How to make a difference
Catherine Costello Hirata · Contemporary Music Review · 2006
An initial juxtaposition between some of the sounds in Feldman's Durations 2 draws our attention to particular features by which we can differentiate or categorize these sounds. Subsequent sounds do not reinforce these categories, rather confound or disengage from them. This technique allows Feldman to achieve his goal of making one sound seem very different from the next. Sounds are differentiated both sonically and with respect to their relations among one another. The extent to which one sound is differentiated from another may itself be a distinguishing feature. Given three sounds, the third may seem more, less, or as different from the second, as the second was different from the first. Lesser differences enable Feldman to soften the discontinuities among successive sounds, thereby bringing those discontinuities in line with the music's subdued sonic qualities.