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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > 20th Century > Morton Feldman
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Author Topic: Morton Feldman  (Read 256 times)
Andy D
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« on: 14:49:25, 11-12-2007 »
I'm getting a bit confused by all this but since S. Grew's thread has been locked, I'll restart the Morton Feldman topic.

There's an interesting quote from Feldman on the sleeve of the Atlantis CD on Hat Hut:

"I don't compose, I assemble".

Comments please, especially from those who know more about composing than I do. (Doesn't take much Cheesy)
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #1 on: 21:23:30, 11-12-2007 »
Not sure that this really relates but one aspect of Feldman's working methods (as he described them) that really appeals to me is the sense of craft. The idea that what he's doing with music doesn't differ essentially from what a rug weaver does.

I wondered if 'I don't compose, I assemble' is related at all to Boulez's anti-Messiaen quip 'He doesn't compose, he juxtaposes'.
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'is this all we can do?'
anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965)
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #2 on: 12:42:50, 01-09-2008 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 11:17:07, 21-08-2008
Quote from: harmonyharmony on 11:12:04, 21-08-2008
I maintain that there are some gems in the midst of all the incoherent ramblings that make it worth reading it all.
Which is why I'm taking the book away with my this week!

No, it isn't all nonsense of course, but I would respectfully submit that he hasn't said anything useful about Hemingway in that paragraph, though he has managed to bring in a gratuitous reference to Günter Grass whose work has nothing to do with Hemingway but who was supposedly a friend of Feldman - and so it usually goes on...

I've just read most of Give my Regards to Eighth Street (the book, not just the single essay) and I'm rather disappointed to say that I've been disappointed. There are a few gems in amidst the useless waffle but they are few and far between. And there's some dishonesty lurking in all of that. There's an essay where he quite clearly implies that Cage's implementation of chance procedures stems from his own graph pieces, which I just don't believe, and indeed in other essays he suggests quite the opposite.
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'is this all we can do?'
anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965)
http://www.myspace.com/itensemble
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