Morton Feldman - For Philip Guston

Philip Guston was a painter from the movement of "abstract expressionism", which condensed in New York in the 1950s and 1960s - as a circle of artists, literary figures and musicians, in which Morton Feldman was also known to have moved. Feldman once credited the painter friend with opening his eyes to sound as a direct, malleable medium, thus freeing him as a composer in the first place. Especially in the 1980s, Feldman made it a habit to write large dedication pieces for various artists, including "For Philip Guston," written in 1984 for flute, piano and percussion. The source material of the commemorative piece, which lasts a good four and a half hours, is the sequence of notes in the name of John Cage, who introduced Feldman to Philip Guston in 1950. Guston commissioned Morton Feldman to "say Kaddish" at his graveside - after the two had not spoken for the last eight years of Guston's life. Feldman later stated that his own aesthetic fanaticism had been the cause of this break - and that with the piece he wanted to follow the turn Guston had taken: "To stop asking questions".André Fatton Contributors and additional information: Christoph Bösch flute, alto flute, piccolo Daniel Stalder percussion Jürg Henneberger piano, celesta Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.