This is the world premiere of Five Pianos, at Walter Bachauer’s Berliner Musiktage festival, on July 16, 1972. The pianists are John Cage, David Tudor, Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, and the composer. As often in works of Feldman’s middle period, the executants move through identical material at their own pace; here, they also hum as they play. As it happened, Cage moved much more slowly than the others, finishing the performance solo. Feldman was reportedly annoyed; he had intended for the work’s emblematic nine-note ascending scale to resound simultaneously but non-synchronously. But it’s fascinating to hear Cage at the keyboard alone, his tone coolly glowing. One imagines that he played Satie in a similar way — see my overview of his Santa Monica concerts in 1933. Afterward, he said to Feldman, “You’re an extremist! You’re a poetic extremist!” Much of the Berlin audience is audibly unhappy; you hear much coughing and shuffling, a few nervous titters, and boos at the end. Further renditions with distinguished casts ensued: one in Buffalo, in October 1972, with Feldman, David Del Tredici, William Appleby, Lukas Foss, and Julius Eastman; and another in London, in January 1973, with Feldman, Harrison Birtwistle, Stephen Savage, Roger Smalley, and John Tilbury. A recording of the latter can be found at Chris Villars’s site.