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!).

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