Marilyn Nonken plays Triadic Memories
Morton Feldman's epochal Triadic Memories from (1981) stands as one of the defining entries into his catalogue of works.
Here Marilyn Norken takes on the ninety-minute solo piano epic, and accordingly observes the supremely quiet restraint Feldman prescribes for the performance. Although Triadic Memories is concerned with a low volume and meditative anti-dynamism, there's really nothing about this music that might be described as easy.
This is music at its most resolutely slow-burning, with its vastness and low volume subtlety mimicking the monolithic Rothko paintings from which Feldman derived so much inspiration. What initially seems to be one unwieldy mass of harmonics and repeated motifs gradually reveals itself to be an infinitesimally detailed portrait of the minuscule nuances of phrasing and the relationship between individual tones.
One of the things this piece - and certainly this performance of it - achieves, is a focus on the beauty of the decaying note, hearing a chord melt into another, and sometimes into absolute silence.
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Morton Feldman's epochal Triadic Memories from (1981) stands as one of the defining entries into his catalogue of works.
Here Marilyn Norken takes on the ninety-minute solo piano epic, and accordingly observes the supremely quiet restraint Feldman prescribes for the performance. Although Triadic Memories is concerned with a low volume and meditative anti-dynamism, there's really nothing about this music that might be described as easy.
This is music at its most resolutely slow-burning, with its vastness and low volume subtlety mimicking the monolithic Rothko paintings from which Feldman derived so much inspiration. What initially seems to be one unwieldy mass of harmonics and repeated motifs gradually reveals itself to be an infinitesimally detailed portrait of the minuscule nuances of phrasing and the relationship between individual tones.
One of the things this piece - and certainly this performance of it - achieves, is a focus on the beauty of the decaying note, hearing a chord melt into another, and sometimes into absolute silence.
Morton Feldman's epochal Triadic Memories from (1981) stands as one of the defining entries into his catalogue of works.
Here Marilyn Norken takes on the ninety-minute solo piano epic, and accordingly observes the supremely quiet restraint Feldman prescribes for the performance. Although Triadic Memories is concerned with a low volume and meditative anti-dynamism, there's really nothing about this music that might be described as easy.
This is music at its most resolutely slow-burning, with its vastness and low volume subtlety mimicking the monolithic Rothko paintings from which Feldman derived so much inspiration. What initially seems to be one unwieldy mass of harmonics and repeated motifs gradually reveals itself to be an infinitesimally detailed portrait of the minuscule nuances of phrasing and the relationship between individual tones.
One of the things this piece - and certainly this performance of it - achieves, is a focus on the beauty of the decaying note, hearing a chord melt into another, and sometimes into absolute silence.