Aki Takahashi, Kronos Quartet - Feldman: Piano and String Quartet (1993)

Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet Review by Glenn Swan
New York native and avant-garde composer Morton Feldman composed this work just two years before his death in 1987, and it haunts the listener into a prism of melancholy. Shifting, unsettling, and yet every bit hypnotic, pianist Aki Takahashi and the world-renowned Kronos Quartet conjure up the ghost of Feldman to wander the streets of New York as if they were abandoned. This single piece, over 79 minutes in length, is like an icy flower that blooms almost undetected. Takahashi is so delicate on the piano as to whisper quiet clusters of notes, reverberated by the Kronos Quartet for further contemplation. Feldman often preferred his performances and recordings to be very quiet, almost inaudible at times. Truly, it would make no sense to play a Feldman piece at volume ten on the stereo -- it would be like shining huge spotlights on a Rothko painting. The beauty is in the shadows, and the chill of "Piano and String Quartet" opens it's vast arms and pulls the listener in alongside the darkness. Breathtaking.