Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Quartet with Catheter

If you can pull yourself away from toilet talk for a few minutes, check out this short essay on Morton Feldman's long String Quartet No. 2, written by one of the musicians who premiered it. Topping six hours, the piece creates problems for performers on all sorts of levels (not least - managing body fluids) but this one was surprising:

"Another big challenge, perhaps less obvious, is the act of playing very quietly. It actually requires much more physical energy to do less than more. Playing a virtuoso concerto that requires great technical agility is actually less physically demanding then playing softly, because we are accustomed to being in motion, not still. Downshifting both the speed and pressure of the bow goes against many years of training."

Using electronic instruments, where volume shifts are easily accomplished with knobs and pedals, I sometimes forget how tough it is to play quietly. But it is incredibly difficult: one tends to slow down, miss notes, lose pitch consistency.
Really curious to hear the piece now - and trying to imagine how one feels after six hours of repetitive music. This guy seemed to like it. Might try myself and report back. If you're in New York and curious, you need not commit.

7 comments:

alice said...

cool. i like how they encouraged people to wander around and listen in different parts of the hall. i suspect sitting on the stage would keep things pretty interesting.

Karen said...

"this guy seemed to like it" link is to today's (7/4) Times.

Anonymous said...

Link fixed. Apologies.

Karen said...

but why WRITE a piece that is so difficult to play?

Anonymous said...

why write a book that's difficult to read?

Karen said...

Today's Times said that a Flux founder had his violin stolen when he fell asleep in the CLark St. (Bklyn) subway station.

And difficult books aren't physically difficult.

Karen said...

7/7
same link problem.