Download - Feldman paper2
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
1/23
INTRODUCTION
How are we able to experience the passing of time while listening to a piece of music?
Surely, the use of our memory is essential. We recognize development (motivic,
melodic, sequential, crescendo/diminuendo, etc.) and we recognize change. We notice
contrast and we remembersimilarity. We pay attention to recurring events. In general,
we become familiar with musical material, we observe it change (aurally), and then we
experience (consciously or subconsciously) transformation of the material. That is to say,
we re-experience the original material, but only after change has occurred.
This is how and why sonata form works. Sonata form presents to us an Exposition
(introduction of material), followed by a Development (active process of transformation),
and then a Recapitulation (recurrence of original material after we have witnessed it
change). The process of change not just in music, but any change is active, and it can
only occur in time. It therefore stands to reason that time can only be sensed by
recognizing change.
The composer Morton Feldman attempted to stop the motion of time. He achieved
this through deliberate manipulation of the five basic aspects of musical composition:
Sonority, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Form. Feldman believed form and processexist to aid the listeners memory, and he chose to do away with form and process so that
the listener need not rely on memory and instead could focus fully on the present.
Without memory, there is no feeling of time passing. Without change, without major
events occurring, we cannot compare our present to our past, nor can we recognize
recurring patterns that might lead us to contemplate prospective events of the future.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
2/23
2
Without change, our sense of Now goes un-interrupted, time becomes suspended, and the
effect is that of a never-ending present. Time in music is perceived through a series of
related events, particularly ones that recall previous events, with contrasting events
occurring in between them. Absent related events, our sense of time progression
becomes obscured.
In Feldmans music inFor Frank OHara, and generally after 1950 there are no
similar and contrasting sections. Instead, everythingis similar. There is no directional
pull. There is no audible structure. One section does not lead or transition to another.
One does not recall another. The result is the feeling of Gertude Steins continuous
present.1 Feldman was not concerned with processes or their history. Instead he was
concerned with sound. He felt that most music is obsessed with variation, and he
sought to transcend that obsession.2
In attempting to take the listener out of time, it is not so much what Feldman does
with Sonority, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Form (SHMRF), but rather what he does
notdo. He does not create variation. He does not provide anything that might overtly
stand out to the listener. Sounds do not change. Harmonies remain consistent.
Melody does not exist. There is no rhythm. There is no discernible form.
Perception of time in music is inextricably linked to form, so I will mention form
and formal function occasionally in this study as we examine Feldmans manipulations
of SHMRF. Before we begin this analysis, however, I will first briefly discuss what the
19th
Century expectations of each of these aspects were. By recalling the expectations of
1York, Wes. "For John Cage." The Music of Morton Feldman. Ed. Thomas Delio. New York: Excelsior
Music Company, 1996. 147.2Altieri, Charles. Enlarging the Temple: New Directions in American Poetry During the 1960s. AssociatedUPes, Inc., 1979. On "The Day Lady Died". Nov. 2007
.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
3/23
3
19th
Century audiences, we can better understand Feldmans inventiveness with regard to
time in music. Conversely, by studying Feldmans ingenuity and adroit handling of
musical parameters, we can more easily understand how time in music became
emancipated from 19th
Century expectations.
BIOGRAPHY AND INFLUENCES
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in 1926 in Queens, New York.
He died in1987 in Buffalo, New York where he had been living since becoming a
professor of composition at the State University of New York. He studied composition
with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe. His lessons with Wolpe were mainly just
arguments about music. He wrote Scriabin-esque pieces until he met the avant-garde
composer John Cage in 1949, and shortly thereafter began using graph notation. For the
next twenty years he incorporated much improvisation and aleatory into his works.
However, Feldman eventually felt he was leaving too many musical decisions to the
performer, and he returned to traditional notation.3
John Cage taught Feldman to question the meaning of music. Cage challenged
Feldman to study mundane objects for long periods of time, and to ask, how can these
things translate to music? Cage encouraged him to follow his instincts, leading Feldman
to eventually start composing very intuitively, writing moment to moment rather than
employing any systematic process. It is somewhat ironic that Cage, who adhered so
3Griffiths, Paul. "Morton Feldman." The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of 20th-Century Music. NewYork: Thames and Hudson, 1986.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
4/23
4
tenaciously to process (devising systems that left musical decisions to random nature)
would become partially responsible for Feldmans return to intuition. Up to this point,
composers like Cage, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen had deliberately
eschewed subjectivity by employing processes that left musical decisions to scientific
method or random nature. Feldman did the opposite, working daringly without any
system at all, and without tradition.4
Feldmans music was also heavily influenced by the stasis in the paintings of the New
York Abstract Expressionists, particularly those of Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Willem
De Kooning, and Robert Rauschenberg. Feldman believed music could achieve similar
immobility. Just as the Abstract Expressionists demanded their audience to focus on
the paint itself, Feldman wanted his listeners to focus on the characteristics of each
sound.5
Where Rothko sought to make solely color the voice of mood and emotion,
Feldman similarly aimed to make sound alone, not its forms or progressions, the means
to the same end.6
The Thames and HudsonEncyclopaedia of 20th Century Music describes Fedlmans
music as a coloring of time with strands of different pigment.7
Most of the works for
which he is known are very quiet, with nearly imperceptible attacks. In his later years he
composed very long pieces 1.5 to 5 hours long. In these later compositions, Feldman
was still concerned with placing the listener outside of time. He also became
4"Morton Feldman: the Balancing Act of the Ear." Foreword. By Kyle Gann. Paris: Montaigne, 2000;
included in CD insert of Ensemble Reserche. Routine Investigations. Rec. 2000. Montaigne, 2000. 5Ross, Alex. "American Sublime." The New Yorker 19 June 2006. Nov.
.6 Goldstein, Louis. "Morton Feldman and the Shape of Time." Ed. James R. Heintze. New York and
London: Garland Publishing Inc.,1999. Perspectives on American Music Since 1950. Dec. 2007
http://www.nyss.org/concert.htm (New York Studio School).7 Griffiths.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
5/23
5
increasingly preoccupied with moving beyond the listeners perception of form,
concentrating on scale instead. He believed contemporary composers had gotten
locked into writing 20-minute pieces, and so Feldman sought to transcend what, to him,
had become the standard temporal paradigm.8
Feldman often spoke of crippled symmetries. These are repetitions (symmetries)
that are crippled through subtle and constant change. This is not accomplished through
the phase-like processes found in the music of Steve Reich or Philip Glass, where
changing patterns are transformed from one musical idea into another. Feldman's
changes are more deliberate, executed one at a time, in no discernible or predictable
order.9 Feldmans crippling is more akin to the subtle changes in color of a Rothko
painting.
8Ross, p.4.
9Rutherford-Johnson, Tim. "Music Since 1960: Feldman: Rothko Chapel." The Rambler: Blog. 17 Jan.2005. Nov.-Dec. 2007 .
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
6/23
6
10
Mark Rothkos No.14 [White and Greens in Blue]
10Rothko, Mark. No.14 [White and Greens in Blue]. 1957. Mrs. Paul Mellon. The Rothko Book. ByBonnie Clearwater. London: Tate, 2006. 122.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
7/23
7
FRANK OHARA
Feldman composedFor Frank OHara in 1973. Frank OHara was an American
poet, a contemporary and good friend of Feldmans. He had died tragically in 1966 in an
accident involving a beach buggy.11
The poetry of Frank OHara has an immediacy quality. Words and topics are
unrelated. Each word, each idea, is an isolated, unique, single event. OHara himself
stated that he sought to capture the immediacy of life in his poetry. His poems were
often concerned with time, particularly the relationship of art and time, seemingly asking
the question can art take us out of time? An OHara poem like The Day Lady Died
can be perceived as one statement one broad stroke of words that contain isolated,
unrelated events. Yet all the lines flow as one single gesture, producing a single mood or
feeling. The poem, ostensibly about the legendary jazz singer Billie Holliday, is,
ironically, just about an arbitrary moment in an infinite series of moments. In this case,
the moment is an entire day. The Day Lady Died is not about Billie Holliday at all. It
is about the common but sobering feeling that life continues on its humbling way despite
the tragic death of an important artist or some loved one.12
The Day Lady Died, by Frank O'Hara
It is 12:20 in New York a Fridaythree days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshinebecause I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
11"Frank O'Hara." Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets. Dec. 2007 .
12Altieri.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
8/23
8
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sunand have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlainefor Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore orBrendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Ngres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaineafter practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega andthen I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre andcasually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking ofleaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboardto Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
13
The effect of the poem, like that of Feldmans music, is that we have sliced a cross-
section of eternity and studied it under a microscope. This idea of immediacy about the
present, about single, isolated, individual events is also at the core of Morton
Feldmans preoccupation with time. Just as OHara successively introduces unrelated
words and ideas such as his bank balance, Verlaine, and Ghanean poets, Feldman
similarly presents unrelated sonorities. And just as OHaras unrelated words are tied
together by mood, Feldman too creates cohesion by providing constancy.
13O'hara, Frank. "The Day Lady Died." Lunch Poems. Ed. City Lights Books. Frank O'Hara - the DayLady Died. Dec. 2007 .
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
9/23
9
MANIPULATION OF SONORITY
Various compositional parameters fall under the broad category of Sonority: Register,
Attack/Articulation, Dynamics (volume), Texture, and Timbre (orchestration). Let us
first discuss register. Here are some ways a 19th Century composer might have utilized
register:
To emphasize a musical dialogue, perhaps between an antecedent and consequentphrase. For instance, an antecedent phrase in a relatively high register might then
be answered by the consequent phrase in a lower register
To achieve an orchestration effect To call attention to a developing passage To make a formal distinction between two different sections of music
In all of these cases there is an element of change. More specifically, the listener
witnesses a change occurring from one register to another. As mentioned at the
beginning of this paper, whenever we observe change happening, we have a clear sense
that time is passing.
This is not the case inFor Frank OHara (FFO). InFFO, a wide register range is
introduced in the very beginning. In Measure 1, the left hand of the piano plays tone
clusters near the very bottom of keyboard. Just a few measures later, in Measure 6, we
encounter harmonics in the violin, and a few measures after that we also encounter
harmonics in the cello. However, we not only hear notes in the very low and the very
high registers. Feldman also presents many notes in between. This wide register range
is, for the most part, maintained throughout the work. There is never a sense of the music
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
10/23
10
leading us into a new register there are no formal sections of music that concentrate
on a particular register. We never experience movementof register. We never
experience change of register, and this contributes to our inattention to the passing of
time.
It may be argued that there is one point in the piece where the listener might notice
movement of register. This is the chromatic flute/piccolo line beginning in Measure 88.
The notes here do move sequentially, starting in a relatively upper range and getting even
higher. Because of the passages relatively long length, and its focus on the upper
register, this passage might actually be considered a section of music to which our
memory can latch on that is, we might rememberit, and it therefore allows us to sense
past, present, and future. However, since we have already heard many notes in this
register prior to this lengthy passage, the upper register does not appear novel, and the
effect of movement through the upper register is diminished. Furthermore, no reference
to this chromatic passage is ever experienced again, thus causing the listener to
experience the passage as an isolated event (albeit a long one) that is neither derived from
earlier material, nor is related to anything that comes later. We experience this passage
merely as a momentthat has been stretched. Register serves no formal function here,
nor anywhere else in the piece.
Next, let us examine Attack and Articulation. The 19th
Century composer might
employ these aspects in the following ways:
variation in attacks and articulations create contrast loud attacks may mark beginnings and ends of formal sections
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
11/23
11
variation in articulation can provide recognizable formal contrast (for example, asection of music might be playedstaccatissimo and then contrasted with a legato
section afterwards)
Working in tandem with very subtle dynamic changes, the nearly imperceptible
(pianissimo, or softer) attacks inFor Frank OHara rarely draw our attention. Not one
accent is written in the score. Articulations are kept fairly consistent throughout the
piece: all are gentle, never harsh. The effect of this consistent lack of contrast in attack
and articulation is that of smooth fabric that is never interrupted, except by silence (more
about this later). As with Feldmans handling of register, we never experience any
change.
Feldman is actually more concerned with decay than with attack. Many of the sounds
taper off, as if disappearing into the ether, into the infinite. Again, we hear an individual
sound, but infinite time continues and we leave the event behind. We experience the
sound in the present, and then it loses our attention we have already moved on to a new
present.
A third aspect of Sonority is Volume, or Dynamics. Our 19th
Century composer
might have used dynamics to create loud sections and soft sections of music. These
sections would provide contrast to one another. A loud (or soft) section might recur at
some point, and the listener would remember it as having come earlier. The listeners
memory would be engaged, thus activating his or her sense of time. 19th
Century
expectations would also include crescendosand diminuendos; that is, changes in
volume that happen over a period of time.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
12/23
12
InFor Frank OHara, we encounter no change in dynamics, only stasis. The whole
work is to be played extremely softly. As in a Rothko painting, there are just subtle
shades here and there subtle shades of volume, in this case. There are no loud sections,
nor are there any soft sections. Sections of any kind would imply that there is form, and
form is exactly what Feldman is ensuring we never sense, for, in sensing form, we would
also be sensing the passing of time.
InFor Frank OHara, dynamics never mark a beginning, nor do they ever mark an
arrival. There is no development from soft to loud, or vice versa. There is only one
instance of a majorcrescendo happening (the snare drum roll at m.177,), but this happens
quickly it lasts about 1.5 seconds and is nowhere near long enough to give us a sense
of time passing. Instead, this rapid crescendo is just another single event that happens
independently of other events. We might remember it as a moment, but we do not sense
time passing as it happens, and it provides no apparent formal marker.
Curiously, this quick snare drum crescendo (tofff!) occurs very close to the Golden
Mean of the work (in this case .67, not .618). Was this intentional on the part of
Feldman? Did he deliberately wish for the listener to experience a significant event two
thirds into the piece, thereby dividing the work into sections? Or did this classic and
traditional sectioning happen subconsciously without Feldmans awareness? More
importantly, does the listener senseFor Frank OHaras proportions because of this
single crescendo? My guess is no, since the listener has already lost his or her sense of
time long before this snare roll occurs. The case might be different, however, if the
performance were sped up significantly, say, to five times the tempo.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
13/23
13
There are very few crescendos inFFO. There is a crescendo in m.9 markedpoco,
and it is the only crescendo in the piece other than a short one in m.44 along with the
snare roll at m. 177, which we just discussed. As I mentioned earlier, Feldman was more
preoccupied with decay. An example of this attention to decay can be found in the short
diminuendos in the timpani rolls in the first three pages of the score.
In addition to the consistently soft volume varied only by subtle shades
(crescendos and diminuendos), an enormous role is also played by pure silence. Silence
inFor Frank OHara aids in stopping time by providing a complete lack of motion.
Silence separates events from one another (particularly within a single instrument
Feldman called this framing), so there is no movement, no progression from one event
to another.14 These insertions of silent measures can be found throughout the score.
After each sound, Feldman takes the time, each time, to establish a [new] present.15
Let us now study the ways in which Feldman manipulates texture and timbre in order
to alter our perception of time. First or all, how would we expect the 19th Century
composer to employ texture and timbre? As one might guess after our discussions of
register, articulation, and dynamics, the 19th
Century composer would utilize texture and
timbre to provide change. Varying texture and timbre would allow for repetition and
contrast, thereby contributing to form, which would, in turn, contribute to our sense of
motion, development, and the passing of time. In the 19th
Century, we would
undoubtedly encounter sections of music with contrasting timbres and textures. The
14Ames, Paula Kpostick. "Piano." The Music of Morton Feldman. Ed. Thomas Delio. New York:
Excelsior Music Company, 1996. 99-141.15Sabbe, Herman. "The Feldman Paradoxes: a Deconstructionist View of Musical Aesthetics." The Musicof Morton Feldman. Ed. Thomas Delio. New York: Excelsior Music Company, 1996. 9-15.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
14/23
14
opposite is true inFor Frank OHara. InFFO, the textureremains constant. There are
no changes that ever mark the beginning or end of a section of music. The overall texture
is relatively thin throughout. There is very little counterpoint. Instead, there is mostly
monophony and homophony. There is very little linear activity, and hardly any layering
of independent lines. Overall, there is sparseness.
Unlike in a 19th
Century composition where only a few timbres (or combinations of
timbres) might be introduced early on, while others are reserved for later in piece most
of the instrumental colors inFor Frank OHara are introduced in the very beginning.
The few others that appear later in the work show up only briefly to provide slight
variations of color. The occurrences of these new timbres are never very long, nor do
they everrecurin a way that would reference an earlier appearance of the instrument, as
might happen in a 19th
Century work.
The variety of instrumental colors we encounter early on include muted violin, cello
playedpizzicato and arco, flute and piccolo, timpani rolls, gong played with fingers, and
low piano clusters (a very dark color).
As we continue to examine the entire piece, we find that each instrument, or group of
instruments, plays the same role throughout. There is no one section of music that draws
our attention by using only strings or only winds or only percussion, as might happen in a
19th
Century work. There are briefmoments that focus on specific instruments (i.e.
individual timpani rolls), but there are few extended periods that concentrate on one
particular timbre. The one time this does occur in the long flute/piccolo line beginning
at m.88 that I mentioned earlier we perceive the temporary single-instrument focus as
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
15/23
15
a stretched moment an isolated event not as a formal section of music that occurs
and recurs elsewhere in the piece.
Other examples of brief timbral focus are the tri-tone flute passage in m.3140 and the
timpani rolls in m.41-48. But why are these passages not formally significant? Why are
they merely experienced as moments and not as sections that would aid us in perceiving
the passing of time? Firstly, these instruments have already been heard a great deal prior
to our hearing these timbre-focused passages. Furthermore, we have heard these
instruments played similarly throughout: same dynamics, articulations, attacks, etc. We
then hear these instruments yet again many times afterthese timbre-focused passages.
Our ears have become so accustomed to these sounds these symmetries that the effect
of briefly concentrating on one instrument is not a very strong one.
But these timbre-focused passages are long enough and distinctive enough that they
are noticeable. In fact, so much so that these passages may be remembered. So why do
we not remember them? Because these short passages never develop. They appear and
then they are gone. They do not lead us to anything. They merely stand on their own.
The result is that we never feel like we are moving or traveling, and we certainly are not
traveling through time. We may remember the timbre-focused passages as moments, but
we cannot relate them to anything before or after. They exist outside of time.
MANIPULATION OF HARMONY
Let us now leave the study of Sonority and move on to the topic of Harmony. The
19th Century expectation is that we will encounter mostly tertian harmony. Tertian
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
16/23
16
harmony will provide for tonality, and with tonality we are bound to encounter keys and
key areas. We will most likely hear sections of music in contrasting and similar keys.
We will also experience movement from one key area to another. These movements will
occur through sequences, developments, and modulations, and we will be able to witness
and recognize harmonic change happening over a period of time.
InFor Frank OHara, Feldman never gives us a hint of a triad, for triads would imply
a functional hierarchy of chords within tonality. Once in a tonal realm, chords would
need to move to other chords. This would need to happen through time, and our sense
of time would be supported. Instead, we hear a great deal of clusters and single tones
unrelated to one another. There is no tendency toward movement. Each harmony that is
sounded stands independent of the one that came before. Harmonic content is only for
the sake of sound, never for formal function or progression. The different harmonies
create subtle changes in color only.
An example of Feldmans deliberate manipulation of harmony can be seen in the
repeated tri-tone flute passage in Measure 31 (see musical example below). The repeated
alternation between E and Bb is preceded by a single F. The F initially creates an
expectation that the tri-tone will resolve to an F triad. Feldman, however, purposefully
repeats the tri-tone several times so that we focus on the tri-tone itself. The E and Bb
never resolve. Feldman here is toying with our 19th
Century expectations and forcing us
to transcend them, arguably to push us into the present moment and experience the tri-
tone for what it is: merely a tri-tone, completely devoid of function.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
17/23
17
16
MANIPULATION OF RHYTHM
Feldmans inventiveness as a composer is probably best recognized through his
handling of rhythm. In 19th
Century music we expect to hear (and feel) a regular pulse.
We expect a discernible beat to which we might tap our foot or bob our head. There is
usually a clear sense of meter, a familiar organization of beats we can recognize and in
which we can feel secure. We also have a clear sense of tempo: how quickly or slowly
the music is happening. We might even sense how many beats there are per minute, even
if we are sensing this subconsciously.
InFor Frank OHara, Feldman writes in a variety of meters, but these meters are only
apparent to the performer, never to the listener. Meter exists solely for the performers
convenience. To the listener, there is no audible pulse, nor is there any discernible beat.
So is there any sense of tempo? With no pulse or beat, how can there be tempo?
How can we sense how many beats per minute there are? How fast or slow is this piece?
Can we measure time if there is no beat? No pulse? No meter?
16Feldman, Morton. For Frank OHara. Universal Edition (London) Ltd., 1986.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
18/23
18
Feldman deliberately obliterates our sense of beat in two ways: by obscuring the
meter through note placement, and by frequently changing the time signature. Instead of
placing notes so that they occur on downbeats, most entrances occur on weak beats,
or on non-beats. Notes occurring on non-beats (or non-pulses) are created through
the use of tuplets: triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, etc. For instance, the middle note of
a half-note triplet will always fall outside of the metric pulse.
Avoidance of strong beats also results in a certain tentativeness on the part of the
performer, ensuring the note will be played quietly and distantly, adding to the spacious
quality of the music. There does not appear to be any system to Feldmans choice of beat
placement, (as in the 12 pre-determined rhythmic entrances in Gyorgy LigetisLontano,
which also serve to eradicate a sense of pulse and meter) . Feldmans note-placement is
much more arbitrary, as he was careful to avoid systems and write from moment to
moment.
By frequently changing meter particularly by inserting 3/8 or 5/8 bars between
measures in 4/4 and 3/4 Feldman ensures that we never sense a regularly occurring beat
pattern. When we hear a 3/4 bar followed by a 5/8 bar, the feeling of 3/4 is quickly
obscured when the 3/4 is made one 8th
note shorter (the 5/8 bar). Examples of the
eradication of beat and pulse through the combined use of note placement and frequent
meter changes can be found in the tri-tone flute passage (m.31-40; see example above)
and also in the chromatic flute passage at m.113. In the tri-tone passage, the alternating E
and Bb are each very similar in duration and might have the potential of establishing a
pulse. However, because Feldman varies the durations of these notes ever so slightly (his
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
19/23
19
crippled symmetries in action), and also places the notes so that they are rhythmically
inconsistent and unpredictable, we are never able to sense a clear pulse.
Long silences between attacks (throughout the piece) also contribute to the
elimination of pulse, and very long, sustained sounds further create a feeling of
timelessness (see tied notes in the cello at m.99, the long held notes in the piccolo in
m.161-166, the clarinet at m.206, and the harmonics in the violin and cello in m.56-70).
Timelessness, which is purposefully represented by the long notes of the strings in
Charles Ives The Unanswered Question, is, more or less, conveyed similarly inFor
Frank OHara: throughlong-held notes and through the relatively consistentfrequency
of individual sonic events.
MANIPULATION OF MELODY
Also inFor Frank OHara, Feldman emancipates time from 19th
Century
expectations through manipulation of melody. In 19th Century music we expect
foreground. We expect a line that contains shape, that evolves from a small building
block: a cell or motive. We expect phrases: antecendents and consequents. We expect
variation of shape. We expect sequences. Direction. Motion. Something we can hear
progress and spin out over time.
Feldman gives us no interesting line. No progression. No motive or motivic
development. He knows that any spinning out would give the listener a feeling of time
passing. The only hint of line is in the chromatic flute/piccolo passage (m.88-130) to
which I keep referring, but one would be hard-pressed to call that line a melody.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
20/23
20
Instead, it is a single event that is stretched. Perhaps, we do sense time passing for
a briefmoment, but what we experience is just that: a moment. The chromatically
ascending line is briefly felt as though it is leading us somewhere, but the arrival point is
no more important than the middle or the beginning of the passage, so there is stasis even
within a temporary feeling of movement. When the flute reaches the top of the scale,
the ascending passage arbitrarily stops. The event or moment is then followed by silence,
and then another event (moment) occurs. The chromatic ascension is really just one long
note; one broad stroke of paint; a single event that has been stretched. The line has no
motive from which a melody might be constructed. The lines shape is not melodically
interesting: it only goes up.
MANIPULATION OF FORM
I have mentioned form multiples times in this analysis, but have yet to focus on the
topic. I shall now touch upon it one last time, simply to summarize some points I made
earlier. Form in music allows for the perception of time. Expectations in 19th
Century
music are that there will be clear sections that recall previous ones, with contrast in
between. The expectation is that musical material will be introduced and that the listener
will witness it vary, develop, and transition. This change happens over the course of
time, and the passing of time isfelt. With form present, there will be repetition and
contrast, and the listeners memory will become engaged in order to distinguish the
contrast from the repetition. This is how form works: with the use of memory, and in
time.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
21/23
21
As I mentioned earlier, inFor Frank OHara there are no sections. There is very little
change. InFFO there is not even a stream of consciousness, for in a stream there is still
motion or progression; there is development. In Feldmans work there is a complete
suspension of motion. Total immobility. Total stasis. The absence of form helps create
this effect.
CONCLUSION
In summary, there is so much consistency inFor Frank OHara consistency of
register, timbre, harmony, lack of pulse, silence, etc. that we never perceive a true
beginning or an end. We do not experience change, our memory is never engaged, and
therefore we do not experience the passing of time. The work is static, like a Rothko
painting. And, like the contents of a Frank OHara poem, the whole work sonically
appears to us as a small slice of infinity. We are merely witnessing (aurally) a moment in
eternity. And how can a moment in eternity truly be measured? Our sense of measure is,
effectively, lost.
By studying the ways in which Morton Feldman manipulates musical parameters in
For Frank OHara, we are able to see how 19th
Century expectations of time in music
became emancipated in the 20th
Century. Many emancipations happened prior to
Feldmans composing the work: emancipation of Sonority, Harmony, and Rhythm, in
particular. Feldman, however, was able to incorporate these emancipations to achieve
something new: the liberation of the listeners perception of time.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
22/23
22
SOURCES CONSULTED
1. Griffiths, Paul. "Morton Feldman." The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of 20th-
Century Music. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986.
2. Ensemble Reserche. Routine Investigations. Rec. 2000. Montaigne, 2000.
3. "Morton Feldman: the Balancing Act of the Ear." Foreword. By Kyle Gann. Paris:Montaigne, 2000; included in CD insert of Ensemble Reserche. Routine
Investigations. Rec. 2000. Montaigne, 2000.
4. Rothko, Mark. No.14 [White and Greens in Blue]. 1957. Mrs. Paul Mellon. TheRothko Book. By Bonnie Clearwater. London: Tate, 2006. 122.
5. Sabbe, Herman. "The Feldman Paradoxes: a Deconstructionist View of Musical
Aesthetics." The Music of Morton Feldman. Ed. Thomas Delio. New York: ExcelsiorMusic Company, 1996. 9-15.
6. Feldman, Morton. For Frank OHara. Universal Edition (London) Ltd., 1986.
7. Morgan, Robert P. "Musical Time/Musical Space." Critical Inquiry 6.3 (1980): 527-538. Nov. 2007 .
8. Ross, Alex. "American Sublime." The New Yorker 19 June 2006. Nov.
.
9. York, Wes. "For John Cage." The Music of Morton Feldman. Ed. Thomas Delio. NewYork: Excelsior Music Company, 1996. 147-195.
10. Nov. 2007 .
11. "Frank O'Hara." Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets. Dec. 2007
.
12. Altieri, Charles. Enlarging the Temple: New Directions in American Poetry Duringthe 1960s. Associated UPes, Inc., 1979. On "The Day Lady Died". Nov. 2007
.
13. O'hara, Frank. "The Day Lady Died." Lunch Poems. Ed. City Lights Books. FrankO'Hara - the Day Lady Died. Dec. 2007 .
14. Bergman, David. "Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)." www.georgetown.edu. Georgetown
University. Nov. 2007.
-
7/31/2019 Feldman paper2
23/23
23
15. Goldstein, Louis. "Morton Feldman and the Shape of Time." Ed. James R. Heintze.New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc.,1999. Perspectives on American
Music Since 1950. Dec. 2007 http://www.nyss.org/concert.htm (New York StudioSchool).
16. Ames, Paula Kpostick. "Piano." The Music of Morton Feldman. Ed. Thomas Delio.New York: Excelsior Music Company, 1996. 99-141.
17. Rutherford-Johnson, Tim. "Music Since 1960: Feldman: Rothko Chapel." TheRambler: Blog. 17 Jan. 2005. Nov.-Dec. 2007 .