In 1970’s, when Feldman was teaching at buffalo university in New York state, he decided to form his own ensemble to play his own works, along with those of  Iannis Xenakis, Erik Satie & Kurt Schwitters.  In 1983, four years before his untimely death, Feldman composed  Crippled Symmetry  for  three members of his ensemble: flautist Eberhard Blum, pianist Nils Vigeland and percussionist Jan Williams. This double disc set takes in a live recording made of the piece by the three players in June 2000 at the UB Art Gallery in Buffalo New York, with Blum playing flute, alto flute & bass flute. Vigeland glockenspiel & vibraphone, and Williams Piano & celesta

Like most of Feldman’s piece’s Crippled Symmetry is built around patterns, that sometimes interlock & other times don’t. The piece has no score or direction as such, but the three soloist each have their own notation & patterns to follow. So the resulting near on 89 minute piece is a slow, soft & at times angular collection of drifting sonic patterns- where the piano, flute & percussion patterns weaved together, but at others times drift slightly out of sink. This all creates a strange modern classical ambient other world that’s both melancholic & angular, yet strangely beautiful & haunting too.

As one would expect with this type of recording  it’s very clear & blanced with each musical element been equally heard in the tracks sonic weave- you hear the odd shuffle or cough, but otherwise you’d think this was a studio recording. The trio play the piece with great sonic sincerity  & honesty, and it feels a lot more human & less precise than some takes I’ve heard on Feldman’s work.

The piece here is split into two CD’s- CD one has a play time of 44.10, & CD two has a play time of 44.47. I have to say I have rather mixed feelings about spliting Feldman pieces in this way, as it does to a certain extent break the lulling sad hypnotic structure of Feldman’s work. But then again the only other option is a DVD release, which rather limits where/when you can play them.

The two discs come in a fold-out three panel glossy gate fold cd case, which features on it’s outside a black & white picture of the trio performing the piece. And on it’s inner panels is a write-up about the origin of the piece & it's performance written by  Eberhard Blum.

All told this is nicely presented release, and a nice addition to the slowly growing  but fairly large discography of  Feldman recordings.