Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra
The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light).
The title refers to a significant trove of manuscripts in various languages discovered by German researchers in the early 20th century along the ancient Silk Road and which had been hidden away during the war. Feldman likely saw some of the collection when parts of it were again made available in Berlin, where he lived in the early 1970s. Feldman’s delicate stitching together of fragmentary but elusively repetitive particles hints at the enigmatic character of their namesake.
Feldman’s score repeatedly asks for an intensely subdued dynamic field (ppppp) which belies the tension of its chromatic blurs of dissonance and shifting pulsations. There are no violins to sweeten the palette, giving Feldman’s pointillist chords a tangier sound. Like Rothko’s lozenges of color, the musical fabric slowly draws out slight variations in perspective as fragments intersect and become absorbed into the whole, leaving us to savor their resonance.
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra Part 2, Part 3. The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light). The title […]
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