[Morton Feldman Page] [Feldman: Homages]

John Allemeier: Chasing Feldman
for violin, viola, cello, piano and percussion


A programme note by the composer says:

As an American composer living in Europe, I am constantly confronted with the legacy of Morton Feldman. European composers and musicians consider Morton Feldman to be one of the most important figures in American music in the 20th Century. Ironically, his music is virtually unknown to many educated musicians in the United States.

The original Chasing Feldman is for violin and piano. It was composed as a reaction to my experiences at the Internationalen Ferienkurse fuer Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany (International Summer Courses for New Music). The impact of Feldman's music has resulted in many young European composers imitating his style and ideas. In Darmstadt, there were endless concerts of meditative music that wondered aimlessly through time. Sometime during the 18th concert of slow quiet music, all I could think was "if I could only get my hands on Morton Feldman right now." Chasing Feldman is a tribute to Morton Feldman that sounds like my music, not his.

Approximately six months after I finished Chasing Feldman, I decided to return to some of the same ideas to create a chamber piece, Chasing Feldman (Revisited). While composing the original piece, there was a slow section with the violin playing only natural harmonics. This section was left out of the original, but plays a major role in the chamber piece. The only material the two pieces share is the contrapuntal fast music.