From what I've read, and seen of quotes of Feldman, this is correct. He referred to himself as an intuitive composer, finding his progress in a work without an overall formal plan, just intuitively. He would separate his chords and notes with enough space so that they could be heard individually and not perceived as connected to each other as a harmonic progression.
The length of the works increased more and more later in his career. Again, he was quoted to the effect it was an attempt to evoke a sensory experience, where the listener is transported to a different state of being as a consequence of the significant length of time we would be listening and concentrating on the sounds/music.
I listened to the first 20 minutes of For Philip Guston. After about 10 minutes the texture seemed to become very sparse, it basically turned into solo flute and solo percussion for a short while. It was for me very effective, very beautiful, but especially because it emerged out of the (slightly!) less bare textures that preceded it. For that reason I am starting to think there is some structure in the music at some level, though maybe not a harmonic one. But I’m not sure of any of this- I am sure that it is something I’m interested in though!
The way he used silence is wonderful because it seemed to create tension, suspense. Or so it seemed to me.
Fabulous music, but so long. I can’t listen to all of it at once!
