Feldman - Trio

The Guardian 80

Ives Ensemble
(hat[now]ART)

The Hat Hut label is working its way methodically through the rarefied products of Morton Feldman’s last decade. The latest additions to its catalogue are this 20-year-old recording of Feldman’s Trio for piano, violin, and viola from 1980, as well as a disc devoted to two of the late piano works, Triadic Memories and Piano, played by John Snijders, who is also the pianist in the Ives Ensemble.

Even though it is relatively short by the norms of late Feldman, the Trio is one of the less frequently recorded of his final works. Clocking in at 76 minutes, the Ives performance is relatively swift – a version on the Mode label, released seven years ago, lasts almost half as long again – but that only reinforces the sense of unease underpinning the whole work, with its unstable rhythms, constant dissonances, and repeatedly thwarted cadences. It demonstrates what a mysterious, unsettling piece the Trio is, with moments of rapt beauty alongside music that either obsesses on a single chord or comes close to disintegrating.