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Hmm. Miklós Rózsa? Peter Schickele's long-awaited variations on "Rock-A-Bye Baby?" What on earth is this? Get ready, prepare yourself for a real Folgers Crystals moment: Morton Feldman! Yup, Morty penned a violin sonata way back in 1945, and the good folks at OgreOgress want the world to hear it. And not only the sonata, but everything single bit of music the composer ever wrote for solo violin and viola, with or without piano. Fans of the composer won't be disappointed as Christina Fong (violin and viola) and Paul Hersey (piano) deliver quality performances throughout. I'm not so sure the sonata bears any of the seeds of Feldman's later styles, it's more like a cabinet of curiosities. To my ears, it sounds a tad derivative, but let's chalk that up to youth. Of course it wasn't long before graph paper set the composer in entirely new directions. I can't help but think the composer felt Hubbert's peak had come to pass, as far as melody was concerned, and the only solution was to leave pitch specificity completely behind—for a while anyway. All the compositions on this 2-CD set are presented chronologically, so you can hear how stylistic shifts evolve over the decades.
—RN
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