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The Brink of Silence
by Richard Bernas and Adrian Jack
The following interview was firstpublished in Music and
Musicians
(June 1972) pp 7-8.
Morton Feldman likes London. He hasbeen casting about for a flat
here forsome time. He feels that people hereknow his music better
than any otheraudiences in Europe. Many of hisrecent works are
dedicated to Englishgroups - the Fires of London, AlanHacker's
Matrix.
These two and Karen Phillips, the
American viola player who was thesoloist in three of his series
of pieces,The Viola in my Life, were on hand fora BBC Invitation
Concert in mid March,devoted mainly to pieces he haswritten in the
last two years. (Apartfrom The Viola in my Life, theprogramme also
included MadamePress died last week at 90, and ThreeClarinets,
Piano and Cello.)
In the summer he will have completeda year's residence in Berlin
on theGerman Academic Exchange, whichannually invites painters,
writers andmusicians. The list is distinguished:Gilbert Amy, Berio,
Earle Brown, ElliottCarter, Vinko Globokar, Ligeti, BridgetRiley
(who is there at the moment),Stravinsky, Xenakis - next year
Cagewill be there. No duties are involved,but Feldman has been
busy.
'Now I know the reason for all thoseGerman masterpieces. Life
in
Germany is so boring.You have towrite masterpieces to keep
interested.In six months I've completed the piecefor three
clarinets, piano and cellothat I started in London, written a
20-minute piece for chorus andorchestra, and two pieces for
fivepianos and voices lasting 45 minuteseach.'
These last two works will beperformed at the ICA next winter.
'I'mone of the few composers left to write
at the piano, so I get 'em cheap. I'vehired a Steinway in
Berlin.'
Feldman is a generous talker. Helaunched into a monologue on
distraction. 'Art is distraction. Likeplaying cards. A holiday.
My wife saidto me, "How can you work with atelephone in the room?
Doesn't itdistract you?" When people phone,the first thing they say
is, "Am Idisturbing you?" Not in the least.Because I'm not involved
withephemeral sensation in my music.'
'An untalked of problem in musictoday is the interval. A
young
composer came to me, very worriedabout the intervals in his
music. Thefunction of the interval is just toextend the
composition. When I toldhim that, he was so relieved. Hethought
that intervals came fromheaven.'
Feldman's recent music has muchmore incident in it than his
pieceswritten in the fifties and sixties. 'Myearlier scores were an
empty whiteroom. Now I've added a few choice
pieces of furniture.' But he insists thathis earlier work is a
very importantpart of his history. Where audiencesdon't know any of
his music, heprefers them to hear his older pieces.'I could have
had big performances ofThe Viola in my Life in Berlin. But Ididn't.
The trouble is that they'll like it.They must earn the right to
like it bygetting to know my earlier works first.I want them to
forget theirbackground and their education.'Where existing terms of
reference nolonger apply, criticism is neatlydisarmed. Feldman
gloats over thepreposterous reactions to his music:'It's like
people squinting at somethingfrom the Aztec civilisation and
sayingthey don't alike this or that detail."Gee, Martha, Greece was
so muchnicer". Anthropologists are interestedin my music because
it's like a newculture.'
The clich about Feldman's music is
that 'it trembles on the border of
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sound and silence.' His ownspontaneous reference to the
earlypaintings of his great friend, PhilipGuston, is more
interesting: 'There's aspace all round the edge of his
paintings. But a composer can't dothat, he is concerned with
keeping theparty going.'
'None of the ideas I've had have beenconceptual or merely
technical.They've all come from performance. Iwas never a dreamer.'
And Feldmanillustrates this with a story: 'I said to alawyer,
"Legality is reality". He likedit.' As for musical reality:
'Can'tisplaying a harmonic on a slow bow intune.'
'My Extensions I for violin and pianoused only loud and soft at
a timewhen everyone around me waswriting serialised dynamics. That
sortof thing is more suitable forelectronics. What's the purpose if
youcan't perform it?'
The free-duration pieces, where morethan one instrument (usually
piano)plays the same part at individual
speeds, grew out of the realisationthat no two instruments could
ever beexactly similar in tone andarticulation. This disparity
became thesubject of a whole series of works.
Some of the latest pieces (forinstance, The Viola in my Life
series)are full of little crescendo anddiminuendo markings; the
beat unitsof the time signatures are smaller;one feels greater
rhythmic
articulation. Feldman explains thisnecessity by the fact that
the hairpinsrequire a fixed time in which to maketheir point. 'You
can't write growingsounds with free notation. But therhythms are
not a rhythmic structure.'
'All this I learnt from Varse, who Ifirst met when I was 17. Do
you knowthat he needed a hearing-aid forspeech? But when he came to
the firstperformance of my Durations I-V, hecould hear everything.
And they're
pretty quiet pieces. He liked my
music. He used to say, "They don'tunderstand how long it takes
for asound to speak." And they called himempirical! Yet any
composer with atwo-bit theory gets treated seriously
and analysed. And they call meempirical too. What's empirical
aboutsound? You can't write an articleabout it for Die Reihe,
that's for sure.And how do you teach it? But then mydentist tells
me he can't teachdentistry!' (Feldman shows the cardfor his next
appointment, made inBerlin for New York three monthslater.)
A few years ago Lukas Foss tried toget Feldman a professorial
chair atBuffalo University. The consensuswas, 'Yes, he's a
colourful figure, butwhat can he teach?' At last they seemto have
decided on something,because in September he takes up
hisappointment there. 'I'll probably haveat least 15 graduate
students and anumber of people visiting me all thetime. I've got to
teach them how tohear. How do you do that? It's just onetyranny
replacing another. Thetyranny of sound is replacing the
tyranny of logic.'
Copyright 1972 Richard Bernas andAdrian Jack
