Morton Feldman - Crippled Symmetry: at June in Buffalo.

Morton Feldman - Crippled Symmetry: at June in Buffalo (Frozen Reeds)
              This time I am doing some modern classical music by Morton Feldman that was sent to me by Ian from Frozen Reeds which is a record label in Finland. I would like to thank Ian for sending me this music because I've never heard modern classical music before and so I am going to enjoy listening to this very much because I always like hearing new things. 
              Morton Feldman was born in New York to Russian/Jewish parents on January 12, 1926 and he made his classical music and then he died aged 61 of cancer of the pancreas. 61 is a bit young to die so it's a shame that he died then just like it's a shame when anyone dies - I'm older than he was when he died cos i'm 69 but I'm not bothered that i'm going to die because I'm not going to know anything about it probably and I've had a good time in my life and been happy and had good friends and enjoyed myself.       

             When I was getting ready to do this review with Arlo, who helps me with the writing, we looked up all about him and that's how I know when he died and where he came from and we also looked up about modern classical music because I didn't know anything about it so I wanted to learn a bit to help me out with writing the review.  When I first heard of modern classical when we started this review I thought of Nut Rocker by B.Bumble & the Stingers because Nut Rocker is a song that a rock band made of a Tchaikovsky tune. You can hear Nut Rocker here if you like:

              Nut Rocker isn't modern classical though because what we learnt about modern classical is that people in classical music decided to not use the rules of old classical music and make up some of their own rules to see what it sounded like to do that - This means it sounds a bit like old classical music but a bit stranger and not at all like B.Bumble. On these CD's that i was sent which are two CDs of some music of Morton Feldman played in a concert in New York you can tell it is classical music because it has piano in it and flutes and instruments like xylophones and they are all instruments that you play classical music on and you can tell it is modern classical because it sounds a bit like older classical but stranger.

              The first CD in this set of two CD's is the first half of the concert which happened on June 12th 2000 that was played by Eberhard Blum (Flute, Alto flute, Bass flute), Jan Williams (Glokenspiel, Vibraphone) and Nils Vigland (Piano, Celesta) and it starts off with them all playing their instruments together and it is quite slow music and is quite pretty sounding and soft. Then after a little bit it gets even quieter with mostly just flute and vibraphone (or maybe it's glokenspiel) and it sounds a bit like music you would play to a baby to get it relaxed and stop it crying. I think it sounds like music to play to a baby because it has lot of twinkly sounds and soft bits like music for babies has. After a bit you start hearing more piano and it starts sounds a bit heavier than the other instruments and it doesn't sound so much like music for a baby anymore because it sounds more like music for ballet dancing I think and I can imagine people doing some slow ballet dancing where the dancers are slowly waving their arms about. I think this would be nice music to dance to if you were a bit older like me and couldn't move very quick because it is quite slow music and so it wouldn't be tiring. 

                The music kind of carries on being quite slow with different sounds coming in from different instruments and after a bit I thought that this sounded a bit like music you would have in an old black and white horror film about ghosts or something like that because it sounds quite spooky. If I was to make a film with this music I would call it Behind the Bloody Walls and I'd have a house in it where the curtains are always closed and there would be blood on the walls and ghosts that live in the walls that come out of them at night to scare people, I think this would make a very good film indeed.

                 After listening a bit more I was trying to think of when would be a good time to listen to this music and I thought it would be good music to play if you were having a meal with friends or maybe if you were on your own it would be good music to listen to if you wanted to relax and you could lie on your bed and close your eyes and it would be very relaxing indeed because of how calm and slow and nice it is. I liked this CD of the first half of this concert very much. 
                   The second CD is of the second half of the concert and it starts of with mainly flute which I thought was quite nice and it reminded me again of music you would play to a child to get it to sleep like a lullaby, I think this music would work to get kids asleep because it's soft sounding music and I think that is probably what children like. After a bit the piano comes in more and it's still soft and relaxing and nice to listen to because the sounds are quite long in this bit and that makes it even more relaxing than maybe the other CD was. My favourite bit on CD was a bit where the flute sounded like the blower on a ship and it made me think of an old docks with an old ship coming in and I thought this was a nice thing to think of.
                      Overall I think that this a very good thing for me to listen to because it's always nice to have a change and I would like to hear more Morton Feldman and more modern classical music and learn more about it. I am going to take these CDs home and will listen to them when I want to just relax in my room, I think I will enjoy that very much. I would give this Morton Feldman music 10 out of 10 and would like to thank Ian again for sending it to me because I've enjoyed it very much.