Last night, I got to check out a good chunk of Morton Feldman’s monumental trio “For Philip Guston,” performed by flautist Emi Ferguson, pianist Adam Tendler, and percussionist Nathan Davis at the Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea. This was the first time I had heard the piece, and over the course of my 2 and a half hours of listening, I wrote down some idle thoughts. In the spirit of Feldman’s colleague John Cage’s love of automatic writing, here are my unabridged (and honestly, a bit strange) idle thoughts:
Feldman music is a baseball game with no actions
- just the movements between pitches
- Getting new balls from the catcher
- Stretching the glove
- Getting in position
- Adjusting the hat
- Base coach signs
- Stepping off the rubber
- Adjusting batting gloves
- Kicking dirt off cleats
- Take hat off wipe sweat
- Stretching arm
- Soft toss with outfielders
- Around the horn after a strikeout
- Holding up outs
- Repositioning fielders
- Squatting, getting up
- Chatting with basecoaches
A Feldman performance art piece on a baseball field lol
- variety of NY uniforms of different teams and eras
- More extreme field of dreams
- Great at twilight with lights switching on
- Hecksher fields to close to Lincoln center haha
Shofar calls
Noir chord!
Pump Feldman into baseball practice sessions
I64 to IV shifts lol – sample that!
- 1 hour in ish
Feldman has to be equal tempered, doesn’t it? Something about that steadiness, but unsettled. Just intonation would settle it too much
He’s not making “effects” like spectralists and lachenmannists
- no perceptual games, literal sound transformations
- Experience is all essentially metaphor
- Sound is/for a person; not a one-to-one thing
Spectralists want Pantone shades, Feldman just mixes from what’s at hand
Feldman’s materiality lol
What Scott hears…
Who would that be for me?
- Contemporary big band?
Man I love this pop chord thing
What gives cadence (ie cue to leave)
- big texture shift
Analysis via audience action
Musician attention
- never enough pause to lose it
- Centering each action
- So… here it is, conscious, very little automatic
Have I been here before? Even if you actually have, you’re really not sure
- that’s pretty magical, to make a return and it’s not obvious, but just is
- Not like a “hidden return”
Just the thing itself isn’t quite memorable
Minor to altered dominant (child is born haha)
- especially with the 4ths, yazz baby
Low!!!!! Octave!!!!
Makes a Tritone feel like a 5th
What does it mean to count?
- a piece of counting
- Not just the act, but the what
- What constitutes something that can be counted
A lesser composer would end on this 5th thing
- oo nice major minor thing
- More samples!!!
What is low Feldman?
- beginning of my bassoon bass clarinet thing (which doesn’t read Feldman because Feldman isn’t low haha)
I like how many flute changes right at the beginning. Exhaust that right away and then it’s not a “thing”
- except now that there’s been so little piccolo for a while, it’s entrance feels like a thing
- But everything else is new and distinctive too, that it’s probably meant to be a thing
- And the unison actions too
Jump cut!!!
- this FEELS loud, like super distorted guitar turned way down
Groove!!??
Curious thinking about how long this groove will go for
- amuse bouche, or is it gonna realllllly sit
- Also how it’s gonna stop
- Feeling like a Reich process piece, flute pulling out the melodies from the rhythm field
Ok, kind of a sit
- groove kind of evolves, but not as clear, still more dense than rest
- Flute is still doing its thing, so big threading overlap
Then just a new thing
- Sunday chord hahahahaha
Minor quartal jazz again
Rain rain…
After a few times, the countable things become clearer. Less “have I been here before” than “I’ve been here before.” But in this case this certainty might be deceiving! The opposite experience of before
Does this count as an egobituary because it’s not quite like Guston is making Feldman write differently?
- granted what do these materials mean to Feldman
Chromatic planing? Ravel-jazz
Pop chords again – I vi
I think he’s conscious of tonal implications because the most tonal harmonic sets are typically the most fleeting
Ornaments!!??
Gotta say these are good chairs for this time frame
Young at heart lifting motive
This does feel sappier than crippled symmetry
Some objects are more countable than others
Some countable objects are probably attached to less countable objects
This octave leap section is more crippled symmetry
Quantized pitch is so important, the smooth transitions become remarkable in that quantum way. You know it jumps, but you see a smooth line
Sunday chord again
- let’s see if it’s quick again
Ok. This seems pretty close to explicit repeat of last time Sunday chord came in
Different minor planing, closer to the noir bit earlier
- again, have I been here before? It feels familiar, but I can’t quite tell
- But it invites knowing
Augmented major 7…
- feels more Sondheim tension chord to me now than girlfriend chord
- Maybe it’s the specific voicing, and this is not a jazz voicing
I like this sense of Emi just sitting on a chair in her living room, cross-legged and playing long tones. Not a performance, musicians chilling
Uh oh… piccolo time!
This one feels less of a thing because starting in that lowest register
Whole step alternating reminds me of my first piano pieces, also, I wanna get out
Colors radiate from a point, width via radiation rather than microtones
Ooo, my favorite Feldman sonority, M7 + M2
Is it just me or were we without Celeste for quite a while until now?
The music that fills a life
Groove, kinda half time, or at least I’m grafting that onto what’s happening
This is definitely new – so jaunty!!!
Kevin Laskey 