Search - Morton Feldman, Bradley Lubman, New Millennium Ensemble :: Morton Feldman: For Frank O'Hara; Bass Clarinet & Percussion; De Kooning

Nothing earth shattering here...

Sparky P. | composer, all around nice guy, yada yada yada | 03/15/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"[...] All of these items have been released before, three out of the four more than once (Bass Clarinet and Percussion and Instruments 1 already appear on the Etcetera disc "The Ecstasy of the Moment"; DeKooning and For Frank O'Hara appear on the Wergo chamber music disc). There is a wealth of Feldman pieces that are still awaiting the light of CD day (such as Numbers, Between Categories, First Principles, and so on), so when I saw that this was coming I was very disappointed of the selections. This is not the first release of Feldman by this ensemble (see the disc "Here Comes Everybody"), and they do import other players for most of the pieces. The performances of tracks 1,3 & 4 are not bad really, but as I said, they have all been released before. The biggest disappointment of this disc, though, is Bass Clarinet and Percussion. The flaw of this performance (and it is consistent throughout) is that all of the bass clarinet portions that are notated in treble clef in the score are played an octave lower. With prior knowledge of this piece in two other recordings, it is now pretty well established (as far as things go) how this is played so there is no excuse!"