Morton Feldman - Durations 2
Durations 2, for cello & piano (1960)
Ensemble Avantgarde
The second of the five Durations pieces, but the first to be written, is also the shortest of the series, lasting only about three minutes. As with the other four pieces, in the score of Durations 2 Feldman employed normal notation but removed the note stems that would specify the duration of each note, leaving it to the performers to determine how long each note in their individual parts should be. They then move through their parts at their own speed. Durations 2 is to be played very slowly, and Feldman wanted the cello and piano to avoid what he called "the sound of linear counterpoint." There are, however, enough shared pitches between the two instruments to suggest some sort of interplay, or dialogue, between them. The piece is consistently quiet and gently dissonant. It acts as something of an interlude between the longer and more weighty Durations 1 and Durations 3 when the works are played as a set. [allmusic.com]
Art by Andy Warhol