Page 52 - BBC Music (January 2020)
P. 52
Composer of the month
Composer of the Week
is broadcast on Radio 3 Morton Feldman
at 12pm, Monday to
Friday. Programmes in January are:
30 Dec – 3 Jan Tchaikovsky
6-10 Jan George Walker The American composer has a cult following,
13-17 Jan Beethoven
20-24 Jan Szymanowski
27-31 Jan Beethoven says Claire Jackson, thanks to his radical
experiments with musical time and form
ILLUSTRATION: MATT HERRING
here are few pieces of music duration of Feldman’s works became
that will attract an audience to a more extreme, they were increasingly
Feldman’s style T concert that starts at 4:30am, but impractical for traditional events. And
Instrumentation Morton Feldman’s For Philip Guston is one who would want to listen to or perform a
Feldman wrote of them. The 1984 work is an example of five-and-a-half-hour string quartet?
some works for Feldman’s infamous experiments with Quite a few people, as it turns out.
voice, but most duration – at over five hours long it is a Feldman developed a cult following during
of his output feat of endurance for both performers and the 1960s that has continued into the 21st
is chamber
music. He often listeners. For that reason, the piece, which century. His work has had a particular
uses unusual is scored for flute, piano and glockenspiel, impact on experimental approaches to
instrumental is rarely programmed. It was thanks to the composition and use of graphic scores –
combinations, such as alto flute, enterprising Ensemble Vide, who brought pictorial or alternative versions of staff
flute, horn, trumpet, violin and cello. the work to the 2019 Aldeburgh Festival, notation (notes on a stave). Feldman’s
Neither was his only opera. that Feldman fans recently had a chance pioneering music centres around
Slow and steady Much of Feldman’s to experience its hypnotic soundworld – asymmetric patterns, sparse minimalistic
music is contemplative and thinly all 300 minutes of it. And, in honour of motifs (very different to the later
textured with no discernible tunes –
the focus is on each note and how it
sounds in that particular bar at that Like Wagner, Feldman was fascinated by
particular point. The overall effect
is meditative quietness. This is the potential scope and scale of music
‘mindful’ music before the term was
even invented.
Feldman’s unconventional approach to Minimalism movement characterised
Space and time Like his mentor time and the format in which live music is by the music of Philip Glass and Steve
Cage (pictured above), Feldman
uses pauses and rests frequently. experienced, the concert was scheduled to Reich) and a slowly developing singular
For him, the space in between the coincide with sunrise. melody. Broadly speaking, Feldman’s
notes is as important as the melodic Like Wagner, Morton Feldman (1926- music is slow and meditative, with free
sounds. This became more extreme 87) was fascinated by the potential scope rhythm and an economic use of dynamic
towards the later part of his career, and scale of music: ‘Up to one hour you marking, ornamentation and accents
when he began composing works think about form but after an hour and (Extensions 3 being a notable exception). If
that were free from the constraints a half it is scale. Form is easy – just the that sounds boring, think again: Feldman’s
of ‘normal’ duration, resulting in division of things into parts. But scale is work intrigues and compels, and live
stark, expansive music.
another matter. You have to have control performances can be revelatory.
Avant garde Don’t confuse of the piece – it requires a heightened For performers, Feldman’s music can
‘mindful’ with ‘relaxing’: Feldman’s kind of concentration.’ Feldman’s be physically and mentally exhausting.
approach is artistically provocative. approach to music was philosophical and Because much of the work is scored for
There is some irony over his individualistic. ‘Before, my pieces were chamber ensemble, there are few (if any)
comment, directed at serialists,
that: ‘The preoccupation with like objects; now, they’re like evolving breaks for the musicians, unlike operatic
making something, with systems things,’ he mused, reflecting his belief that or orchestral writing of a comparable
and construction, seems to be the creation of music should be never be duration. Feldman was intrigued by
characteristic of music today. It has reduced to established rules. Composing more than just scale. He also explores the
become, in many cases, the actual in this way meant freeing himself from extremities of an instrument’s capabilities.
subject of musical composition.’ GETTY the constraints of public concerts; as the The solo piano work For Bunita Marcus
54 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
