Only (Works for Voice and Instruments)

Album Review

Only is a collection of Morton Feldman pieces featuring the voice, curated by and featuring the vocal work of the legendary Joan La Barbara, a veteran of countless contemporary ensembles and recordings. It begins (and, oddly enough, ends) with the title composition, a brief but exquisite solo voice setting of a poem by Rilke composed in 1947 when Feldman was only 21. It's an astonishingly gorgeous, mature, and romantic work, one that gives an inkling of the combination of sumptuousness and sparseness that would characterize his work much later in his career. All of the pieces, as in most Feldman, tend toward the quiet and contemplative, with the voice in somewhat the same role as the flute in his purely instrumental works. Both Vertical Thoughts 5 and For Franz Kline, dating from the early '60s, point clearly toward the towering achievements of his final years, a period brilliantly represented here by Pianos and Voices from 1972, scored for five pianos, celeste and five voices. The rigorous calm, the unforced purposiveness, all the tensions, and relaxations that make Feldman's compositions so endlessly fascinating are limned here. A thoroughly lovely album, Only is also a necessary addition for Feldman aficionados not familiar with the vocal aspect of his work.