The quietest composer of the twentieth century, Morton Feldman had three decades of his work given at LSO St Luke's by Eliza McCarthy, Juliet Fraser and Apartment House.
Eliza McCarthy, Juliet Fraser and Apartment House gave a recital of Morton Feldman’s music at LSO St Luke’s in Old Street on Saturday 19 September 2026.
Feldman was born in New York in 1926 and died in Buffalo in 1987. He studied with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe and fell in with John Cage in the 1950s. He took more from the abstract expressionist painters he drank with than from any composer.
For a decade he wrote in graphic notation. He drew a line for the length of a note and a number for how many to play, and left pitch to the performer.
The programme spanned three decades of his work. Projection 2, from 1951, is one of the graphic scores. Three Voices sets a soprano against two tapes of herself.
Triadic Memories closed the recital: 90 minutes of solo piano in which patterns almost repeat and never quite do.
McCarthy is one of the leading interpreters of new piano music in Britain, and Fraser is a soprano. Apartment House have played this repertoire in Britain for 30 years.