Morton Feldman: Triadic Memories & Piano
- Submitting institution
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University of Durham
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 112299
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
- Hat Hut Records, Basel, Switzerland
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Performance research into the music of the New York School of composers, with a special emphasis on the works of Morton Feldman and John Cage, has been an important part of Snijders’ practice since 1988. Triadic Memories, Feldman’s longest and most multi-faceted piano piece, requires a number of specific performance issues to be resolved. In this CD release Snijders has dealt with these performance-related problems to try and find a solution that is in line with the composer’s own remarks about the piece. The piece lacks a tempo indication, and the tempo marking that Feldman used in the vast majority of his other compositions since 1970 (q=63-66) does not produce a musically meaningful result. However, other than the composer saying the piece lasts 90 minutes, it is challenging to ascertain what the tempo should be. It was necessary to find a tempo producing a performance that comes close to this length, whilst retaining the characteristics of Feldman’s later works. Extremely low dynamics without losing a reverberant sound, needing a very specific attitude towards touch, the rhythmical strictness that still needs to sound flexible, the use of half-pedalling, these all demand a lot of control and constant attention to get the specific overtone-rich sound the piece requires. As the manuscript makes Feldman’s compositional use of the grid for form, scale and structure immediately apparent, Snijders decided to use this for performance, instead of the computer-set edition where this vital visual performance information is absent. Piano is a seldom-performed piece due to the complexity and physical impossibility of performing the score as written, needing specific and rigorous performance decisions to come as close as possible to the printed music. The CD was released in September 2017 and is distributed word-wide by Outhere Music.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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