'Feldman for Strings' Darragh Morgan

Feldman for Strings

Much has been written (including by John Tilbury) on approaches to playing Feldman though not necessarily from the perspective of string players. In our approach to these works The Smith Quartet and John Tilbury considered three key aspects: sonority, articulation and their unusually lengthy durations.

When many of these pieces were first performed, Feldman requested that the string players use ‘leather mutes’. However we now have very light and excellent plastic practice mutes available to the same effect, more reliable and easier to use. Another score marking employed by Feldman is an instruction to have the hair on the bows as loose as possible, the aim being that, since the majority of his work is incredibly quiet this is the easiest way to create this dynamic. Ironically, with the resurgence of period performance and easy access to baroque bows, we have performed and recorded this repertoire with these bows. The benefits are multiple and, most importantly for us, the lightness of these bows helps both physically in playing music that can routinely be 80 minutes in length, and musically as their arc-like shape lends well to the wonderful melodic and harmonic contours of Feldman’s string writing.

The violinist Paul Zukofsky (one of my musical mentors), was a close personal collaborator and dedicatee of Feldman’s music for violin. He speaks of the ‘emotional’ difference in Feldman’s notation; for example, between an Eb & D# and now having played these works many times one can truly feel the intensity of difference between these notes. Together we have uncovered the subtle nuances of colour, imaginatively and technically, to convey these differences.

For us, in performing and recording these pieces, we felt that a ‘vibrato free’ style of playing created a type of musical purity akin to Feldman’s own intentions. Of course this also complements John Tilbury’s delicate pianistic touch.

In the score of both these pieces the dynamic indication ppp (extremely soft) is given. We suggest that you adjust your volume control accordingly.

Darragh Morgan