| Perhaps surprisingly, I find that Clarinet And String Quartet and the epicritical, aleatoric (thus the two different versions released here) Two Pieces For Clarinet And String Quartet, composed twenty-three years earlier, have much in common. Both are intimate, introspective, transparent, and concise, and despite the earlier work’s delicacy and brevity, their differences are of surface, not content and certainly not feeling. Though their means are unalike, they illuminate key issues in Feldman’s music: commitment, integrity, and wonder, turning anxiety into discovery, and emotion into art. — Art Lange |