Morton Feldman - String Quartet (1994)

From zen for piano last Friday, to zen for strings today.  The last decade of Morton Feldman's life saw him turn to mostly chamber music, hushed dynamics, and increasingly lengthy works.  String Quartet was written in 1979, and recorded for the first time in January 1993 by The Group For Contemporary Music.  The piece might have filled an entire CD with a minute to spare, but it's still about four and a half hours shorter than Feldman's String Quartet II.  One to get lost in for sure, as glowing pulses of sound are occasionally broken up by choppier timbres, and Feldman's modular form of writing periodically reprises little figures with subtle development.

Alternate cover (Naxos reissue, 2006)

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Piano and String Quartet
Durations/Coptic Light
Rothko Chapel
Two short pieces on Extended Voices