David Fennessy composed Piano Trio (Music for the pauses in a conversation between John Cage and Morton Feldman) for the 2010 McEwen Commission. This was premiered by the Da Vinci Trio featuring Anthony Moffat (violin), Robert Irvine (cello) and John Thwaites (piano) on Saturday 20 November 2010, 2:30pm at the Concert Hall, University of Glasgow.
Other pieces performed in the concert were Elegy (1991) by Edward McGuire (b. 1948), Piobaireachd (1991) by Sally Beamish (b. 1956) and Yet Ha'e I Silence Left (1992) by William Sweeney (b. 1950).
Listen to… Music for the pauses… by David Fennessy
Programme Note
David Fennessy (b. 1976) - Piano Trio (Music for the pauses in a conversation between John Cage and Morton Feldman)
Between July 1966 and January 1967 the American composers John Cage (1912‑1992) and Morton Feldman (1926-1987) recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. It is a twenty-minute segment from one of these "Radio Happenings" that constitutes the electronic part of my piece.
The conversation itself is punctuated by long, ponderous silences and I have utilized them as a kind of mould into which I have poured my own musical material.
(Recording used with the kind permission of Barbara Monk Feldman and the John Cage Trust).
David Fennessy (2010)
Performer biographies & full details of the Piano Trio premiere can be found in the McEwen concert programme 2010.