Bowerbird presents Morton Feldman Triadic Memories

Bowerbird is pleased to present pianist Amy Williams performing Morton Feldman’s monumental Triadic Memories, one of the towering masterworks of late 20th-century piano literature.

Completed in 1981 and jointly dedicated to pianists Roger Woodward and Aki Takahashi, Triadic Memories is Feldman’s longest solo piano composition, lasting approximately 90 minutes. Following its first German performance, Feldman described the work as the “biggest butterfly in captivity”—a characteristically poetic phrase that captures both its delicacy and vast scale.

The work represents a profound meditation on memory and perception. The entire score is written in triple piano, at times even quintuple piano, creating an intimate sonic landscape where subtle gradations of touch and color become paramount. Feldman described his compositional method as “a conscious attempt at formalizing a disorientation of memory,” where chords are repeated without discernible pattern. The listener experiences what Feldman compared to walking through Berlin, where buildings appear similar yet distinct—a regularity that suggests direction but ultimately reveals itself as illusion.

Feldman regarded Triadic Memories as a spatial landscape through which one moves, where lengths of time, rests, and silences increase, constantly testing the listener’s musical memory. Materials are continually recontextualized through different voicings and registers, with subtle shifts in harmony and texture creating a work that is simultaneously static and constantly evolving. The piece invites deep concentration and reflection, transforming our experience of musical time itself.
This rarely performed work stands among Feldman’s great late compositions—pieces that sought to make music into an experience of life-changing force, a transcendent art form that wipes everything else away.