Stephen Whittington

Born to a wealthy Jewish family in New York City, pianist and composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) remains one of the key figures to emerge from the 20th Century American avant-garde. Often praised in the same breath as fellow composition icon and close friend John Cage, Feldman in his earlier years experimented with just about everything - form, tone, and notation, and particularly the idea of chance, or indeterminism, in composition. His later works further developed his appreciation for slowness and quietude, many of them exercises in (meta)physical and psychological stamina, often designed to be played for hours on end.

'Triadic Memories' (1981) was composed on a small model 'A' Steinway piano in Feldman's New York apartment. Some twenty years ago, Adelaide pianist and composer Stephen Whittington played that very piano in Feldman's apartment, to an audience which included some of the late composer's closest friends and associates. Whittington, born and raised in Adelaide, is a lecturer at Adelaide University, teaching composition, music history theory, and since 1996 is the head of the rejuvenated Electronic Music Unit begun in the 1960s by the legendary composer Tristram Cary.

Whittington will perform 'Triadic Memories' as a once-only piano recital, the piece running to around 90 minutes in length, uninterrupted, and subject to go for even longer. Speaking from his office during Orientation Week at Adelaide University, Whittington jokes, "I have done it before, so this isn't the first time. So, in this particular case you would say, 'Why would I want to inflict it upon myself again?'."

Whittington is officially "in training" for the recital, the rarely-performed piece requiring the utmost concentration from its performer. 'Triadic Memories', and indeed the wealth of background information surrounding it - taking in the theatre of memory, Kabbalist mysticism, and the piano as object and signifier - is for Whittington a boundless source of inspiration.

"I think it's a fantastic piece. The nature of it is unique in the piano repertoire. Even amongst Feldman's other piano pieces, this particular piece is quite distinctive in its character. I mean, they all have basic things, which is they tend to be very slow and very soft, but within that broad definition or description of his music there is a lot of variety. This one is fascinating from the point of view of the structure of it, the complexity of the material."

Some of Feldman's closest friends were the abstract expressionist painters Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston, and it is through their work that Feldman became increasingly interested in the tension and stasis inherent to composition which, like painting, can appear frozen while concurrently vibrating as if endlessly. In a move pre-empted by his fascination with abstract expressionism, Feldman later became enamoured with Persian carpets, his apartment housing one of the world's most renowned collections of fine rugs. It is absolutely fitting then, that Whittington will perform 'Triadic Memories' amidst the artist Hossein Valamanesh's most extensive exhibition of Persian carpets.

"It's interesting because Feldman really came to carpets via abstract expression. So it's an interesting transition from a particular kind of abstract art to the art of the carpet. And talking to Hossein, I find that in a similar kind of way, carpets have become an aspect of his art over a number of years now. He has gradually incorporated the idea of his carpets into his work."

"This is the biggest carpet thing he has ever done, and when he described it to me, what he was doing, it just reminded me so much of Feldman's own apartment..."

Which was decked out wall to wall?

"...Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with more than 200 carpets which he collected over many decades; a fantastic collection of carpets, and he was a real connoisseur of them. He wasn't buying them for investment, even though they appreciated in value. But he wasn't collecting them for that reason. He had a fantastic eye, an eye that was trained by endless nights drinking in bars in Greenwich Village with Rothko and Jackson Pollock, and people like that."

Whittington positively hums with joy when describing Feldman, a larger-than-life character with a real wise-cracking wit. Once, when hopping out of an English taxi, Feldman told fellow composer and friend of Whittington, Howard Skempton, "I've got a lot of mileage out of this slow, quiet stuff."

Some 20 years after his death, Feldman's slow, quiet vessel continues to tow its own very unique line.

Lenin Simos

Stephen Whittington performs 'Triadic Memories' at the Ron Radford Auditorium in the

Art Gallery of South Australia on Sunday March 9 at 4.30pm.