Chamber Music Week: Five Pianos/Canto Ostinato

• Morton Feldman (1926–1987): Five pianos (1972)
• Simeon ten Holt: (1923–2012): Canto Ostinato (1976)

Morton Feldman (1926–1987): Five pianos (1972)

[Five Pianos] began by finding myself humming tones while improvising on the piano. The vocal or humming sounds were quite short, and as the piano sounds lingered, I began to hear other pianos, other humming. Two, three, four pianos were too transparent – the fifth piano became like the pedal blur needed to complete the overall sound I was after. An occasional celeste was added to give the music a more heightened (or brighter) surface which emerges and disappears throughout the work. A recurring ostinato heard in all the pianos (the figure never repeats itself in the same tempo) is another aspect of a "surface" appearing and dissolving into this almost flat, Byzantine canvas. (Morton Feldman)

Simeon ten Holt: (1923–2012): Canto Ostinato (1976)

Simeon’s compositions are not just single works, but rather a collection of an infinite number of compositions, all hidden in a single written code. Like a multitude of images hidden in a holographic photographic image, the script outlines a solution space in which actual shape and form will develop in time towards its full extent and depth. Every performance is therefore unique, yet recognizable as a part of the larger collection. Like life itself, it emerges and takes shape in a complex interaction between the genotypes as a code in the score and the context of performers and audience. This evolutionary and interactive characteristic distinguishes the music from the mainstream minimal music and gives it a special position within this type of compositions. Whereas the minimal music is essentially a modernist, constructive style, Simeon’s music is better characterized as post-modernist and organic in nature.