Morton Feldman. For Christian Wolff. California E.A.R. Unit. Dorothy Stone, flute. Vicki Ray, piano / Celesta. 2008. Liner notes by Alan Rich and Rand Steiger. Bridge 7279 A/C.

For Christian Wolff (1986), for flute and piano/celesta, is dedicated to Morton Feldman's friend and fellow composer Christian Wolff. It is one among many "dedication" pieces, dedicated to friends, teachers, writers, painters, and other composers with whom Feldman felt a close affinity throughout his career.

Although Feldman, who died in 1987, became known for the extreme length of his later compositions, his early work consisted primarily of miniatures. Among these is his three-minute vignette Christian Wolff in Cambridge (1963) for a cappella chorus. The title was inspired by two trips, made approximately six years apart, which Feldman made to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to visit Christian Wolff at his Harvard University dormitory room. On both occasions Feldman entered Wolff's room to find him, surrounded by his books and papers, sitting at the same desk. Wolff said, "I think the sense of not changing over long periods of time is what gave him the idea of that title." (1)

Indeed, a monolithic sense of "not changing over long periods of time," very much encapsulates the impression one has while listening to Bridge's 2008 three-disc recording of Feldman's three-hour-long composition For Christian Wolff, performed by the California E.A.R. Unit.

Many of Feldman's longer compositions tend to fall into two general categories: those that are approximately seventy-five to ninety minutes long and those that are three to six hours long. Notable compositions in the first category include Triadic Memories (1981) for piano; Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981) for cello and piano; For John Cage (1982) for violin and piano; Crippled Symmetry (1983) for flutes, percussion and piano/celesta; and Piano and String Quartet (1985).

There are three compositions that fall into the three- to six-hour category: String Quartet no. 2 (1983); For Philip Guston (1984) for flute, piano, and percussion; and For Christian Wolff (1986) for flute and piano/celesta. (2) Both For Philip Guston and For Christian Wolff are among the last "dedication" pieces Feldman composed before his death. (3) The similarity in instrumentation (flute, piano and percussion) of a number of Feldman's later compositions was the result of his work at the university of Buffalo with flautist Eberhard Blum, pianist Nils Vigeland, and percussionist Jan Williams. Blum and Vigeland performed the premier of For Christian Wolff and subsequently recorded it on HatHutRecords. (4)

Feldman's relationship with Christian Wolff was less conflicted than that with Philip Guston. Wolff, born in 1934 in France, is both a composer and literary scholar. Coming from a distinguished European literary publishing background, Wolff studied classics and comparative literature at Harvard university. He would...