Richard Sanderson asked me to present a piece at his Micro-Classical festival, an annual event that favoured contemporary composed music. I’ve often credited Morton Feldman as a considerable early influence and this was an attempt to assimilate Feldman’s sound world.
Subdivisions with Morton Feldman was performed once. There was no rehearsal: Nick and Hannah handled the intention of the piece superbly from a few spoken instructions prior to performance. Rhodri was unable to make the concert so we prerecorded his contribution, the harp part from Feldman’s Durations V. Nick, Hannah, and I improvised our parts. The fifth element was a recording of Art Lange reading from Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman. It is a pleasure finally to make the piece available.
Phil Durrant performed a live electronics piece dedicated to David Tudor at that same concert. The New York School was celebrated well that sunny afternoon in Stoke Newington, twenty years ago.
— Mark Wastell
Confront Archives 1: Subdivisions with Morton Feldman (1998)
Hannah Horsfall: flute
Nick Smith: percussion
Mark Wastell: violoncello
Rhodri Davies: prerecorded concert harp
1. Subdivisions with Morton Feldman 16:58
Recorded at Micro-Classical, Stoke Newington Library, London, 1998-04-04.
The Confront Archives are for those who pay more attention to music than to tape hiss. Not every performance that was captured survives in perfect sound. Confront Archives releases tell the story of the music through previously unreleased recordings.
