The year 2026 is the centenary of the birth of three significant figures in post-World World War II western culture — composers Morton Feldman (d. 1987) and György Kurtág (still composing), and poet and critic Frank O’Hara (d. 1966).

To celebrate the occasion, acclaimed Adelaide pianist, composer, academic and critic, Stephen Whittington, gives a thoroughly researched and highly entertaining recital that opens a window onto these and other important writers and composers with links to Feldman. In so doing, he characterises some of the revolutionary developments in music that emerged in the latter half of the 20th century.

Stephen Whittington: Softly, Softly at MoD Adelaide. Photo © Dylan Henderson

The central figure is Morton Feldman and Whittington is an acknowledged expert on his sublime music. As well as Feldman and Kurtág, the program includes piano works by John Cage, Tom Johnson and Philip Corner, and Whittington performs one of his own works and reads poems by O’Hara and Samuel Beckett (1906-1989).

Whittington begins the recital with Feldman’s short Extensions 3, a sparsely scored and typically meditative work that proceeds slowly and quietly until near...