POV - Morton Feldman Recordings

Ditto.

"All Piano," John Tilbury
"For Philip Guston," The California Ear Unit
"Piano and String Quartet", Aki Takahashi and Kronos Quartet
"For Samuel Beckett," Ensemble Modern conducted by Arturo Tamayo
"String Quartet II," Ives Ensemble

http://www.eif.co.uk/

can't seem to link to the exact page....

what say you Julio?

Projection 2
The Viola In My Life
Piano And String Quartet
Why Patterns?
Five Pianos

"For Samuel Beckett," Ensemble Modern conducted by Arturo Tamayo

I was just listening to this tonight.

http://www.eif.co.uk/2004/details.asp?ref=4552

This is terrific, I would love to go (I saw the 4-5 hr performance of 'for philip guston' earlier this year and its def in the top 3 concerts I've been to this year) and I might do, it depends.

Why the apprehension jed? Performances of feldman's work do not come along often.

(to add to what sterling sez, the same applies to me: I picked pieces, don't know enuff to distinguish between performances)

Why? "For Philip Guston" rulez!!!!!!

You need String Quartet no.2 on DVD from Mode. 6hrs, uninterrupted. To my shame I've yet to sit through the lot.

x-post: haha well I got the recording from hat-art, then I found out abt the mode recording.

anyway

here's something fun. Feldman talking about his relationship with his audience.

http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1AN9JD8G3MAYW095FYX3ECIPJ6

thanks for link, will check it out laters

it's funny to hear Feldman's voice. he's so brash!

There's a recording that's come out of Naxos of his 'String Quartet' from '79.

I guess the ideal would be to have both and compare. I don't think a "clean" artifact-free recording (no coughs, etc) is more important than the quality of the performance. It's just that - having no comparison of the two performances to go by - it seems like - all other things being equal - the studio recording might have better sound. But I'll keep my options open if I happen to find that version.

(Yeah you can only know by comparison so that is why I said 'clean enough' - I found it to be acceptable on its own.)

I have the Hat Art copy of Neither with Sarah Leonard -- I remember liking Sarah Leonard's sustained high notes (or note), I need to revisit this.

I finally found myself a copy of "The Viola in my Life" conducted by Feldman on CRI, and it's made my top ten, it's fantastic.

I'm not a trained vocalist, but I'd guess the sustained high notes must present quite a challenge to a singer. When I saw this performed, the singer had some tuning forks with her, and before each time she had to come in, she would tap one and hold it up to her ear just before coming in. Unless one had perfect pitch, I'd think this would be the only way to do it - especially with the tricky intervals.

In some ways, works like these seem the antithesis of pop - quiet, slow, very long, atonal, dissonant - but at the same time there is a sumptuousness to the textures and dynamics that is pleasurable in a direct, unmediated sense.

Here's a brief review of the piece that I found online:

http://homepage.mac.com/javiruiz/Articles/ThreeFeldmanArticles.html#art3

listening to pretty much anything at Carnegie Hall is an insanely cold, boring experience; it's where music goes to die.

Shall we expand this a bit? I got hold of some tracks by Walter Zimmermann (who ed. a collection of Feldman's writings) and you'd feel he is still trying to distill feldman into something more personal. There's a CD of piano works on Metier that I'd like to track down one of these days - if anyone else does..

Does anyone like those Christian Wolff recordings on Mode? I wasn't into the Cowell disc so I got it into my head that the label wouldn't do a v gd job for older composers, but its fine for newer ones (Eckhardt, Czernowin..). 'Exercise 15' on ed.wandelweiser is really good at mapping out his ways.

Perhaps my list of adjectives wasn't precise enough. And I didn't mean to imply that Feldman is "noisy". Just that his work tends to be very long, very slow, very quiet, and devoid of the usual chord progressions and tonal resolutions that give most pop its instant familiarity and immediate gratification. It's music that demands a long attention span and a willingness to listen to something that doesn't have pop hooks, familiar chords, toe-tapping rhythms or catchy melodies. I have a feeling I'm kind of stating the obvious here. This lack of familiar pleasures is probably why this music gets a reputation of being pretentious and why people wonder how anyone can enjoy it.

I must have told the story of the Feldman concert I was at where at the end of an especially repetitive later piece I saw one of the violinists turn to another violinist and say "I've never been so bored in my life". They'd been pulling faces at each other most of the way thru the piece too!

Feldman/X were the big two i started listening to when 'getting' classical. Both were big outsiders in terms of what they sounded like and in the reception of their sounds in classical circles (not that i knew so at the time) so its not a surprise that people have been gravitating toward that music. The Xenakis weekend at the RFH was highly attended and it wouldn't be a surprise if just as many turned out for the Feldman weekend.

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?060619crat_atlarge

the description of his friendship with cage reminded me of these, which are really worth hearing

http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage_feldman.html

(and Lovely Music still has cheap copies of the out-of-print transcriptions, which is one of the best Feldman books around: http://www.lovely.com/titles/bkradiohappenings.html)

Anyway, my top five has changed:

'For Philip Guston' I suspect this will be on top for a long time, really the sorta end for the style he arrived at toward the end of his life, which was started by the first 'string quartet', which goes in at second place.

'Words and music' still in 3rd. So its 'overacted', but its very engaging. I know it should probably be 'Neither' instead for Feldman-esque drama, but 'words and music' has that novelty feel about that hasn't worn off yet, something that got him out of any comfort zone, which is partly what experimental is.

'For Bunita Marcus'/'All Piano' and finally 'Composing by numbers - The graphic Scores, 1950-67' in at no5. My favourite short length Feldman. This is where it all began and really important - if you line this up alongside 'For Philip Guston' you can get at what he ws trying to do. The way I'm thinking is he would spend his time trying to come up with a style that took those hard edges out of some of these, how he'd develop his rhythms and frame music using silence for long periods. All of it starts here.

With mentions of the 'str quartet (II)' I'd say that covers it - only took about two years for a more definitive ans than the one before - must have been really into 'three voices' at the time but its no top five. 'Crippled symmetry' is but it travels a similar road to 'for philip guston' that it could be left out (though you need it, esp if like me if you find it at reduced prices). Never quite got into any of the orchestral pieces as I'm not so into the orchestral tradition (not enough hooks!).

echoes some of the conversation we had upthread about seeing this stuff live -- even when you've got a legendary performer like Takahashi and a completely devoted audience, this is fragile music especially in group environments

to sit still for several hours for one of the sparer works (1 to 4 performers), to sit through the coughs, to have the breathing of the eight people around me be louder than the music, it's definitely a challenge. The orchestral or bigger chamber works reveal more textures in comparison with the recordings. But even there, the rustles, the creaky chairs, the coughs, especially if it's in a big hall with season ticket holders getting brained by the spaces. Was sad to miss For Samuel Beckett at Mills a few weeks back, music schools are often the only environments that can let the modern stuff breathe.

Feldman, Painter of Pages

for someone whose main experience of the music is through recordings, this is great to know. though in the comments, Galen Brown observes that this obviously comes across quite well in performance; the textural changes are accompanied with the page turns. the other comments are fascinating as well.

http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=17147.com

Gann's throwing down the gauntlet

http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2008/01/in_dispraise_of_efficiency_fel.html

The difficulty of assessing Morton Feldman's impact is that it is so pervasive. Music has by now been so changed by people who were changed by people who were changed by Feldman that I think it would be difficult to trace the various streams of his influence back to their source. Musically, we live in a post-Feldman age, and I am certainly conscious of being a post-Feldman composer. Things are done now that were not done before Feldman gave us precedents. There is music before and after Monteverdi, and before and after Beethoven, and before and after Stravinsky, and I would not be surprised to find that poeple someday talk about music before and after Feldman.

Looking at that para w/out reading the rest of the piece I'd put Feldman in a 'Music before and after Webern' vein.

The thing is we don't live in post-Feldman age at all, if by that he means that music is a more stilled affair.

He'd have to acknowledge that this is, by the same token, also a post-Nono age, which I don't see Kyle agreeing to at all.

Has anyone heard this recording of Feldman playing Bunita Marcus in Dublin last year? i've come across a few mentions of it online - I think it's unreleased, and possibly unavailable?

i'm pretty sure he didn't play dublin last year.

ha ha. John Tilbury did, and yes, it's fantastic and unreleased. I'd upload it somewhere except that given my relationships with the people involved, I shouldn't be the one to do that, sorry.

i've seen Tilbury perform it many years ago. one of the most intense musical experiences of my life. he performed Cardew's "Treatise" solo the same weekend using prepared piano, shortwave radio and a gong. also fantastic.

i saw, rather.

an excerpt from Treatise presumably, probably just a few pages.

Haha yeah I meant Tilbury. If anyone else has a copy and is willing to make one for me/upload it or whatever, I'd be very very grateful...

one other thing worth noting with New World contuing its CRI Records reissue program... two months ago they finally got around to "The Viola In My Life", three 70's performances conducted by Feldman. I would have mentioned that one in the secondaries of my first post if I'd heard it, it's not glossy or ambient, it's close-miked & delicate. Lots of room tone and small noises & movements, very live, active listening.

This really is magnificent, by the way - it's this and the Tilbury recording of Bunita Marcus (the one I have) that I listen to far more than any other Feldman.

an excerpt from Treatise presumably, probably just a few pages.

no, the whole thing in 3 separate sessions over the weekend!

that can't really be done, unless the sessions were 12 or 16 hours each. I have a loose plan in the works to do a complete Treatise, supervised by Christian Wolff and Keith Rowe (both of whom have signed on pending funding), but doing the entire piece takes quite some time. John T. certainly knows what he's doing in this area, but I'd like to see confirmation that that actually was all of Treatise, otherwise I'm going to remain dubious. the other possible explanation is that John's take on how long it takes to perform the piece is wildly different from Keith's, I'd like to know if that's the case also.

the Dublin For Bunita Marcus is 86 minutes as opposed to the 77 minutes of the earlier recording, and the slow, very human feel of it is fantastic.

i see. i thought treatise was 30-odd pages not nearly 200 so you're right, of course. good luck with it!

the Dublin For Bunita Marcus is 86 minutes as opposed to the 77 minutes of the earlier recording, and the slow, very human feel of it is fantastic.

Is there going to be an official release??

not that I know of, I've done all I can to try to get it released via my contacts, but John and I don't speak anymore since he started boycotting the US (which translated largely into boycotting me) and since Keith left AMM. if I could, I'd release it in a second on a new ErstClassical label, though.

there is supposed to be a large Feldman/Tilbury box coming via Matchless at some point, though, with I believe no overlap with the AllPiano box, pieces for piano plus other instruments.

what spurred his u.s. boycott?

That's a real pity. Hopefully it will reach the light of day at some point - I was just googling around and found some more praise for it here:

http://richardpinnell.blogspot.com/2007/04/spot-difference.html

"what spurred his u.s. boycott?"

http://incalcando.com/tilbury/

isn't there a video posted somewhere of the dublin performance? gotta say i wasn't thrilled from the audio there. of course quicktime video isn't the best audio player around.

Has John left or stopped performing here in England?

if he was performing somewhere - where would you find out about it?!

Upcoming performances in London would be fairly easy to find out about, and I suppose anywhere else in england there would be a small item in the 'culture' section of any broadsheet right?

Any foreign performances would probably be advertised in Wire.

true. he should have a website though.

the Dublin performance probably isn't technically as good as the one on the AllPiano box, but there's a human, frail quality to it that I just find gorgeous. in my top 5 recordings of last year, and I'm still going to see if I can get it released somehow.

John does still play the UK, but he has no website.

Love to know his reasons for still playing here. Bcz given the contents of his statement he shouldn't be.

heh

yeah, he's well aware of the overall inconsistencies in his stance, and any that he wasn't, I tried to make him well aware of when he initiated this boycott. I think in the end the primary actual reason was that he got sick of dealing with US customs at the airports, who are quite often extremely condescending and invasive, and it was too hard for him to justify that to himself when he had zero respect for the people running the US. that's an inelegant paraphrase, but in the general area. he doesn't have to clear customs to play shows in the UK, and he does have to pay the bills, so he still plays there.

and, yes, it's ironic that I'm the one who quite often ends up explaining (defending?) his perspective when the boycott is largely of me (I'm also the one who arranged the Wire profile in which his position first became public).

but that's ok, I totally respect his right to hold that position, even if I don't agree with it, and he's still one of my very favorite musicians in the world. anyone reading this thread who hasn't heard the Duos for Doris record he did with Keith Rowe for my label really should rectify that ASAP. it's not Feldman, but it's as close as improv gets.

what issue of The Wire was that, Jon?

#230, April 2003, Autechre cover.

got it, thanks.

Tilbury is playing Feldman's Triadic Memories in London on June 10th. Details here for anyone local:

http://www.sjss.org.uk/pages/Diary/content_page1_2.htm

If I get the chance to speak to him I intend to ask John if I can release the Dublin recording on Cathnor in early 2009. I know he thinks a lot of the recording.

Will make this...

nice, Richard! good luck with that...

Excellent, I hope you have some good news for us in a couple of weeks!

Any news?

Just listened to the Tilbury box set version of Bunita Marcus. Still fantastic - anyone know anything more about a release for the Dublin recording?

Might as well ask again! I really hope someone puts this out someday...

http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=6506

pretty amazing interview with Bunita Marcus

posting here so people will read it and we can start a thread on her once some more of her music comes out on CD

great, thanks for the link! I sorta assumed that she was some sort of patron, not a composer.

Googling Tilbury Bunita Marcus 2009 turns up a rather interesting recording, which could well be the Dublin recording mentioned above, I'm guessing (it's 86 minutes long, for starters).

Tomorrow night, Alice Tully Hall NYC, Rothko Chapel along with his 'Bass Clarinet And Percussion' and two Kurtag pieces. So psyched.

is this an anniversary year or something? there was a performance of Rothko Chapel a few months ago at Berkeley Art Museum (amazing) and it's playing this week with Mozart's Requiem at SF Symphony

He would have turned 85 in January... not a terribly significant numeral in my book but hey.

Kurtag was born the same year; his 85th bday was Saturday.

The two of them are so opposite (except in the fact that both require you to pay v close attention) that I think they'll make a great program together.

http://www.kylegann.com/PC080129-Dispraise-of-Efficiency.html

This is great:

"One of my favorite stories Feldman liked to tell was of Marcel Duchamp visiting an art class in San Francisco, where he saw a young man wildly painting away. Duchamp went over and asked, "What are you doing?" The young man said, "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing!" And Duchamp patted him on the back and said, "Keep up the good work.""

a recent release on Willem Breuker's BVHaast label from Feldman's Last Composition: http://wbk.home.xs4all.nl/_0110Feldman_Info.html

one other thing worth noting with New World contuing its CRI Records reissue program... two months ago they finally got around to "The Viola In My Life", three 70's performances conducted by Feldman. I would have mentioned that one in the secondaries of my first post if I'd heard it, it's not glossy or ambient, it's close-miked & delicate. Lots of room tone and small noises & movements, very live, active listening.

http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=17147.com

― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, January 4, 2007 1:23 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

really been enjoying this one over the last few days. "delicate" is exactly how I would describe it as well.

I have to be in a very particular mood to enjoy Feldman. My favorite of his is Coptic Light, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's also his busiest piece.

same here. but when I'm in that mood, the slow, sparse nature of his later work coupled with the tension/release dynamic the repetition brings out really gets me.

that said, I listened to string quartet 2 a few weeks back and felt like an insane person by the end of it.

argh, need to proofread.

I haven't listened to coptic light tho. any recording you would recommend?

I have the one on CPO coupled with the early Durations pieces, which are okay, but CL is the highlight.

Someone (I think Michael Gielen) has a disc coupling CL and Bruckner's 8th.

I will seek out the CPO release then, thanks!

There's something about the photo on the cover of this LP that is just so strange:

http://www.theoriginalsoundtrack.com/art/mortonfeldman.jpg

For me, I like Coptic Light the best. The thing with Feldman is that the shorter a piece is, the more musical information there is, as for longer pieces it's the opposite.
I'd also reccommend the ECM recording of 'The Viola In My Life' that came out some years ago. Stellar perfomance and sound quality. The last section with orchestra and viola is very moving.

Just dropped for this: http://www.hyphenpress.co.uk/music/morton_feldman_jazz_tributes

Looks fun, I'll let you know.

i can't really afford to go to this. but can i really afford to not go? probably my one and only chance, no?

http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/105058-Minimal-Extreme:-The-Smith-Quartet:-Feldman%27s-Quartet-No.2-%286-hours%29

This Thur:

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/golden-fur-morton-feldman-patterns-in-a-chromatic-field.shtm

That Feldman perf was pretty good, can sink into those shapes for hours -- which is good since he writes material that tends to go well over an hour -- we need more of those quiet performances so that we can hear it against creaky chairs and sirens going round on a late and hot London evening.

Grear new release: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/15/feldman-crippled-symmetry-review?INTCMP=SRCH

GreaT, that is.

anyone heard this one?

http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/238feldman.html

Yup... another winner. Other newish releases: Matchless have put out a couple of DVDs of John Tilbury performing piano + chamber group pieces. Absolutely spellbinding.

For John Cage at the Purcell Room: http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/music/classical/tickets/for-john-cage-by-morton-feldman-68641

No intermission, sober Monday night - just pay, watch away from all (right near the top of Purcell), zone out for 80 mins, then fuck off.

My definition of a perfect gig.

"For John Cage" might be my fave Feldman piece (by a narrow margin--was the first one I ever heard of); sounds like an amazing opportunity for Londoners to hear it (10 pounds seems like a steal for something like that)...

I've got a ticket for this. Really looking forward to it - first Feldman I'll ever see live.

£5 student ticket! this and fushitsusha playing a five minute walk from my house, london is making a mockery of my resolution to attend fewer concerts this coming year.

this was good but i cannot express how annoyed i was by the older lady next to me who kept coughing and smacking her lips and burping and tapping her feet and making various other noises. i guess i'm a bad cageian. :(

lol when i went to the free john cage performance w/ john tilbury in glasgow concert halls recently, two little old ladies sat in front of us were in a state of increasing disgruntlement, which climaxed w/ one turning to the other, during a long silent passage, and quite audibly saying, "what rubbish"! like you, i tried my very best to see it as a cageian intervention. they didn't return after the interval.

haha 'what rubbish', how are there still people who will go to a free john cage performance in 2012 and react that way

Lol, in that same Feldman concert @ Purcell a man was snoring away for about 5 mins but actually I am so used to this kind of thing I tend to use it to add concentration and work with it. I had a whole thing I wanted to write about on this but I had to sleep myself when I got back and then forgot about it...

Anyway I would say it should be seen as a real part of concert going - its there, so actively use it.

Anyway, More Feldman and Tilbury in London

My other experience of 'what rubbish' came @ Wigmore hall, in a Renaissance choral recital. This was also programmed with contemporary works and I sat next to two very suited up guys getting very pissy at one of the (admitedly very poor) works. They left at half-time but they missed truly awesome Madrigals in the 2nd half.

I've seen a lot more Feldman in live performance now than I had when this thread was started. It's such a challenge so much of the time. Basically, anything written for less than four instruments is going to be so intimate and spare that you can nearly bet at least one person is going to lose their composure in a way that breaks concentration for the entire room, either by fidgeting loudly or by falling asleep. But I agree you've got to use it, as good as this music sounds as isolationist personal 3AM listening, it really is meant as music for live performance and everything social that entails

The one exception to this I've gotten to witness is 'Rothko Chapel' -- there's a bit more dramatic movement in that piece than most others, and also the physical presence of the chorus on stage keeps everyone magnetized -- when will they sing? And then, once they do, it's out of nowhere. Even at SF's Davies Symphony Hall, which seats nearly 3000 and is notoriously filled with season ticket holders who inexplicably bring plastic bags with them for the seeming and sole purpose of nervously crinkling them during all the most suspended moments -- when Tilson Thomas did 'Rothko', I had never, ever heard Davies that quiet. It was on the bill with Mozart's 'Requiem', I was expecting the traditionalists to be at their most cranky, but nope, 'Rothko' is just a masterpiece

http://www.discogs.com/Morton-Feldman-New-Directions-In-Music-2/release/1218389

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFnpPNSLug

this is still the first piece I usually play people who ask me about Feldman and it's still so under-recognized for being such a hallmark work in the history of process music. Everyone's made the connection between minimalism and the early tape-loop/tape-delay pieces by Riley/Oliveros/Reich and later Eno, but even before those works, there was 'Piece For Four Pianos' where four people play the same piece of sheet music, but pick their own tempo, so the same chord sequence slowly starts recombining itself into different patterns

it came out on Columbia in 1959, so pretty much everyone heard this, it wasn't some obscurity sitting unreleased for 30-40 years

xpost The two things I have been lucky to see here in NYC are Patterns In A Chromatic Field and Rothko Chapel, the two sides of the divide you mention. Luckily the former was in a small turkish rug shop that seated... maybe 40 people? so the intimacy was not hindered.

sure hope I get to see Patterns In A Chromatic Field in a Turkish rug shop someday

it ruled so hard. La Monte was there or someone who looked just like him.

All 4/5 perfs of the small late works I've attended over the years have been in small-ish venues to no more than 50 people. Seen quieter music, disrupted by others or outside traffic. A fact of concert going life. Almost think it was these kinds of experiences with yawning ladies that led Cage to his theories as much as the Buddhist-musical-theoretical mumbo jumbo.

If a performance is disrupted by a siren think of Varese.

Incidentally, I recommended Feldman to a friend when she asked me what type of classical music she could do her ironing to. I know I know..

also good for folding laundry

it has many uses

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6iekmPrvL1qb9wqio12_250.gif

Last night was p/good - all of these pieces add to one another when played in succession in an unbroken spell - you notice how certain sounds stay on for longer than they should, others are cut off at their peak, and the clashes between all of these sounds that actually do not clash.

There were risks w/the programming: Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety (a transcription of a piece for ensemble) and Piano (Three Hands) (the third hand supplied by Tilbury's cousin) both took a turn toward a blandness I didn't think Feldman was capable of. But it set the scene for Palais De Mari. Tilbury made a few remarks and called the piece sumptuous but what's impressive is how he undercuts that quality at the most unexpected points and doesn't make a big show of deploying *avant-garde technique a, b, c...*, he is incredibly subtle about this.

Feldman called it Palais a distillation of all his music for piano but its a hard claim to examine and I'm not sure I agree with that.

This was full. I don't think Cafe Oto is that good a venue for recitals but it is the austerity venue for recitals. Sirens all round, you hear a lot of insecure posturing in the pre-concert conversation. Fine in the end, w/Cageian listening a must.

Furthermore you can see Tilbury's versatiliy - how many classical performers would put up w/that venue?

otoh he seems purely into Feldman...I was wondering how a pair up w/works by Webern would look like.

hmm i don't have/know Palais de Mari

i played the "late pieces w/ clarinet" last night. "clarinet and string quartet" just breaths in and out like a gentle warm thing.

ha i just got that album (as MP3s) from eMusic. It's less than 2 bucks for some reason!

Big thanks to all in this thread for the Feldman info. Had never listened to him before reading this a couple weeks ago (poked my head in as I've been having a lot of fun listening to 20th cent classical lately). Have pretty much listened only to him since. Really really fantastic stuff.

Initial faves are 'Rothko Chapel' 'for Philip Guston' and 'Viola in my Life' - though I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've heard.

Stoked that there'll be a performance of a Feldman piece in Boston on March 10th as part of a program with a buncha Webern.
Love it when something like that pops up just as I'm getting into somebody. They'll be playing something called 'Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello' - can't find on Spotify or Youtube... can anybody shed any light?

Again... much thanks, y'all. :)

It's his final composition. A remarkable one even after his unmatched run of longer pieces throughout the 80s. Words fail me, but - of course - you must attend!

Thanks for the info! Sounds fantastic... and I certainly WILL attend.

It's free too!

http://collagenewmusic.org/wp/?page_id=15

The concert was fantastic.

Was odd seeing Feldman's music performed by people for the first time. In stuff like 'Beckett' and 'Rothko' the sounds seem like things that just appear, rather than stuff played by humans. to me. haha

I was lucky to get to see Rothko live too, at Avery Fisher Hall a few years ago, and it was v transformative of my feelings about the music to actually SEE these kosmische barely-there colors actually emerging from ppl arrayed on a stage.

would love to see Rothko.
yeah. seeing it performed has def switched things up for me a bit, listening to him now. glad that's not just me being crazy.

was also weird what this slow-moving 80-minute piece did to time perception. after a bit, my gf was like "i could go soon" (haha). both of us were thinking maybe 25 minutes had elapsed... we looked at her phone and the piece was almost over. very odd.

Feldman associate Eberhard Blum passed away a week or two ago. Haven't seen any worthy obituaries yet. Also a remarkable performer of Cage and K. Schwitters, amongst others.

:-(

Yes one of those brilliant performers of the NY school.

Just picked up the Mode DVD of String Quartet No.2. Whoa.

Only an hour or so in, so... who knows, but WOW so far. Love this guy.

oh. that looks nice.

interested in hearing

mode 119 Morton FELDMAN, Vol. 7: Late Works with Clarinet - Clarinet and String Quartet; Bass-Clarinet and Percussion; Three Clarinets, Cello and Piano - Carol Robinson (clarinets); Diatoma Quartet, Paris.

It's very good. Bass Clarinet & Percussion is the highlight.

Haven't heard that one either. Certainly would like to.
I hadn't heard Feldman at all until this year. Now I can't stop listening... Bunita, Beckett, Rothko... pretty compelling stuff.

Seems he clear knocked it outta the park a bunch!

Stephane Ginsburgh has a handful of Feldman shows coming up with visuals by Kurt Ralske. Stoked this is hitting Boston:

Several performances of Morton Feldman this year, I dreamed of it!
And particularly happy to collaborate with visual artist Kurt Ralske

For Bunita Marcus and Triadic Memories (~ 3h)

12.4 - Spectrum, New York with Kurt Ralske, live video
26.5 - Nuits Botanique, Bruxelles with Kurt Ralske, live video
24.6 - Café OTO, London
11.7 - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with Kurt Ralske, live video
And maybe more

24.6 - Café OTO, London

Summer is here early :-)

I assume this is old news, but WOW these conversations are illuminating/entertaining. Well worth your time if you haven't checked them yet.

https://archive.org/details/CageFeldman4

John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at
the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish "A Year from Monday" in 1967. Most of Feldman's important work was yet to come. These conversations between two old friends, relaxed, smoking, and throwing out ideas, are full of laughter and long ponderous silences. They form an incredible historical record of their concerns and preoccupations with making music, art, society, and politics of the moment.

'for john cage' performance tonight @ Oto:

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/aisha-orazbayeva-mark-knoop-morton-feldman.shtm

http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2015/february/aisha-orazbayeva-and-mark-knoop-violin-and-piano

Same duo at it again 10th Feb.

https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/tempo-the-bankrupt-musical-journal-slashing-items-relating-to-abuser-composers/

^ A diff side to Uncle Morty.

Crikey.

ugh. somehow not surprised.

When this broke a few months ago, the only available interview with Bunita Marcus was in Italian. I struggled through the Google translation trying to find the exact quotes that matched up with the 'sexual assault' headlines (which are a very reductive way of summing up what she was talking about). It's all pretty complicated; she's trying to deal. The real charges that sting are the appropriation charges. i encourage anyone disarmed by these charges to read the Italian interview. And about that blogpost; it sounds like a legitimate gripe but given his juvenile incendiary post title, I kind of wonder if the guy at Tempo was following an instinct that this guys article would be a flamethrower.

Marcus has a 'best of' compilation up on bandcamp and it is extremely tormented / tormenting and powerful music

/only available interview on the subject of the charges was in Italian

I hadn't heard about any of this before today. I was just visiting a site that was covering this story and which had replies from Bunita Marcus where she said she was glad when he died, which is... uh... shocking, powerful, disturbing?

I saw some stuff around John Martyn last week as well. Gruesome. However it is positive for this to be in the open. idk how I could listen to For Bunita Marcus again. Could that piece ever be programmed in our lifetimes?

The problem with the post is that idk what shape this proposed article would take without some more journalism and actual talking to Marcus and other Feldman students? Ian has never hidden his contempt for Feldman's writings around Boulez and Stockhausen (and I agree they are Feldman at his worse) and it would be some job to mesh allegations of terrible behaviour against (mostly currently?) living people with writings on music that were doing a job of marking territory, and mapping attitudes across.

I was at the 2006 performance (by Aki Takahashi) of Piano and For Bunita Marcus that's discussed way upthread; Marcus herself put that performance together. So I wonder when and how everything changed for her?

This is freaking me out and depressing me.
It's worth reading the other article that's linked from the Ian pace one; there are multiple comments from Marcus there that paint a head-splittingly ambivalent picture imo.
Perhaps someone will do a proper translation of the Italian interview.
I know very little about Feldman the person, just his music and a couple of articles/essays.

I read that initial slippedisc forum post the day it went up. William Osborne's posts were already in, thankfully meditating the clickbait tone of the headline and the link to an untranslated interview. The other comments including Marcus' replies hadn't come in yet. The initial replies are truly shocking but once you get to the 'he called me reality' post... Ambivalent doesn't even begin to sum it all up. You can't sum it up.

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/hearing-and-remembering-trauma-in-bunita-marcuss-the-rugmaker/

you can't sum it up, or even fit it all into your head

oh man

just read that 2010 article you linked. Jesus.

I didn't realize the memories of the abuse by her father were repressed & recovered memories. Is that also the case with the Feldman incidents? As if this needed to get even knottier.

There has been extensive controversy over whether memories of traumatic events can truly be repressed, involuntarily forgotten, and later recovered intact

yes, there certainly has...

This is very very knotty indeed. By the way, in the initial interview it seems she accused him of assaulting other women.

I didn't realize the memories of the abuse by her father were repressed & recovered memories.

yikes. i have zero faith in such things, as the whole repressed-memory industry has been thoroughly demystified and debunked. but all kinds of things are possible -- it's easy to imagine that she even projected abuse suffered as a adult back into her childhood. it's possible that a narrative of childhood sexual abuse was useful to her in coming to terms with abuse suffered as an adult. or it could be that she didn't suffer abuse of any kind. or that she actually did suffer childhood and adult abuse (but again, i don't think "repressed"/"recovered" memories are any kind of evidence for that). what a mess.

feldman always struck me as a big jerk with a cult of personality, but that's one thing, and abuse is quite another.

(relevant reading btw: http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Repressed-Memory-Allegations/dp/0312141238)

Abuse can often go with people who establish/encourage cults of personality.

When this broke a few months ago, the only available interview with Bunita Marcus was in Italian. I struggled through the Google translation trying to find the exact quotes that matched up with the 'sexual assault' headlines (which are a very reductive way of summing up what she was talking about).

Do you trust google translator to give a correct re-telling? I haven't chased up on anything, would like to see a proper translations of the interview.

I'll look at the newmusic piece later.

well, brace yourself. & no, my whole point is I don't trust google translator, I find her comments impossible to easily summarize, and think the headlines which did so are already effectively misinformation. I've refrained from cutting and pasting anything because you really need to read every single last word of that interview, and all of her comments in that thread, and also that newmusic article to avoid a snap judgement.

I shudder to even bring up Allen & Cosby in context with this case, but that's what this year's given us, right? In any case, my reaction to the discussion over whether or not their work was 'lost' to us was pretty simple: I still find some things to like about their early to mid-career work, and hear increasingly false notes in their later work, in a way that maps almost too neatly. In this case, I would agree with what you said upthread: Feldman's music since 1977 is some of your favorite music ever, and maybe it is no accident that that is the year after he met Bunita Marcus. The reason why her charges of appropriation sting for me is because he was already pretty forthcoming about her work's effect on him -- he only wrote his dedication-title pieces for his peers, people who influenced him. And I like that the answer to your question 'could 'For Bunita Marcus' be programmed again within our lifetimes?' came one post later, she's programmed it herself many many times and it was the first piece I turned to when this whole thing came up.

I think her post to that thread is probably true: she calls Feldman a friend who would support her and want her to be doing what she's doing now, working through this. It's us who can't handle it, and in the wake of a vague translation & poetic comments to a thread, we run the risk of either reducing things to the worst possible caricature of what happened, or writing off her experience entirely as projection, and neither of those serve anyone.

https://bunitamarcus.bandcamp.com/album/favorite-works-from-the-1980s

Bunita met Morton Feldman in 1976, beginning a long association that lasted until his death in 1987. For seven years they were inseparable. Feldman and Marcus composed side by side, sharing musical thoughts and ideas. In 1985 Feldman dedicated his new piano composition: "For Bunita Marcus." Today, Dr. Marcus lectures, coaches and writes regularly on Morton Feldman's music.

should have refrained from saying anything at all before reading Dr. Marcus' twitter account.

I hope she regains control of her environment and her physical health; her music is inspired and a gift.

And I like that the answer to your question 'could 'For Bunita Marcus' be programmed again within our lifetimes?' came one post later, she's programmed it herself many many times and it was the first piece I turned to when this whole thing came up.

The ans to the q 'what has changed' could be that well, she or anyone claiming anything against Feldman could now be believed. In the last 2-3 years allegations against music teachers in conservatories have now come up and convictions have been made for incidents that occurred 25+ years ago..

Or that Marcus would get a fairer, more sympathetic hearing.

have you read her twitter yet

No.

I just have...

I echo what you've said, hope she can regain control. Forget Feldman and what he has done or hasn't for now.

I am not sure why no one is commenting on twitter or attempting to help her in any way?!?!

Got a link to the Twitter account? Searching "Bunita Marcus" turned up nothing for me.

@bunitamuse

it's a horrible thing to read

I am not sure why no one is commenting on twitter or attempting to help her in any way?!?!

this was my first thought, tho of course people maybe trying to help without addressing this online

Really hope so - 'new music community' is utter bollocks otherwise.

it's a drop in the bucket given the situation, but given her comments about the difficulty of affording food, bandcamp lets you pay more than the asking price for her album, and the music is powerful and worth hearing regardless of context

yes, come payday that feels like a positive thing to do

cosign.

The last time I had seen Marcus mentioned before this was a couple of months ago when someone linked to her Twitter acct bc the tweets were gravely concerning to a "does anyone know where she lives and can anyone go there rn" extent

if anything on her twitter feed is true (i.e. she's in grave physical danger / her husband abuses her), there should probably be some kind of intervention from legal authorities. but it's quite possible much of it is a projection of mental illness. whatever the case, it's sad and i hope she gets help.

actually it's pretty obvious she's delusional and paranoid. she may also be in terrible physical shape. jeez, i hope someone helps her. i'm not sure simply sending her money is really the way to go.

DOES ANYONE IN THIS BITCH LIKE TRIADIC MEMORIES

for the ultimate 6-8 hour minimal piano experience, pair it with Dennis Johnson's November

I v much like Triadic Memories yes

I saw John Tilbury playing it live. My friend said it was like watching someone defuse a bomb.

rothko chapel is the best, i would love to see a live performance of it. i am going to make it a priority to get my shit in gear and nab a ticket the next time i get an opportunity. i like the details in this post:

Even at SF's Davies Symphony Hall, which seats nearly 3000 and is notoriously filled with season ticket holders who inexplicably bring plastic bags with them for the seeming and sole purpose of nervously crinkling them during all the most suspended moments -- when Tilson Thomas did 'Rothko', I had never, ever heard Davies that quiet. It was on the bill with Mozart's 'Requiem', I was expecting the traditionalists to be at their most cranky, but nope, 'Rothko' is just a masterpiece

― Milton Parker, Tuesday, December 4, 2012 2:12 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last night i tried falling asleep to it with cheap apple earbuds, and even through the tiny speakers rothko chapel 3 was extraordinary, flooring in a similar way to lux aeterna, and making use of the same kind of overlapping anonymous voices chasing each other. it was a terrible recording to fall asleep to, but only because it was too beautiful to ever ignore.

i also want to make it a priority to find a better pdf of the score somewhere. but it's amazing to follow along and see how so emotion can come from so few notes, just a simple slow viola melody, with timpani and bass drum rolls. i can imagine how incredible that must sound in a live setting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MjC6sjunL8

The new piano box on Another Timbre, performed by Philip Thomas, is amazing. And if you order it straight from the label as I did, they’ll send you a digital file of Triadic Memories as a single track (it’s split across two of the CDs because it’s 90 minutes long).

Finally digging deep into late Feldman, and I'm kind of obsessed with For Christian Wolff (Blum/Vigeland recording on HatHut). I'm thinking it might be the most purely beautiful of his chamber pieces, both in terms of the delicate soundworld of piano/celeste + flute and the gentle parade of intricately arranged, patiently performed motifs.

My favorite Feldman pieces have passages where he allows the atonality to soften a bit, e.g. the long series of chords on pages 89-93 of String Quartet No. 2, the section of Crippled Symmetry about 30 minutes before the end, and the final section of For Philip Guston in A minor. For Christian Wolff also has lots of this. Perfect music to contemplate on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The new piano box on Another Timbre, performed by Philip Thomas, is amazing. And if you order it straight from the label as I did, they’ll send you a digital file of Triadic Memories as a single track (it’s split across two of the CDs because it’s 90 minutes long).

I'm kind of daunted by how many recordings there are of For Bunita Marcus. I've only heard the Takahashi on Mode, which is gorgeous. How does the Philip Thomas compare to that one, if anyone knows? His piano box is really tempting...

Died in Jan

RIP tom johnson, composer of rational music, critic at the village voice & essential documenter of downtown nyc scene in the 70s/80s, student of morty feldman pre suny buffalo and much like him and cage and ives, a rugged american iconoclast pic.twitter.com/PmO4mhHYo6

— callahan (@IRCAM_official) January 1, 2025