Morton Feldman, Triadic Memories, a piece that keeps drawing me back for another listen.
Here’s a bit that I wrote to a friend a while ago:
I’ve been listening to a recording (Sabine Liebner) of Feldman’s Triadic Memories. There are surprisingly many: I wonder if it will become something like Bach’s solo suites for cello, something that every self-respecting pianist has to tackle at some point. (Though less likely to make it into film soundtracks etc. I’d guess).
I found this very interesting set of essays by a pianist on Feldman’s work, beginning with the problem of the score. He thinks that the transcriptions using music engraving software are hopelessly inadequate, and what you really need is a facsimile of Feldman’s handwritten score, which, surprisingly, is obtainable. I liked “Feldman’s music is singularly tactile with a strong quality of being hand-made.” Also, he found a lot of outright errors in the transcriptions of Feldman’s score.
I found the whole series of posts to be a great example of a close reading of a musical piece. In a way I’m surprised at how much structure he finds in Memories: I’ve tended to think of it as a very intuitive piece. But as he says, it’s less like architecture and more like a journal entry.