Question: What do Toru Takemitsu and Giacinto Scelsi have in common? Answer: they were both good friends with Morton Feldman (pictured). Takemitsu even wrote a musical memorial for him, which is heard together with Feldman’s Coptic Light and orchestral works by Scelsi today.
Coptic Light is Morton Feldman’s last major orchestral work. It was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1985, but here it sounds in a beautiful performance by the Concertgebouworkest conducted by Eötvös.
Equally colorful is Twill by Twilight, in memory of Morton Feldman, by the greatest Japanese composer of the 20th century, Toru Takemitsu, who wrote the piece in 1989, a year after Feldman’s death. The performance by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Oliver Knussen, which you can listen to, received worldwide enthusiastic reviews.
Quattro pezzi per orchestra and Chukrum by the Italian Giacinto Scelsi are ideal examples of a sound language that cannot be compared to anything else. It is thanks to Morton Feldman that the world could get to know it, because through his mediation, Scelsi, who was long a marginal composer, ended up at a large publishing house and his enigmatic music found a larger audience.
- Morton Feldman – Coptic Light / Concertgebouworkest conducted by Péter Eötvös
- Toru Takemitsu – Twill by Twilight / London Sinfonietta conducted by Oliver Knussen
- Giacinto Scelsi – Quattro pezzi per orchestra / Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken conducted by Hans Zender
- Giacinto Scelsi – Chukrum (part 3 and 4) / Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Peter Rundel
