Morton Feldman (1926-1987)

[not edward]

The last part of Rothko Chapel has a great melody, which is quoted by the viola. This gives it a lyricism that's not quite found in the rest of the work, which seems to revolve more around texture. I love the harmonic backdrop that supports this melody. If I'm not mistaken, this melody is something he heard as a child in church or something to this effect.

I think it's actually a quote from one of his very earliest compositions, but I don't have the book which commented on this to hand right now.

For what it's worth, I'd very much go for the Viola in my Life series if Rothko Chapel is the only Feldman that really connects with you. It's probably the most melody-focused work of his mature years. You can get it complete on this ECM disc, though be aware that it's only 40 minutes of music:

[asin]B0011DZN70[/asin]

Incidentally, Mode have just released what must be one of the most important Feldman discs in years:
http://www.amazon.com/Orchestra-Feldman/dp/B005IY3B18/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1319590345&sr=1-1 (no image yet)

The five works on it are:

1. Intersection 1, for large orchestra
2. Structures for Orchestra, for orchestra
3. On Time and the Instrumental Factor, for orchestra
4. Voice and Instruments, for soprano & orchestra
5. Orchestra, for orchestra

And all except the first are world premiere recordings.

They also will be releasing before too long a new coupling of Rothko Chapel and For Stefan Wolpe with the New London Chamber Choir under James Wood; the disc will be filled out with Seth Josel in the first recording of the reconstructed The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar.

[Mirror Image]

I think it's actually a quote from one of his very earliest compositions, but I don't have the book which commented on this to hand right now.

For what it's worth, I'd very much go for the Viola in my Life series if Rothko Chapel is the only Feldman that really connects with you. It's probably the most melody-focused work of his mature years. You can get it complete on this ECM disc, though be aware that it's only 40 minutes of music:

[asin]B0011DZN70[/asin]

Incidentally, Mode have just released what must be one of the most important Feldman discs in years:
http://www.amazon.com/Orchestra-Feldman/dp/B005IY3B18/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1319590345&sr=1-1 (no image yet)

The five works on it are:

1. Intersection 1, for large orchestra
2. Structures for Orchestra, for orchestra
3. On Time and the Instrumental Factor, for orchestra
4. Voice and Instruments, for soprano & orchestra
5. Orchestra, for orchestra

And all except the first are world premiere recordings.

They also will be releasing before too long a new coupling of Rothko Chapel and For Stefan Wolpe with the New London Chamber Choir under James Wood; the disc will be filled out with Seth Josel in the first recording of the reconstructed The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar.

Thanks for the information, Edward.

[snyprrr]

I think it's actually a quote from one of his very earliest compositions, but I don't have the book which commented on this to hand right now.

For what it's worth, I'd very much go for the Viola in my Life series if Rothko Chapel is the only Feldman that really connects with you. It's probably the most melody-focused work of his mature years. You can get it complete on this ECM disc, though be aware that it's only 40 minutes of music:

[asin]B0011DZN70[/asin]

Incidentally, Mode have just released what must be one of the most important Feldman discs in years:
http://www.amazon.com/Orchestra-Feldman/dp/B005IY3B18/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1319590345&sr=1-1 (no image yet)

The five works on it are:

1. Intersection 1, for large orchestra
2. Structures for Orchestra, for orchestra
3. On Time and the Instrumental Factor, for orchestra
4. Voice and Instruments, for soprano & orchestra
5. Orchestra, for orchestra

And all except the first are world premiere recordings.

They also will be releasing before too long a new coupling of Rothko Chapel and For Stefan Wolpe with the New London Chamber Choir under James Wood; the disc will be filled out with Seth Josel in the first recording of the reconstructed The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar.

I've gotten around to considering Violin & Orchestra (on ColLegno). Perhaps Orchestra is similar. I have Voice & Instruments II (Etcetera), and another piece like this, and I think the late '70s was one of my favorite Feldman phases (very nervous, busy sounds).

[chasmaniac]

I've just youtubed some of this fellow's stuff and am led to ask, a la Robert Nozick in one of his essays, Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why is it planned rather than accidental? Why tuned rather than toneless?

There is clearly a satisfaction to be enjoyed in shaping sounds, in recognizing their shapes, in accepting (if you will) aural shapeliness. Is that what's going on here?

No sarcasm intended, I'm serious.

[Karl Henning]

I've not had any great success analyzing it, chas.  Compositionally, there are times when I set about a piece partly with the thought, What if I try to write a kind of Feldman piece?  And while i have been satisfied with the resulting music, it's been my own, and not really a particularly Feldmanian piece.  I'm not sure how it works, why it works . . . but when I listen, I feel sure that it works.

[chasmaniac]

I'm just playing a hunch here, but allow me to suggest that Feldman is organizing sounds in an aesthetically pleasing way, and further that this formulation will serve as a definition of music in its most primitive form. It's taken me half a day to put these silly words together, but they seem to explain the impact that Five Pianos, for example, had on me this morning. It seemed as if the veil of time had lifted and I was listening to musical art at its dawn, "musical" because tuned and "art" because consciously planned, composed, and all this before harmonic and rhythmic sophistication had removed the practice from its unformed infancy.

This is what music sounds like when it dreams.

[chasmaniac]

A provisional Feldman wishlist:

[asin]B000000R2Z[/asin] [asin]B0011DZN70[/asin]
[asin]B00000K38E[/asin] [asin]B00023P46U[/asin]

EDIT: ooops, forgot the piece I like the most:

[asin]B0027CWF7A[/asin]

Comments? Suggestions?

[petrarch]

There is clearly a satisfaction to be enjoyed in shaping sounds, in recognizing their shapes, in accepting (if you will) aural shapeliness. Is that what's going on here?

I think you unwittingly have very concisely expressed a mode of listening that is applicable to a lot of (so-called) "modern" or "contemporary" music. The contrast might be more apparent in works of Feldman or Nono or others where the material is sparse and the music relies on the sound itself and the various shades of timbre, or when it is no longer strictly "note-based" and is more "event-based"--think of the evolving textures in e.g. Ligeti.

[snyprrr]

A provisional Feldman wishlist:

[asin]B000000R2Z[/asin] [asin]B0011DZN70[/asin]
[asin]B00000K38E[/asin] [asin]B00023P46U[/asin]

EDIT: ooops, forgot the piece I like the most:

[asin]B0027CWF7A[/asin]

Comments? Suggestions?

I think the Feldman Discography begins with:


'The Ecstasy of the Moment' (Barton Workshop/ETCETERA)

4 Concertos (Zender/CPO)

Piano & String Quartet (Kronos/NONESUCH)


String Quartet (GCM/KOCH)
String Quartet No.2 (or,... pick your own 'Late Work')


Patterns...
For John Cage
Triadic Memories
The Viola in My Life

[Karl Henning]

A provisional Feldman wishlist:

[...]

Comments? Suggestions?

I own and heartily endorse three of those recordings:

[asin]B000000R2Z[/asin] [asin]B00000K38E[/asin] [asin]B0027CWF7A[/asin]

I've a different recording, but I am sure that Nonken makes a fine job of Triadic Memories.

I entirely approve of your initial wishlist.

[chasmaniac]

I've plunked for 3 of the pictured releases, Five Ps, Viola and Rothko. I hope that more intense listens will give me more to say about them, whether profound or enlightening. 

Thanks Petrarch, Snyprrr and especially Karl for the pointer.

[bhodges]

Hope you enjoy those! The only one of those pictured I can vouch for is Rothko Chapel, and the performance of Why Patterns? is excellent, too.

For Feldman fans near New York, on December 8 at Issue Project Room, Nicholas De Maison (keyboards) and Amelia Lukas (flute) will perform For Christian Wolff (1986, 180 minutes). Info here:

http://www.issueprojectroom.org/2011/10/17/ensemble-sospeso-morton-feldmans-for-christian-wolff/

--Bruce

[chasmaniac]

This is what music sounds like when it dreams.

Listening now, and I'm happy with the characterization above. It must be extraordinarily difficult, in a world full to overflowing with traditions of consonance and tune, to compose in sound itself. Have people written this way for natural sounds, that is to say, sounds that are unprepared and untuned? (And I mean written. Accidental sounds would not be the same thing at all.)

"What is the metre of the dictionary?" Dylan Thomas's question strikes me as apt.

[scarlattiglenross]

Hello there,

I just wanted to tell all Morton Feldman fans here on GMG that I'm resisting all common sense and have started a record label, with my first release a benchmark recording of one of Feldman's incredible late pieces. Info burst follows. Sound sample and purchasing information may be found on my site at http://frozenreeds.com/?p=21


Morton Feldman
Crippled Symmetry: at June in Buffalo
The Feldman Soloists
frozen reeds fr1/2

In 2000, Eberhard Blum, Nils Vigeland, and Jan Williams came together once more as "The Feldman Soloists" to perform Crippled Symmetry, the trio Feldman composed for them, on the 25th anniversary celebration of the festival he founded. The recording of this concert is now finally available on CD, and is destined to become the reference release of this work.

Required listening for all fans of Feldman's rich, hypnotic world of enigmatic harmony and mnemonic echo. Mastered by Denis Blackham, and presented in a card package which unfolds to reveal the musicians' "butterfly-like" arrangement on stage.

"This turned out to be one of the best performances that we had ever given together. The rare and indescribable 'magic moment' of occasion and ambience seems to have inspired us. The recording of the concert belongs to my most valued sound documents. When I listened to it for the first time, my immediate reaction was: this performance ought to be available on CD. Now, ten years later, it is." -Eberhard Blum

[snyprrr]

Hello there,

I just wanted to tell all Morton Feldman fans here on GMG that I'm resisting all common sense and have started a record label, with my first release a benchmark recording of one of Feldman's incredible late pieces. Info burst follows. Sound sample and purchasing information may be found on my site at http://frozenreeds.com/?p=21


Morton Feldman
Crippled Symmetry: at June in Buffalo
The Feldman Soloists
frozen reeds fr1/2

In 2000, Eberhard Blum, Nils Vigeland, and Jan Williams came together once more as "The Feldman Soloists" to perform Crippled Symmetry, the trio Feldman composed for them, on the 25th anniversary celebration of the festival he founded. The recording of this concert is now finally available on CD, and is destined to become the reference release of this work.

Required listening for all fans of Feldman's rich, hypnotic world of enigmatic harmony and mnemonic echo. Mastered by Denis Blackham, and presented in a card package which unfolds to reveal the musicians' "butterfly-like" arrangement on stage.

"This turned out to be one of the best performances that we had ever given together. The rare and indescribable 'magic moment' of occasion and ambience seems to have inspired us. The recording of the concert belongs to my most valued sound documents. When I listened to it for the first time, my immediate reaction was: this performance ought to be available on CD. Now, ten years later, it is." -Eberhard Blum

If you could just record the 2-cd pieces so that they fit on 1-cd . For John Cage could probably use another recording,... the Trio,... maybe even another single issue Triadic Memories?

These are things we need! Any Feldman that you don't have to switch cds for.

[milk]

You can download an mp3 of the complete For Bunita Marcus at Amazon.com for just $0.89!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00162HWU2/ref=dm_ty_adp?ie=UTF8&parent=B00162I9UO

I'm listening now.  It's beautiful!!!

It seems worth it to push this thread up for this .89 cent recording. Though, I found it here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=for+Bunita+Marcus+

I'm finding myself really enjoying Feldman, especially the "piano and string quartet." I find myself musing about why I like this music.
Lately, I've been delving into 20th century music at a mad pace - after years of only listening to pre-19th century music. It can be overwhelming - even while I enjoy it - to figure out what really resonates with me.
Lately, I've been asking myself why I listen to music at all. What is it doing to and for me? Anyway, one reason I like Feldman is because
I feel like he sort of washes everything away. So I can occupy an almost empty space musically. It's nice to kind of break everything down. It reminds me of a metaphor someone gave about listening to the clavichord in concert (remarking on adjusting to its quietness). They said, it's like going into a dark room. At first you can't see anything but slowly you begin to see as your eyes adjust. In Feldman's music, it appears at first that nothing is happening. But slowly, you realize that, in fact, something interesting is going on. Anyway, I find that I like taking everything down to a very slow quiet place musically. Then, I suppose I can return to "busier" music once again, perhaps with "new ears"...if any of this makes any sense.       

[San Antone]

Written in 1981, this work for bass clarinet and percussion is a recent discovery for me.

https://www.youtube.com/v/G6KFSinod2Y

I like it.

[lescamil]

One work by Feldman that really stays with me is his "opera" Neither:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exs9F-888s

There's something particularly haunting about it that can really get to you that I haven't found in other works by Feldman.

[Mirror Image]

Well it appears I've become quite the Feldmanite (if I can make up a word here) with the purchase of these:









Look forward to discovering more of this composer's music.

[petrarch]

Look forward to discovering more of this composer's music.

Feldman is definitely worthwhile. I have the entire series on Mode and quite a few others and it is always a pleasure to listen to his works. Given your taste inclinations, you should definitely try Rothko Chapel... that last movement is just magical in the way it brings the work to a close. Have you listened to For Philip Guston in full yet?