# Looking for composers similar to Morton Feldman



## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Morton Feldman is my favorite composer of all time by far. Sometimes it seems like I am the only one who truly appreciates him. I have yet to hear a composer with even a vaguely similar musical voice as him. I feel like there should be composers inspired by him. He is my greatest inspiration but I am not an efficient composer yet.

Composers who are vaguely similar but don't quite hit the mark are: Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen.

I don't want indeterminate music. A big part of what I love about Feldman is that it's all precisely composed. I don't want music that is about silence. I don't think Feldman uses silence much. I like the quasi-melodies and chords, the gentle dissonance.

I hope I can someday compose in a similar way.


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2018)

Feldman is one of a kind.

Perhaps you might like Pauline Oliveros?

If you want music where the composer has a lot of control over the intended sounds, you might be able to find some interesting composers who create a lot of electroacoustic music, like Éliane Radigue, Dhomont and others I guess.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> Morton Feldman is my favorite composer of all time by far. Sometimes it seems like I am the only one who truly appreciates him. I have yet to hear a composer with even a vaguely similar musical voice as him. I feel like there should be composers inspired by him. He is my greatest inspiration but I am not an efficient composer yet.
> 
> Composers who are vaguely similar but don't quite hit the mark are: Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen.
> 
> ...


Boulez Éclat
Cage Hymnkus, maybe some of the pieces in Solo for Piano (a Sabine Liebner CD)
Truax Riverrun
Merzbau Dharma
La Monte Young Well Tuned Piano

I'm convinced that Schubert has much in common with Feldman too.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Wonderful 20th century composer. The use of space and silence was important to Feldman in varying degrees and he was considerably influenced by his friend John Cage. I don't see how he can be understood without this. There can be considerable space in some of this works and part of its sense of surprise, indeterminate, and meditative qualitites. Some of his long pauses make the listener wait, sometimes for a long time, for what's going to happen next. I like that he just doesn't hand over everything in a silver platter and this has a way of drawing in the listener. His music reminds me successfully of modern art, one of the best equivalents between the arts, because there's something very abstract about it and yet pleasing, even witty and humorous-for me, one of the bright spots in 20th-century music. He's positive and constructive, sometimes with lots of space between the notes: silences.






Some of his music has an affinity with John Cage's in its spacious, meditative qualities.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Birtwistle's La Plage


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2018)

*Larkenfield* mentioned *Cage*...............although I feel Cage's _number pieces_ are closest in style, superficially, to Feldman. A couple of works from that series:











..................but as I understand it, the OP isn't exactly interested in Cage, right?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The reason I mentioned Hymnknus is that it reminds me of Spring of Crosroes a bit, maybe the link is tenuous.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Feldman was a double-sided composer. He vacillated between being meditative and being dark. Think Franz Kline for the first, and Samuel Beckett for the second. Cage was also two-sided, except that his polarities went from quiet/peaceful to raucous/joyous. So there's definitely overlap between the two men. The number pieces cited above are a good place to look, I especially like this OgreOgress productions CD featuring a dubbed Glenn Freeman, it's quite special:









As for younger composers, someone who works in the obsessive but still and quiet manner of Morton Feldman is Christopher Cerrone, as heard in his piece, Memory Palace:






Anna Thorvaldsdottir, an Icelandic composer, also has pieces that border Feldman's universe (as found in his orchestral piece, For Samuel Beckett),.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Thanks for the Birtwistle, Mandryka. First piece of his I’ve liked!


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Boulez Éclat
> Cage Hymnkus, maybe some of the pieces in Solo for Piano (a Sabine Liebner CD)
> Truax Riverrun
> Merzbau Dharma
> ...


Funnily, The Well-Tuned Piano is one of the only things I've heard that _really_ gets close to approximating Feldman. Unfortunately it's improvised. But I'll be sure to check out your suggestions.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Wonderful 20th century composer. The use of space and silence was important to Feldman in varying degrees and he was considerably influenced by his friend John Cage. I don't see how he can be understood without this. There can be considerable space in some of this works and part of its sense of surprise, indeterminate, and meditative qualitites. Some of his long pauses make the listener wait, sometimes for a long time, for what's going to happen next. I like that he just doesn't hand over everything in a silver platter and this has a way of drawing in the listener. His music reminds me successfully of modern art, one of the best equivalents between the arts, because there's something very abstract about it and yet pleasing, even witty and humorous-for me, one of the bright spots in 20th-century music. He's positive and constructive, sometimes with lots of space between the notes: silences.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow, that Cage piece is very close aside from the tangible rhythm. Is it indeterminate or no? It doesn't sound like it. It seems like an uncommon piece in his oeuvre though. I also like his piece called Quartets or something. When I said I don't want silence, I meant things like Cage's 4'33" or a piece with one staccato note played every 30 seconds, which has been suggested to me on another post like this.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Birtwistle's La Plage


That's absolutely charming. Exactly what I'm looking for except I'm not the biggest fan of vocals. Is that unlike his other work? Someone else said that's the first piece they've liked by him.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> Is that unlike his other work?


Yes.

..........


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> Funnily, The Well-Tuned Piano is one of the only things I've heard that _really_ gets close to approximating Feldman. Unfortunately it's improvised. But I'll be sure to check out your suggestions.


Boulez himself said that he was inspired by Feldman in Éclats, by the way in Feldman cells just disappear into nothingness, or something like that.

I didn't know that the Well Tuned Piano was improvised!


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Yes.
> 
> ..........


What are his other pieces like? I can't imagine someone writing a piece like that which is much different than his other stuff, but I guess Cage is another one like that.



Mandryka said:


> Boulez himself said that he was inspired by Feldman in Éclats, by the way in Feldman cells just disappear into nothingness, or something like that.
> 
> I didn't know that the Well Tuned Piano was improvised!


According to a book I have documenting Feldman's writings, he was also an admirer of Boulez, so I'll certainly have to listen to him.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Yes.
> 
> ..........


I listened to a bit of his piano trio and it doesn't seem too far off, though with more dynamic variation than I want, i.e. none at all. It sounds like a more dynamic version of Feldman with inspiration from the 12-tone serialists.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> What are his other pieces like?


Try The Mask of Orpheus, that's probably his masterpiece.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> I listened to a bit of his piano trio and it doesn't seem too far off, though with more dynamic variation than I want, i.e. none at all. It sounds like a more dynamic version of Feldman with inspiration from the 12-tone serialists.


Ah yes the trio is very good.

Have you heard late Nono, Prometeo?


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

I've always thought that Webern and Feldman had a lot in common. In some ways they are exact opposites too. I think they were both very good at distilling musical ideas down to their very essence with little to no ornamentation. They also both had a preference for soft dynamics. The one big obvious difference is the average duration of their compositions. Webern was very succinct while Feldman could go on for hours in some pieces. However, I have a feeling that if you took a short Webern piece and expanded all of the note durations proportionally so that it takes an hour or more to play through, I think you would end up with something that would sound a lot like Feldman.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Feldman thought very highly of Webern's music. Wasn't it at a concert where one of Webern's works was being performed where Cage and Feldman first met each other? It was their mutual admiration for the work that led to their initial conversation if I remember correctly.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

PeterFromLA said:


> Feldman was a double-sided composer. He vacillated between being meditative and being dark. Think Franz Kline for the first, and Samuel Beckett for the second. Cage was also two-sided, except that his polarities went from quiet/peaceful to raucous/joyous. So there's definitely overlap between the two men. The number pieces cited above are a good place to look, I especially like this OgreOgress productions CD featuring a dubbed Glenn Freeman, it's quite special:
> 
> View attachment 104985
> 
> ...


Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm partial to his late works, the later the better, with Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (his final piece) being my favorite. His two sides seem to be the early and late styles. At first he had variation but then he decided to stick with only quiet unpredictable sounds.

I'd probably say that Beckett is meditative and Kline is dark though. I love abstract art, and I like to compare Feldman's music to it, especially Rothko who may be my favorite painter. Kline is also up there.

I want abstract classical music, music that is not representative, in which no part is more or less important than another, with no logic to be found within the work.

Those pieces are very nice but not close enough to the Feldman style I'm partial to. The first piece is a bit too rhythmic, dynamic, representative, and predictable. The second piece is too dynamic and ominous, almost like they're inspired by Penderecki, but I love the softer harmonies. It also has that nice orchestra-tuning-up sound which I'm also looking for. I hear it a bit in Words and Music by Feldman and Beckett.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

SuperTonic said:


> I've always thought that Webern and Feldman had a lot in common. In some ways they are exact opposites too. I think they were both very good at distilling musical ideas down to their very essence with little to no ornamentation. They also both had a preference for soft dynamics. The one big obvious difference is the average duration of their compositions. Webern was very succinct while Feldman could go on for hours in some pieces. However, I have a feeling that if you took a short Webern piece and expanded all of the note durations proportionally so that it takes an hour or more to play through, I think you would end up with something that would sound a lot like Feldman.
> 
> I seem to recall reading somewhere that Feldman thought very highly of Webern's music. Wasn't it at a concert where one of Webern's works was being performed where Cage and Feldman first met each other? It was their mutual admiration for the work that led to their initial conversation if I remember correctly.


I love Webern even though his pieces are so short, however if I were to rank the 3 main composers associated with Schoenberg I would put Berg first, then Webern, then Schoenberg. I feel like Schoenberg is modern but still using semi-outdated classical structures, Berg is like romantic modernism, and Webern is full-on modern.

The duration of the pieces is a very important aspect of why I love Feldman. My second favorite piece of his is For Philip Guston which is 4.5 hours long, and I have seen the behemoth String Quartet No. 2 live right in the front row and it was an extremely moving experience, though that's not one of my favorite pieces because there's too much dynamic variation.

But yeah I've read that too, that they met due to a mutual disgust at an audience's unappreciative response to Webern's work.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Try The Mask of Orpheus, that's probably his masterpiece.


Is that a more typical work of his? I quite enjoy it, though it's not exactly Feldman. Is it all acoustic? There are some very strange sounds in there. One of my preferences is for classical music to be entirely acoustic instruments, and ideally small chamber ensembles.



Mandryka said:


> Ah yes the trio is very good.
> 
> Have you heard late Nono, Prometeo?


I have not heard much Nono, so recommendations would be appreciated. However even that piece is too dynamic, and I don't like the spoken word, and I don't like vocals in general. Especially when lyrics are involved, it makes the piece representative. Feldman used vocals nicely, usually with plain vowel sounds. He also complemented Beckett nicely in Words and Music I thought.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's something by Nono I really like, but it is dynamic


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Here's something by Nono I really like, but it is dynamic


I love that. It's like Feldman and Nono collaborated. The dynamics are not so offensive so far. Without the reverberation it would be quite wonderful.

I have been wanting to compose a duet for violin and cello and this piece is inspiring me.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I'm convinced that Schubert has much in common with Feldman too.


I have begun listening to Schubert's symphonies in reverse order and I hear inklings of the tonal voice of Feldman, though it is executed in a classical way.

Though I must say that I abhor the tendency of dynamicism at the end of movements.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Cage and Feldman met as they both departed a concert at the New York Philharmonic, which had just finished performing Webern's Five Pieces. The composers struck up a conversation as they were both leaving for the same reason, so that their memory of the work would not be sullied by whatever Respighi or Tchaikovsky piece was up next, if memory serves. They thus found themselves to be fellow travelers, friends until the end of their lives.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

I also quite like some of Philip Glass' pieces, namely Music in Twelve Parts which has the atmosphere I'm looking for, at least in the beginning, as well as Music with Changing Parts, Einstein on the Beach, etc.


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Try The Mask of Orpheus, that's probably his masterpiece.


I agree, definitely one of his most impressive. Also, despite enjoying a lot of *Robert Ashley* operas, _The Mask of Orpheus_ still, I think, has the best use of electronics in opera that I have ever heard.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Does anyone else love Feldman as much as I do? I want to follow in his footsteps.


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2018)

Fredx2098 said:


> Does anyone else love Feldman as much as I do? I want to follow in his footsteps.


I love Feldman, but you are probably his *No. 1 fan.*


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

shirime said:


> I love Feldman, but you are probably his *No. 1 fan.*


I'm obsessed. To me, every moment of my favorite pieces are completely flawless, perfect music. I hope I can become a great composer inspired by him.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

The Hat Art recordings of Feldman's music are legendary. Look for their recording of For Philip Guston, if you haven't heard it already.

Alex Ross's review of a performance of the piece is very nice. http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/10/feldmans_guston.html


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

PeterFromLA said:


> The Hat Art recordings of Feldman's music are legendary. Look for their recording of For Philip Guston, if you haven't heard it already.
> 
> Alex Ross's review of a performance of the piece is very nice. http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/10/feldmans_guston.html


I may have heard it. I'll download it. It's a damn shame that his music gets chopped up into separate CDs. I try to edit them and make them better.

It's weird how that review kept calling it "Guston"


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> I have begun listening to Schubert's symphonies in reverse order and I hear inklings of the tonal voice of Feldman, though it is executed in a classical way.
> 
> Though I must say that I abhor the tendency of dynamicism at the end of movements.


The way that in some Schubert the music isn't goal oriented, it moves without a goal, slowly. I'm really thinking of the first movement of D 840, like here


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm partial to his late works, the later the better, with Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (his final piece) being my favorite.


Yes I like the last pieces and Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (his final piece) is also my favourite.

I'll just mention some recordings which I found a bit special were Paul Zukofsky and Marianne Schroeder in _For John Cage_ and Ronnie Lynn Patterson's extraordinary Palais de Mari, which has an interesting booklet essay by Christian Tarting



> Why is Morton Feldman's music so difficult to listen to? One is tempted to paraphrase here the title of Berg's famous article from 1924 on Schönberg1 so as to explain how the reproaches usually levelled against the New York composer by those who oppose his very clearly defined aesthetics, miss the point. Such reproaches - that his compositions are boring, far too long, created according to simplistic compositional procedures, always pitched at the lowest possible sound level to the point of obession, so as to be almost inaudible, as though fascinated by the very poverty of the melodic formulae governing their inner logic etc. etc. - only show a lack of real observation of the universe and guiding principles of this composer and what he has to say. For out of those musicians still linked to Western tradition in spite of everything and to the symbolic weight it implies in matters of composition, here is one who has shown the most intimate understanding of the positions taken up by his close friend and mentor, John Cage. It is precisely Morton Feldman who in the quietly unshakeable inevitability of his own position, has pushed some of the deviations from classical writing inherent in John Cage's work to their limit.
> He has echoed the silence defined by Cage in the manner of Wittgenstein as "all the sounds co- ming in", notably with his predilection for tenuity, his use of extremely compact, unassuming dynamics (this is in fact merely a side issue, almost a facile way of covering Cagism), as well as his basic principle denying all self-interest, his refusal to indulge in demonstrative aesthe- tics, or give voice to originality in complex settings all too close, in his opinion, to the desire for individuality, the wish to leave one's mark on the work - old established rules of the Old World.
> To Cage's "resulting" silence, an area of noises, parasitic and otherwise, belonging to the realm of sensitivity where pure accident is the vital ingredient, or to silence as a defined area of re- ceptivity, the unresolved, not subject to any aesthetic, Feldman's reply is that of a logic that encompasses the silence by the absence of all effects, the repetition of the generating cells in a scarcely modulated regular pattern. It amounts to almost nothing, a pianissimo ("My music is inside silence", he used to say) that prompted the following remark in parallel: "I differ from my European colleagues in that I don't require a work of art to be interesting". So we find him thrusting aside even more decisively our well-established categories and patterns as users of the musical element. More than anything else, his approach is closer in feeling to the Chinese notion of insipidness and palour, that places more importance on transparence and duplication than action or the production of something "new", or self-assertion2.
> In reality Feldman suggested somewhat maliciously that his music belonged to the realm of the parable; Cage highlighted the significance of this statement by proposing to call him a hero if he was not given the title of composer. Feldman the Irenist deliberately provokes boredom, which for him constitutes an opening towards consciousness, or to put it more aptly, it is the symptom of consciousness. Giving rise to it could be his most important decisive act - almost the only one, as he himself might have claimed. By jamming irremediably the tape of eve- rything artificial, the loop of little tricks that go to make up what claims to be listening ma- terial, but which, as far as music is concerned, only implies a sort of social, superficial acquaintanceship, a backdrop in fact, boredom functions like the blow of the Zen monk's stick, requiring the body to react and enter into a state of concentration. It's what trips up all those who want to advance quickly, be seduced and flattered by diversity, consume diffe- rence as a value, a token of culture. If one stumbles and revolts in the presence of boredom, what is potentially a gateway to understanding will shut forever. But if boredom is reco- gnised and ac-knowledged, experienced and finally accepted, it becomes dynamic, a sure catalyst for meditation, revealing its most fertile ground, that of inner detachment - the opportunity is revealed, slowly unfolded in every detail, illuminated, for a sort of imploded ecstasy, brought about by the gradual dissolution of one's personal agitations, the thrus- ting aside of all background noise so as to escape all that might weigh one down, starting with the lengthy story of the tensions of the "I".
> ...


Also Patterns in a Chromatic Field played by Kees Wieringa and René Berman. I can let you have an interesting concert recording of John Tilbury playing Triadic Memories if you like, PM me if you want it. Though I have to say that Sabine Liebner is always interesting and challenging IMO.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

The 1991 recording by Wieringa and Berman was the first CD appearance of Patterns in a Chromatic Field. In fact, the work was at that point still unnamed, published by Attacca as "Untitled Composition for Cello and Piano." I loved that recording, but my ardor for it was called into question when a recording by Arditti Quartet cellist Rohan de Saram and pianist Marianne Schroeder was released four years later, on HatHut(Now). The latter may no longer be available, I'm not sure, but it's a good one to hear.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/morton-feldman-patterns-in-a-chromatic-field-mw0000963077


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

What are people's favourite recording of Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Who can name the musicians in this picture?









The answer is in white here

Morton Feldman (composer), Julius Eastman (composer), Jan Williams (drummer), David del Tradici (conductor). Image taken at the University of Buffalo


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2018)

I only recognise Feldman and the composer standing directly behind him.....


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Who can name the musicians in this picture?
> 
> View attachment 105018


William Appleby is also present... Morton Feldman is at the piano, with Creative Associates Julius Eastman, Jan Williams, William Appleby, and David Del Tredici, taken during Feldman's first year at the University at Buffalo as Slee Professor-all composers but percussionist Jan Williams. Tredici won a Pulitzer Prize in Music and is a former Guggenheim and Woodrow Wilson fellow.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Disregard, I confused it with another photograph featuring Feldman.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Yes I like the last pieces and Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (his final piece) is also my favourite.
> 
> I'll just mention some recordings which I found a bit special were Paul Zukofsky and Marianne Schroeder in _For John Cage_ and Ronnie Lynn Patterson's extraordinary Palais de Mari, which has an interesting booklet essay by Christian Tarting
> 
> Also Patterns in a Chromatic Field played by Kees Wieringa and René Berman. I can let you have an interesting concert recording of John Tilbury playing Triadic Memories if you like, PM me if you want it. Though I have to say that Sabine Liebner is always interesting and challenging IMO.


That's a nice bit of writing on Feldman, at least for the layman. Whenever I recommend his music to someone, I make sure to tell them to try not to resign themselves to the obvious reaction of thinking of it like background music and instead urge them to try to concentrate on it as much as possible. One thing I'm not a big fan of is people comparing his music to Cage's. Though he has some pieces that sound similar, I don't think he had the same intentions as Feldman, but I could be wrong.

I think I have the Aki Takahashi recording of Traidic Memories which is great, but it's a bit noisy so I might like to hear another version. Solo piano or solo anything is not my favorite type of piece, but I have to say that my favorite solo piano piece by Feldman is For Bunita Marcus. I feel like it's the only one that really matches the tone of his chamber pieces.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> What are people's favourite recording of Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello?


I believe I actually bought several recordings of the piece trying to find a perfect performance as well as low background noise. I may have ended up with the hat ART version coincidentally. That seems to be a favorite label for Feldman. I could be wrong, it was a while ago.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> The way that in some Schubert the music isn't goal oriented, it moves without a goal, slowly. I'm really thinking of the first movement of D 840, like here


It's funny, I don't really like that piece very much. It's not bad, but it's waaay too tonal for me to really enjoy, also the lack of counterpoint and the fact that it's solo piano brings it down a bit. I do love some composers with an affinity for solo piano such as Liszt, especially his Années de Pèlerinage, Chopin, and Brahms if that counts. I have to say that I love Brahms' piano chamber pieces. The first piece I heard by him (besides the lullaby of course) was the first piano quartet, if you can guess, because it's scored for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello. I find his talent similar to Feldman's because he can make a small ensemble sound as rich or more rich than a full orchestral piece, and my opinion is that chamber > orchestral > solo, however I also love Brahms' first piano concerto. The Romantic era is definitely my second favorite to Modern, which is part of why I love Berg so much.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I too found the Schubert Piano piece hard to appreciate, though that early recording for Richter eventually caught my attention.

I listened today to the Klimt Quartet play Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello. Last week I went to a gallery in London where there's an exhibition of Rothko type colour field paintings by a painter called Boo Saville, they're beautiful and I can see a resemblance to the Feldman









He's a rich sounding piece of chamber music from the 16th century which I very much like and it's not tonal


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I too found the Schubert Piano piece hard to appreciate, though that early recording for Richter eventually caught my attention.
> 
> I listened today to the Klimt Quartet play Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello. Last week I went to a gallery in London where there's an exhibition of Rothko type colour field paintings by a painter called Boo Saville, they're beautiful and I can see a resemblance to the Feldman
> 
> ...


That's extremely beautiful. What is the faintly buzzing instrument? Is that a viol? I rank pre-Baroque music higher than Baroque and Classical. I've only heard a few composers like Hildegard von Bingen, Thomas Tallis, Claudio Monteverdi, some Armenian music sung by Lousine Zakarian, and an album of "Early Music" by the Kronos Quartet. I'm glad you've shown me this new composer.

Those paintings are great. It seems to me like they could be representative of the way the sky looks at different times if they're not meant to be fully abstract. I especially like the ones on the left and right, the left because purple is my favorite color, and the right because it reminds me of some of Rothko's pieces that I would describe as darker and sadder like this one:









I would say Rothko is more Feldman-like because the lines are harder and more deliberate, which is also why I enjoy "post-painterly" abstraction. It's strange because his piece Rothko Chapel, which is one of his "popular" pieces, is not very similar to his other work or to Rothko's work I feel.

Is that a recording that you listened to of PVVC? Are you familiar enough to compare it to the hat ART recording?

By the way, I sent you a PM if you didn't notice.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Would it be feasible for me to sponsor Feldman performances/recordings?


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

Fredx2098 said:


> Morton Feldman is my favorite composer of all time by far. Sometimes it seems like I am the only one who truly appreciates him. I have yet to hear a composer with even a vaguely similar musical voice as him. I feel like there should be composers inspired by him. He is my greatest inspiration but I am not an efficient composer yet.
> 
> Composers who are vaguely similar but don't quite hit the mark are: Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen.
> 
> ...


I haven't responded to your post until now because I'm not familiar with Feldman's music, but your posts about him here and in other threads have piqued my interest a bit, so a couple nights ago I came across a recording of his _Piano, Violin, Viola Cello _and gave it a listen. I'm very intrigued and will definitely be giving him a closer look in the future. Thanks for sharing your passion for his music. One of the things I've enjoyed about this forum is the wealth of suggestions of new works that the forum has introduced me to.

It may be premature for me to make recommendations without knowing more about his work, but listening to this piece brought to mind for me the work of Arvo Part - have you given him a try? In particular, I thought of _Tabula Rasa_ which I thought has a very similar pacing and structure and overall feel - you might also check out _Fratres_, which has been arranged in a number of versions for different small ensembles of different instruments.

I love Part's music and find it meditative in a way the this Feldman piece also struck me. Also, since you've mentioned not being fond of dynamics, I think you might find that Part's music has something to offer. I'd be interested to hear your impressions.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Fredx2098 said:


> Morton Feldman is my favorite composer of all time by far. Sometimes it seems like I am the only one who truly appreciates him. I have yet to hear a composer with even a vaguely similar musical voice as him. I feel like there should be composers inspired by him. He is my greatest inspiration but I am not an efficient composer yet.
> 
> Composers who are vaguely similar but don't quite hit the mark are: Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen.
> 
> ...


But some of my favorite Feldman music is indeterminate, or not exactly notated. This includes these:

 

These are "The Graphic Scores," which are notated with big blocks which could include a range of pitches, and "The Indeterminate Music."


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Thomyum2 said:


> I haven't responded to your post until now because I'm not familiar with Feldman's music, but your posts about him here and in other threads have piqued my interest a bit, so a couple nights ago I came across a recording of his _Piano, Violin, Viola Cello _and gave it a listen. I'm very intrigued and will definitely be giving him a closer look in the future. Thanks for sharing your passion for his music. One of the things I've enjoyed about this forum is the wealth of suggestions of new works that the forum has introduced me to.
> 
> It may be premature for me to make recommendations without knowing more about his work, but listening to this piece brought to mind for me the work of Arvo Part - have you given him a try? In particular, I thought of _Tabula Rasa_ which I thought has a very similar pacing and structure and overall feel - you might also check out _Fratres_, which has been arranged in a number of versions for different small ensembles of different instruments.
> 
> I love Part's music and find it meditative in a way the this Feldman piece also struck me. Also, since you've mentioned not being fond of dynamics, I think you might find that Part's music has something to offer. I'd be interested to hear your impressions.


Thanks for giving him a try! If that's all you've heard by him then it would probably be worthwhile to listen to a middle-period work rather than his last work, because PVVC is extremely sad and moving in my opinion, but it helps to know how it contrasts with his less melancholy work.

I think I have some Part recordings. I think I've listened to a little bit, but not very seriously because I didn't know where to start. I'll be sure to check out your suggestions. I've listened to Spiegel im Spiegel and Fur Alina which are fairly similar, though without the dissonance.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> But some of my favorite Feldman music is indeterminate, or not exactly notated. This includes these:
> 
> 
> 
> These are "The Graphic Scores," which are notated with big blocks which could include a range of pitches, and "The Indeterminate Music."


It's not that I don't like indeterminate music, but I feel like some people may hear Feldman's precisely composed music and think it's random in some way, and I wanted to avoid that confusion. The Durations are the earliest compositions I have by him and I love them. I've had some ideas for indeterminate music inspired by his style. I just prefer when a composer has a very specific abstract idea rather than completely abstract.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fredx2098 said:


> Thanks for giving him a try! If that's all you've heard by him then it would probably be worthwhile to listen to a middle-period work rather than his last work, because PVVC is extremely sad and moving in my opinion, but it helps to know how it contrasts with his less melancholy work.
> 
> I think I have some Part recordings. I think I've listened to a little bit, but not very seriously because I didn't know where to start. I'll be sure to check out your suggestions. I've listened to Spiegel im Spiegel and Fur Alina which are fairly similar, though without the dissonance.


This connection from Feldman to Part, from Feldman to what people call disparagingly "holy minimalism", is something I've heard before.

The thing by Part I enjoyed the most is the 4th symphony.


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## StevehamNY (Aug 11, 2018)

Fredx2098 said:


> Morton Feldman is my favorite composer of all time by far. Sometimes it seems like I am the only one who truly appreciates him. I have yet to hear a composer with even a vaguely similar musical voice as him. I feel like there should be composers inspired by him. He is my greatest inspiration but I am not an efficient composer yet.
> 
> Composers who are vaguely similar but don't quite hit the mark are: Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen.
> 
> ...


I don't think I've seen it mentioned in this thread yet, but John Zorn created a piece on his Tzadik label called "Redbird," a tribute to artist Agnes Martin (a la Feldman and his own tributes). It's the closest thing I've heard to Uncle Morty himself.


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