MORTON FELDMAN – Bass Clarinet & Percussion
JÜRG FREY – 60 Pieces of Sound

Klang Systematiek

Gareth Davis – bass clarinet
Martin Švec – percussion
Elia Moretti – percussion

The concert opens with Bass Clarinet and Percussion by Morton Feldman, a late work that resonates strongly with Klang Systematiek’s approach to sound, space, and duration. Written for bass clarinet and two percussionists, the piece unfolds as a gently shifting field of quiet interactions, where sounds are allowed to exist without direction or hierarchy. Feldman’s music invites listening not as anticipation or interpretation, but as sustained presence — an attention to the physical qualities of sound as they appear, hover, and fade.

Rather than shaping form through development, Feldman constructs a surface defined by timbre, register, and spacing. Soft attacks, unstable resonances, and long silences stretch the listener’s sense of time, drawing focus to breath, touch, and decay. Performed by Gareth Davis (bass clarinet) with Martin Švec and Elia Moretti (percussion), the work functions less as a dialogue than as a shared acoustic environment, in which individual sounds coexist within an expanded, fragile temporal frame.

The second work on the programme is 60 Pieces of Sound by Swiss composer Jürg Frey. Consisting of sixty short sonic situations, the piece can be understood as a series of listening propositions rather than a linear composition. Each sound is isolated and precisely placed, with silence playing an equal structural role. Frey’s music emphasises fragility, restraint, and perception, unfolding as a quiet sequence of appearances and disappearances performed by Gareth Davis, Martin Švec, and Elia Moretti.

The concert concludes with For Percussion, Perhaps, or … (Night) by American composer James Tenney. Reflecting Tenney’s long-standing interest in resonance and acoustic phenomena, the work is built from simple materials and open structures that allow form to emerge through attentive listening. With its restrained, nocturnal quality, the piece brings the programme to a close focused on sound as a physical and perceptual experience unfolding in real time.