Morton Feldman (1926-1987)

Started by bhodges, March 12, 2008, 10:57:40 AM

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snyprrr

Quote from: EigenUser on April 05, 2014, 07:00:52 PM
I really like Reich. His "Music for 18 Musicians" and "The Desert Music" are great pieces. Have you heard either of these?

If Reich disappeared tomorrow morning...

the Bella Abzug of Composers.

Don't get me started on the whole New York Cartel. ::)

Otherwise, maybe there's a piece or two by him... but no more!! haha

milk

My obsessiveness gets the better of me: I've been listening to only Feldman for a week now. Today I was listening to Crippled Symmetry and Trio. I don't know what it is exactly about Feldman. Like today with CS, there was a while where I was, like, feeling echoes of the negative pronouncements: OK, finally, this is just random stuff. It's acoustic beeps and blips. But before I know it, something in the music hooks me and I'm back to: this really has some magic to it. Feldman manages to be conceptually novel and, perhaps, in the artistic fashion of his time, yet he remains musical. So far my favorite pieces are: Piano and Quintet, Rothko, Coptic light, Crippled, Trio and Palais. I've yet to break into Violin and Orchestra.

milk


Listened to the first four parts so far. Marvelous music. Only a little over 5 hours to go!

EigenUser

Quote from: milk on April 06, 2014, 10:50:22 AM
My obsessiveness gets the better of me: I've been listening to only Feldman for a week now. Today I was listening to Crippled Symmetry and Trio. I don't know what it is exactly about Feldman. Like today with CS, there was a while where I was, like, feeling echoes of the negative pronouncements: OK, finally, this is just random stuff. It's acoustic beeps and blips. But before I know it, something in the music hooks me and I'm back to: this really has some magic to it. Feldman manages to be conceptually novel and, perhaps, in the artistic fashion of his time, yet he remains musical. So far my favorite pieces are: Piano and Quintet, Rothko, Coptic light, Crippled, Trio and Palais. I've yet to break into Violin and Orchestra.
You sound like the type of listener that I am! When I first discovered Bartok, it was almost nothing but Bartok for the next six years (not entirely, of course, but it seems like it in retrospect). The result: I'd say that I'm an unofficial expert on Bartok (who wouldn't be?), but that's nothing to brag about since I missed out on so much and now I am playing catch-up!  :(

I still need to hear Feldman's "The Viola in my Life" and "Crippled Symmetries". I don't plan on hearing the 2nd string quartet anytime soon. I've heard parts of it and wasn't implored to listen to more, but of course that isn't always a fair way of judging music.

Quote from: milk on April 05, 2014, 05:40:46 PM
Seems to make sense in this context (someone was posting these great quotes from Steven Reich in the listening thread):

"German romanticism was dying and he [Schoenberg] was the beginning of its death." Feldman certainly seems like the anti-romantic.

This leads me to this interesting quote:
"I don't have a Romantic bone in my body!  I'm not interested in any music from Josef Haydn to Wagner.  If it all disappeared tomorrow morning I wouldn't even know it!  My interest in Western music begins in synagogue chant, goes up to Johann Sebastian Bach, then jumps to Debussy, jazz, and the present." - Steven Reich
So do the Feldman fans here appreciate Reich? What's the next move from Feldman? And who else writes quiet music?
Are you familiar with Ligeti? Try his "Clocks and Clouds" for 12-part women's chorus and orchestra. I wrote about it in my notes section (in the "Classical Music for Beginners" sub-board). It is a stunningly beautiful piece. You might enjoy "Lontano" and "Lux Aeterna" as well. It isn't all quiet, but it is beauty made from some strange dissonances. I'm curious what you think.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

Karl Henning

Quote from: milk on April 05, 2014, 05:40:46 PM
...What's the next move from Feldman?...

Maybe someone has pointed this out, but "Uncle Morty" passed away just before I arrived in Buffalo. (No cause and effect there, that was just how I found out, myself.)
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

milk

Quote from: EigenUser on April 10, 2014, 05:56:54 AM
You sound like the type of listener that I am! When I first discovered Bartok, it was almost nothing but Bartok for the next six years (not entirely, of course, but it seems like it in retrospect). The result: I'd say that I'm an unofficial expert on Bartok (who wouldn't be?), but that's nothing to brag about since I missed out on so much and now I am playing catch-up!  :(

I still need to hear Feldman's "The Viola in my Life" and "Crippled Symmetries". I don't plan on hearing the 2nd string quartet anytime soon. I've heard parts of it and wasn't implored to listen to more, but of course that isn't always a fair way of judging music.
Are you familiar with Ligeti? Try his "Clocks and Clouds" for 12-part women's chorus and orchestra. I wrote about it in my notes section (in the "Classical Music for Beginners" sub-board). It is a stunningly beautiful piece. You might enjoy "Lontano" and "Lux Aeterna" as well. It isn't all quiet, but it is beauty made from some strange dissonances. I'm curious what you think.
Thanks a lot for these recommendations. I will give them a go. Crippled symmetries is one of my favorite of Feldman's. I feel like Feldman is showing me an entirely different way of experiencing music. I'm certain that it wouldn't have done anything for me just a year ago: right composer at the right time in my life.
I have to say I'm very much enjoying String Quartet II in the same way I enjoy Crippled. I can't really put it into words adequately. There is just so much inspiration in his way of exploring sound possibilities.
I think Feldman is the answer to his own question:
"Do we have anything in music for example that really wipes everything out? That just cleans everything away?" 

Artem

Which performance of the Cippled Symmetry are you listening to?

milk

Quote from: Artem on April 10, 2014, 06:41:01 PM
Which performance of the Cippled Symmetry are you listening to?
The California Ear Unit

EigenUser

Listening to "Crippled Symmetry" right now. I like it. In some sections, the repeated four notes in the flute are nearly the same as the alto flute solo that opens Varese's "Ameriques". I wonder if this is an intentional quote or if it is a coincidence.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

springrite

Quote from: milk on April 09, 2014, 09:48:20 PM

Listened to the first four parts so far. Marvelous music. Only a little over 5 hours to go!

I have yet to open this.

I am waiting till I am on a desert island and have all the time in the world before I listen to it for the first time.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Octave

#230
Quote from: springrite on April 11, 2014, 10:05:59 AM
I have yet to open this.

I am waiting till I am on a desert island and have all the time in the world before I listen to it for the first time.

Any given music has a huge range of effects on different people, or the same person; but I wonder if right now would be the time in your life when this music might be most useful?  Of course, not all in one shot, probably.  But yes...I guess baffling the duration aspect is kind of a violence to the music.  I tend to enjoy this violence and commit it regularly against music like this, as long as I can sometimes/eventually make time for the "whole"---such that it ever is.
I find a comforting impersonality (?) in much of Feldman's music of this period.  Like watching (but not 'observing'?) a natural process....except probably not in the sense that we talk about 'process music'.
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milk

Quote from: Octave on April 11, 2014, 09:57:34 PM
Like watching (but not 'observing'?) a natural process....except probably not in the sense that we talk about 'process music'.
Ah! You've put into words what I couldn't!

EigenUser

milk, aside from the Ligeti I recommended there is another guy you should definitely check out: John Luther Adams (not the more famous John Coolidge Adams, though he's good, too). Luther Adams was a huge Feldman appreciator and was further influenced by Alaskan landscapes (where he resides currently). Don't ask me about specifics, though, because I need to check him out as well! The ensemble choices are very similar and his titles include things like "In a Treeless Place, Only Snow", "Inuksuit", and other Alaskan-themed phrases. I completely forgot to mention his name before.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

lescamil

Quote from: EigenUser on April 12, 2014, 03:27:46 PM
Luther Adams was a huge Feldman appreciator and was further influenced by Alaskan landscapes (where he resides currently).

That he was. If you want to hear this in evidence, listen to John Luther Adams' Strange and Sacred Noise. The fifth movement is very, very much like Feldman with it's use of subtly moving clusters and soft attacks juxtaposed with silence. It gets quite loud but still keeps up the Feldmanian soundworld well.
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milk

Quote from: EigenUser on April 12, 2014, 03:27:46 PM
milk, aside from the Ligeti I recommended there is another guy you should definitely check out: John Luther Adams (not the more famous John Coolidge Adams, though he's good, too). Luther Adams was a huge Feldman appreciator and was further influenced by Alaskan landscapes (where he resides currently). Don't ask me about specifics, though, because I need to check him out as well! The ensemble choices are very similar and his titles include things like "In a Treeless Place, Only Snow", "Inuksuit", and other Alaskan-themed phrases. I completely forgot to mention his name before.
Thanks! I will give it a go!

milk

Quote from: EigenUser on April 12, 2014, 03:27:46 PM
milk, aside from the Ligeti I recommended there is another guy you should definitely check out: John Luther Adams (not the more famous John Coolidge Adams, though he's good, too). Luther Adams was a huge Feldman appreciator and was further influenced by Alaskan landscapes (where he resides currently). Don't ask me about specifics, though, because I need to check him out as well! The ensemble choices are very similar and his titles include things like "In a Treeless Place, Only Snow", "Inuksuit", and other Alaskan-themed phrases. I completely forgot to mention his name before.
The samples are really impressive. Thanks for this recommendation. I will wait until the end of the week and then make some purchases. After that, I'll post my impressions on the composers thread. Thanks!!

EigenUser

Quote from: milk on April 12, 2014, 11:19:58 PM
The samples are really impressive. Thanks for this recommendation. I will wait until the end of the week and then make some purchases. After that, I'll post my impressions on the composers thread. Thanks!!
Happy to hear that you like it! Now I have good reason to explore some more of his music.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

snyprrr

Anyone have the 'Orchestra; disc on Mode? And?,,,

snyprrr

Why Patterns?
Crippled Symmetry
For Philip Guston
For Christian Wolff


Which do you prefer out of Feldman's 4 Flute Sonatas,a nd why? I like FPG for the initial melodic cell, byt WP? for the length. I would like a comination of the two.

Artem

Orchestra is my favourite Feldman CD from Mode out of the ones that I have.

I haven't heard For Christian Wolff, but i think For Philip Guston is really beautiful. I've only heard it once in its entierty, but that was great. Crippled Symmetry is good, but I prefer those Feldman's works which are like a maze. Crippled Symmetry starts out like you're walking in the maze, but in the end you find an exist. It works better for me when that mystery remains througout the composition, and when I'm sort of trapped in it.