as an interpreter of experimental piano music. His own music has been performed internationally to wide acclaim.
Five Pianos is a composition for five pianists composed in 1972 by American composer Morton Feldman. The piece is scored for five pianos and one celesta performed by the fourth pianist; the performers are also required to hum specific notes throughout the composition. It was first performed in Berlin on July 16, 1972, as part of the Berliner Musiktage festival, with the composer as one of the humming pianists.
Hallowe'en, also initially entitled Allegro vivace: Hallowe'en, is a short composition for piano quintet by American composer Charles Ives. It was probably composed in 1907 and was part of Three Outdoor Scenes, a collection of pieces that also included Central Park in the Dark.
The Gong on the Hook and Ladder or Firemen's Parade on Main Street, normally shortened as The Gong on the Hook and Ladder and also initially entitled Allegro moderato, is a short composition by American composer Charles Ives.
"Hymn: Largo cantabile", S. 84/1, sometimes also referred to as "Largo cantabile: Hymn" and often shortened as "Hymn", is a composition by American composer Charles Ives written in 1904. Grouped in the suite A Set of Three Short Pieces, it is published and commonly performed as a standalone work.
Tone Roads No. 1 is a short composition for chamber ensemble by American composer Charles Ives. It was finished in 1911.
Touches: Chorale, Eight Variations and Coda, often shortened as Touches, is a composition by American composer Leonard Bernstein. Composed in 1980, it is one of Bernstein's last compositions for solo piano.
Palimpsest is a composition for chamber ensemble by Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis. It was composed in 1979.
| Music |
|
|---|---|
| Related | |
