Triadic Memories: a conversation



El pasado 2 de enero tuvo lugar un interesante debate en mi página de Facebook sobre la duración de Triadic Memories, una de las obras maestras del compositor Morton Feldman, publicada en 1981. En el debate improvisado participaron algunos pianistas que han grabado esta composición, como Aki Takahashi y John Snijders. A continuación una transcripción del debate:


Michael Pisaro: Thanks and nice list Javier - a bunch of these I need to hear (I'm going to get the Snijders tout suite). Your No. 6 completely escaped my notice - need to hear that one too (along with your No. 1 and well, several others). The Marchetti record is a personal favorite.

Javier Santafe: The Snijders is very good, Michael. Recorded 17 years ago!!!

Taylan Susam: I love Triadic Memories but dislike most of the recordings on offer... The Liebner was my favorite but the Snijders (which I've only listened to once) has a good chance of overtaking that position... It's VERY alive.

Javier Santafe: Agreed, Taylan. Liebner's is also one of my favorites, but this one is great too.

Javier Santafe: ... and both recordings made near at the same time, october 2000 and may 2001.

Michael Pisaro: The second Tilbury recording (the really long one) is a personal favorite. Haven't heard the Liebner, strangely, since I like so many of her other recordings - but will amend that. Love the old Aki Takahashi one - which was the first I could stand.

Javier Santafe: Curiously, Michael, Takahashi's is the shortest version, and Liebner's, the longest one. Near twice the duration.

Michael Pisaro: Indeed. (Is hers longer than Tilbury?) But the piece is weird that way. Aki gets the rhythm so beautifully (I guess that's why the faster tempo) and John finds so much counterpoint/harmony (or whatever you call it with this music) - which perhaps can only really be heard at the slower tempo. It's one of those pieces I think that really lends itself to a diversity of approaches (even though it appears to be rather pinned down in the score).

Javier Santafe: Aki Takahashi is a great pianist. She told me that she recorded "For Bunita Marcus" some years ago for Mode Records, but not yet released. Hope to see this out soon.

Aki Takahashi: Javier Santafe happy new year! I'd like to explain about my "shortest" tempo: I recorded TM for ALM in 1983. I worked with Morton Feldman from 1980 until his death in 1987 and we worked on TM in details and often he heard my performances of the piece. The manuscript has a tempo mark as you see in the photo. Then, the printed score was published in 1987 and, to my big surprise, all the numbers for how many times to repeat as well as the tempo mark disappeared from the score. I don't remember exactly but anyway I reported the publisher about this mistake. After that I didn't know what happened because I didn't get the corrected edition. But recently I had a question about the tempo from a pianist, who told me that there is still no tempo mark!

Javier Santafe: Happy new year, Aki. And thanks for this information. I then understand that the duration of the piece mostly depends on the pianist.

Javier Santafe: Belgian pianist Jean-Luc Fafchamps recorded TM in 1990 for Sub Rosa. Then he recorded it again in 2009, with the following remarks on the booklet: "Recorded November 2009, mastered October 2010, conceived in the flow of time without editing, performing the corrected edition of the score, published in 1991, 20 years after Jean-Luc Fafchamps' first recording (1990) of the 1987 score".

Javier Santafe: So, the 1987 score you mention was corrected in 1991.

Aki Takahashi: As I wrote, I don't have the corrected edition, but it seems like it has all the numbers for repetition but still no tempo mark that is what I heard from the pianist. I still use the manuscript when I perform that's why I don't need the new edition ^^. I, too, rerecorded the piece for mode at their request a few years ago. I have a feeling that the duration was longer than before!


Mark Knoop: The current edition (UE21448) does have the tempo mark, although with an incorrect footnote: "No tempo indication in the manuscript"! It also includes the repetition numbers. It's astonishing how badly UE edited Feldman - all the editions are filled with errors and terrible editorial decisions. At the very least, they should include a facsimile of the manuscript ...

John Snijders: Aki Takahashi It's been ages... Hope you are well. Actually, I have looked at my copy of the score, which is also the manuscript that I bought from UE in 1985, and the tempo marking that you have in your copy has mysteriously disappeared! There is no tempo indication at all at the start, so that would probably be why there isn't one in the final typeset score either. It's interesting that yours does have a tempo ("the usual" q=63-66, as Feldman told me in Middelburg in 1987), but oddly enough I have found, and I think we discussed this years ago, that this tempo feels too fast for the piece, making it impossible to play it in the 90 minutes Feldman thought it should last. I have found that if you keep the 63-66 but apply it to the dotted quaver instead of the crotchet, you will end up with more or less 90 minutes. It does leave the riddle of when and why the marking disappeared...


Aki Takahashi: John Snijders Nice to hear from you, John! This piece was actually written at my request. Right after I heard the premiere of his String Quartet (90 minutes long!) in 1980 in NYC, because I was so moved by the piece, I immediately asked Feldman to write a piano piece with the same duration! Since then, he said (and believed?) its duration should be 90 minutes. When I was given the score, I calculated the duration mechanically following the tempo mark, it was 48' 20". The old recording of mine (which is "the shortest tempo"!) lasts 61' 18". That means this playing is already much longer, because it's not a machine but music! Now I remember that, once Feldman came back from Europe, he said he heard a performance of TM there but the tempo was much too slow and the dynamics too soft, but he was too modest to say anything to the pianist (lol). I sometimes play the piece slow like over 80 minutes when the hall has good acoustics with long resonance. Feldman and I once discussed about such differences and agreed that the tempo should be flexible under each acoustic circumstance.

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