Exploring Stasis: Florence Millet and the JACK Quartet Interpret Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet
For many listeners, music is a narrative—a journey of tension and release, a story told through melodic development and harmonic resolution. But Morton Feldman’s 1985 masterpiece, Piano and String Quartet, demands a different kind of attention. It doesn’t tell a story; it creates a space. A recent recording by pianist Florence Millet and the JACK Quartet captures this essence, offering a crystalline exploration of what Feldman described as “stasis.”
As the culmination of a lifetime of musical research, this piece was a personal favorite of the composer. While first commissioned and recorded in 1993 by Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet, this new interpretation brings a fresh, magnetic clarity to one of the most challenging works in the contemporary classical canon.
The Concept of Musical Stasis
To understand Piano and String Quartet, one must first understand Feldman’s rejection of the traditional European musical narrative. In most classical traditions, sound is often treated as a metaphor or a vehicle for drama, where the listener waits for a resolution or a thematic payoff. Feldman sought to strip this away.
He viewed his music as a state of stasis. Rather than moving toward a destination, the music exists in the “here and now.” This approach shifts the listener’s role from decoding a musical thought to simply hearing sounds breathe. Over the course of the quintet’s 80-minute duration, the music avoids traditional development, instead utilizing repeated, slightly varied motivic pulsations that establish a meditative, suspended atmosphere.
A Dialogue Between Sound and Sight
Feldman’s philosophy mirrored the visual approach of painter Mark Rothko, for whom Feldman wrote The Rothko Chapel in 1971. Just as Rothko’s expansive color fields invite the viewer to perceive color as an objective phenomenon rather than a representation of something else, Feldman’s music invites the listener to perceive vibration and resonance as objective facts.
By distancing himself from the idea of music as “expression”—a stance shared by his admired contemporary Igor Stravinsky—Feldman removes the literary layer from the listening experience. The goal is not to translate musical facts into a literary content but to experience the raw physical property of the sound itself.
Technical Precision in Performance
Executing a work defined by stasis requires immense discipline. Any intrusion of personal ego or overly dramatic phrasing would shatter the delicate equilibrium of the piece. Florence Millet and the JACK Quartet achieve this balance through a mastery of restraint.
- Piano Articulation: Millet focuses on the “attack” of the notes—the very birth of the sound—which is a critical parameter in Feldman’s work. Her execution of broken chords (which Feldman preferred over the term “arpeggios”) creates a sense of surprise and fragility.
- String Control: The JACK Quartet—comprising Christopher Otto and Augustin Wulliman on violins, John Pickford Richards on viola, and Jay Campbell on cello—employs a strict absence of vibrato. By avoiding aggressive bow strokes, they create magnetic, shimmering layers of sound that support the piano’s resonance.
The Role of Acoustics and Engineering
The success of this recording is not solely due to the performers but also to the environment. Recorded at the Immanuelskirche in Wuppertal, the acoustic properties of the space enhance the “crystalline purity” of the performance. Under the guidance of sound engineer Thomas Sehringer, the recording captures the stretched echoes and subtle chromatic shifts that allow the magic of the piece to operate, provided the listener is fully present.
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- Core Philosophy: The piece centers on “stasis,” moving away from traditional narrative or dramatic structures.
- Listening Experience: It encourages the listener to abandon the habit of “decoding” and instead focus on the objectivity of sound.
- Artistic Influence: The work shares a perceptual goal with the paintings of Mark Rothko—prioritizing pure perception over representation.
- Performance Style: Characterized by a lack of vibrato in strings and a focus on the precise attack of piano notes.
Looking Forward
Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet remains a benchmark for minimalist and contemporary composition. By challenging our innate desire for resolution, it forces a renewal of how we listen. The interpretation by Florence Millet and the JACK Quartet serves as a reminder that in the silence and the stillness, there is a profound depth of musical discovery waiting for those willing to simply hear.