Mariano Etkin: Arenas (a la memoria de Morton Feldman) (1987)
for piano

Arenas (Sands - to the memory of Morton Feldman) was written right after the death of Feldman. I was lucky to meet him on several occasions, sharing long conversations, having the chance to be exposed to his unique wit and wisdom.

The piece does not include literal quotations of his music; rather I tried to use some of his characteristic sounds and procedures within a short time span. I did not intend to re-compose or re-create Feldman's style: I wanted to evoke a small part of his sound world from my own listening standpoint.

The title is a reference to the idea of something that is made of very tiny components while having, at the same time, an enormous range of variety in forms, colours and textures, never loosing the properties and "weight" of the components. A matter of scale, as Feldman would have said. Furthermore, there is a lateral meaning related to the sandglass: an instrument for the measurement of time.

Mariano Etkin