Morton
Feldman

Morton Feldman (b. 1926 in New York; d. 1987 in Buffalo) was one of the most visible figures of the American avant-garde when he accepted the invitation of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (BKP) in September 1971. Unlike John Cage, however, he was still hardly known in Europe. The early 1970s marked a change in the composer’s aesthetic: Feldman was a pioneer of graphic notation and, like his New York School composer friends, Earle Brown, John Cage, and Christian Wolff, a proponent of open-ended formal structures whose notation was not completely fixed. Sound durations and metric proportions often remained flexible or undefined in Feldman’s scores of the 1960s. However, Feldman returned to conventional notation in his series The Viola in My Life 1–4 (1970–71). The result was a surprisingly intensive incorporation of fragmentary, melodic structures and clearly delineated forms that populated an acoustic space of silence and pauses. In allusion to this, Feldman spoke of adding “choice pieces of furniture” to previously “empty, white rooms.” Expression and form were also latently dramatized through greater (also dynamic) contrasts and expressive high points. Regarding the first half of the 1970s, one could also speak of a “figurative” phase in Feldman’s composing, which was strongly influenced throughout by contemporary painting (especially by Abstract Expressionism).

Morton Feldman was remarkably productive as a BKP fellow, composing an entire series of works between September 1971 and October 1972 that mainly juxtapose solo instruments or voices with a larger body of sound. As with still lifes in painting, the titles specify the “inventory” of the pieces with emphatic objectivity; their gesture is decidedly contemplative and minimalist. Feldman commented on his creative drive in Berlin with his characteristic irony: “Life in Germany is so boring. You have to write masterpieces to keep interested.” The works he completed or reworked in Berlin include, in chronological order: Three Clarinets, Cello and Piano (1971); Chorus and Orchestra 1 for soprano, choir, and orchestra (1971); Voice and Instruments 1 for soprano and orchestra (1972); Cello and Orchestra (1972); Pianos and Voices 1 for five pianos (1972); Pianos and Voices 2 for five sopranos and five pianos (1972); Voices and Instruments 1 for choir, flutes, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, horn, timpani, piano, and double bass (1972); Voices and Instruments 2 for three high voices, flute, two cellos, and double bass (1972); Trio for three flutes (1972); and Chorus and Orchestra 2 for soprano, choir, and orchestra (1972). Voice and Instruments 1 and Pianos and Voices 1 premiered in Berlin in 1972. Feldman also made an appearance as a performer of his own music: a concert on November 4, 1971, of his early piano compositions featured the memorable line-up of John Tilbury, Morton Feldman, Gerhard Rühm, and Yukiko Sugawara.

Even after the fellowship was over, artistic connections with Feldman continued: in 1973 a further “contact invitation” of three months was planned but never realized, since he took up a professorship in Buffalo at the State University of New York in the same year. In 1976 Feldman met Samuel Beckett at the Schiller Theater in Berlin; this provided the initial spark for his Beckett opera Neither, which premiered in 1978 as part of the Metamusik Festival at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Germany.

Text: Dirk Wieschollek

Translation: Erik Smith