Morton Feldman’s The Viola in My Life (1970/71) is a work of great scope and detail. Each of its first three parts is scored for viola and a variety of chamber ensembles, while the last pairs viola with orchestra in what Feldman calls a “translation” of the first three. Unlike his earlier forays into indeterminacy, Viola is thoroughly composed. Its genius lies in Feldman’s ability to forge massive amounts of empty space into a layered resonance that is anything but “minimal.” The music slowly undulates in tune with the viola’s crests and fades, touched by patches of darkness like a figure slowly walking through lattice-obstructed sunlight.

George Antheil called himself a ‘Pianist-Futurist’. A lover of speed, cars and aeroplanes, the American composer settled in the Paris of the Années Folles, where he frequented Picasso and Stravinsky, and composed works such as Sonate sauvage and Jazz Sonata, which caused a scandal: during a concert in Budapest, he even brandished a Chicago gangster-style pistol to restore silence in the hall … He hero-worshipped Beethoven, whose pieces he played in the first part of his recitals before moving onto his own music. In 1933, he returned to the United States where he met John Cage and Morton Feldman. Patkop and the young Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen – whom The Times, following what the journalist described as ‘one of those concerts you remember for ever’, presented as the violinist’s ‘doppelgänger’! – pay tribute to the ‘Bad Boy of Music’.

Overlapping textures and soft, shifting timbres are the most recognizable features of Morton Feldman's music, and his attractive sonorities draw listeners in ways other avant-garde sound structures may not. This music's appeal is also attributable to its gentle ambience, a static, meditative style that Feldman pioneered long before trance music became commonplace. The three works on this disc are among Feldman's richest creations, yet the material in each piece is subtly layered and integrated so well that many details will escape detection on first hearing. In Piano and Orchestra, the piano is treated as one texture among many, receding to the background and blending with muted brass and woodwinds in a wash of colors. Cello and Orchestra might seem like a conventional concerto movement, especially since the cellist is centrally placed on this recording and plays with a rather lyrical tone. However, Feldman's orchestral clusters are dense and interlocked, which suggests that the cello should be less prominent and blend more into the mass of sounds behind it. No such ambiguity exists in the performance of Coptic Light, which Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony Orchestra play with even dynamics and careful attention to the work's aggregate effect, which is mesmerizing.

The SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart is one of the few choirs enjoying an international reputation. Their latest recording has “America” as its subject - and presents a tremendously wide range of forms and expressions, from music written under the influence of European masters to works that boldly explore experiments in aesthetic reorientation. The big names of the U.S. composers are of course represented, including Leonard Bernstein with his single a cappella work, the “Missa Brevis”, Steve Reich with his minimalist “Proverb” and John Cage with some of his late “Number Pieces”. Everything is presented at the highest artistic level, with ravishing sonics that cannot be beat.

Feldman’s 75-minute work dedicated to his friend John Cage was written in 1982. In this new version, Aisha Orazbayeva (violin) and Mark Knoop (piano) set out to draw the listener into the charged space between the performers.