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Morton Feldman

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Morton Feldman was born in 1926 in Woodside, Queens, in New York, to Russian-Jewish parents. He had piano lessons and studied composition with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe. In 1950 he heard the New York Philharmonic play Webern's Symphony and walked out in protest at the audience's indifferent reaction. In the foyer he met John Cage, with whom he became friends and went to live in the same building. Through Cage he got to know visual artists and writers, such as Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank O'Hara.

Music and breakthrough

With Cage's encouragement, Feldman wrote music unconnected with tonal harmony or serialism. He used notation systems of his own, often grids, which indicated how many notes sounded at a given moment, but not which ones. His experiments with notation and chance inspired Cage to pieces such as Music of Changes. Feldman was one of the most important figures of the New York School. His music is soft, slow and floating, with rhythms that seem free and sounds that remain slightly blurred. After 1977 he also wrote very long pieces.

Influence

He was inspired by abstract expressionism. In 1971 he wrote Rothko Chapel, for the building with paintings by Mark Rothko, and in 1973 For Frank O'Hara. In 1977 he wrote the opera Neither to a text by Samuel Beckett. In this way he showed that music, like painting, can limit itself to a few colours and to stillness.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to the fifth section of Rothko Chapel and notice how little happens and how long each sound lingers. What does that silence do to your sense of time?

Discography

Studio albums

See also

Categories: ArtistsChance and silence: John Cage