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.


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

.


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.


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.


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 .


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.


7/23

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.


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 .


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


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


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.


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.


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.


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


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


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.


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.


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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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 .

Documents

Feldman paper2