# Morton Feldman



## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

It's my Morton Feldman 2 day marathon and I am thrilled by the soundscape this composer paints in my mind.

Incredible tonality

Rhythm that changes in an instant and makes you wonder 'what next?'

Themes and motifs end up melodic after so much time in meditative listening.

This is so good it really needs to be heard with an open mind ready to accept a different kind of music.

I would say listen but do not think.

The music is simply exquisite, elating and perfect.

Listened to:










*For Philip Guston*.... that flute just pierces your brain with slowly changing motifs. The action starts after the first two hours or so, so patience is needed when one has assimilated the basic structures of the piece. The ending is utterly hypnotic!









*
Crippled Symmetry*.... needs another spin to sink in but loved it from the start. I enjoyed its contrasts and different tones to Guston.










*For John Cage...* piano and strings with more gravity and episodes of utter bliss. The ending is monumental!










*Piano and Strings Quartet* ... a favourite of mine and my entry point to Feldman a few months back. Very, dare I say, relaxing.










*'Second String Quartet'*

Just now I am in the middle of his magnum opus, the Second String Quartet by Ives ensemble. Astonishingly good music. This string quartet is so good it's giving me goosebumps. I will continue this write up along with my listening session.

At times the music grabs me by the neck and demands my attention. At times I hear a funky cello pizzicato that is so much fun. Then I am transported back into an illusion, a universe few composers have managed to get me into.

Towards the last half of the string quartet the mood changes to a calmer more peaceful being. One gets occasional rhythmic bursts but these are subdued and controlled.

At around the four hour mark there is a repeating two note motif with basso continuo almost reminiscent of a 'Marcia Funebre'. This brings to memory the feeling I felt listening to Bach's chaconne for solo violin, Beethoven's late quartets and Mahler's 2nd symphony. This is followed by pizzicato on the strings and a return to this same two note motif. This last hour is utterly mesmerising.

The last 15 minutes is loaded with change in rhythms and recollection of past themes. The two note motif is now inversed with the second note higher and without basso continuo. There is no hint of a requiem like feel as earlier on. 
It feels like it is ascending towards the outer reaches of the cosmos and carries me, the listener, with it.

The second string quartet really feels like an allegory of life, starting with simple structures, growing into more spirited youthful themes with bursts of immature energy and ending into the later mature life bringing with it responsibility but satisfaction from the simple things in life filled with memories of sadness and joy.

The two notes do coalesce together into one form in the last few minutes. 
Yin and yang have now become one.
Id, ego and alter ego exist no more.

The exact last 2 minutes change the atmosphere completely. Being a medic I can only recollect this two note motif that is now in its original context as being similar to an ambulance siren! 
Could this mean that now death has taken hold, and the end is now?

The last seconds of this five hour quartet has this same motif with a major chord signifying something more important. 
An ending that befits this journey through life.

As I listen to the ending it feels like one's life itself is at an end and with it the composer has found his consolation, his joy at having lived. The last 15 minutes feel like a transfiguration of the soul into an eternal state of being.

The music lifts you up to the place where neither life nor death exist. A place where time and space stop and where eternity starts. The last few seconds are those moments when life expires and something else possibly starts.

Thank you Mr Feldman


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