Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:12:26.717Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Morton Feldman's Graphic Notation: Projections and Trajectories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2012

BRETT BOUTWELL
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the winter of 1950–51 Morton Feldman composed a series of pieces titled Projections in a new notation of his own invention. The first-known graphically scored works of the postwar era, the Projections were immediately championed by Feldman's friend John Cage in the language of his budding philosophy of non-intention, a framework of thought largely alien to Feldman. In later years, Feldman instead explained the Projections through the discourse of abstract-expressionist painting, substituting its model of willful creative action for Cage's Zen-inspired doctrine of aesthetic indifference. Yet the story behind his graphic notation is more tangled still, for its sources included both Edgard Varèse and Stefan Wolpe, composers whose spatialized vision of sound influenced Feldman's new conception of the creative act. An examination of the origin and reception of the Projections offers insight into the forces that catalyzed experimental notation in postwar New York and the rationales that were ultimately ascribed to it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , November 2012 , pp. 457 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcopley, L. “The Club.” Issue: A Journal for Artists 4 (1985): 45–47.Google Scholar
Beal, Amy C. “‘Time Canvasses’: Morton Feldman and the Painters of the New York School.” In Music and Modern Art, ed. Leggio, James, 227–45. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Berger, Arthur. “Music News.” New York Herald Tribune, 28 January 1951.Google Scholar
Bernard, Jonathan W. “Varèse's Space, Varèse's Time.” In Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, ed. Meyer, Felix and Zimmermann, Heidy, 149–55. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press for the Paul Sacher Foundation, 2006.Google Scholar
Bernard, Jonathan W. “Feldman's Painters.” In The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts, ed. Johnson, Steven, 173–215. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Bernard, Jonathan W. The Music of Edgard Varèse. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Bernas, Richard and Adrian, Jack. “The Brink of Silence.” Music and Musicians (June 1972): 7–8. Reprinted in Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964–1987, ed. Villars, Chris, 43–49. London: Hyphen Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Bernstein, David W. “Cage and High Modernism.” In The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, ed. Nicholls, David, 186–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Cage, John. “Edgard Varèse.” In Silence: Lectures and Writings, 83–85. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Cage, John. “Forerunners of Modern Music.” In The Boulez–Cage Correspondence, ed. Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, et al., trans. Robert Samuels, 38–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Originally published in The Tiger's Eye (March 1949).Google Scholar
Cage, John. “Lecture on Nothing.” In Silence: Lectures and Writings, 109–26. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Cage, John. Letter to David Tudor, n.d. [ca. 21–27 January 1951], David Tudor Papers, Getty Research Institute, Box 52.Google Scholar
Cage, John. “Lecture on Something.” In Silence: Lectures and Writings, 128–45. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. Originally published in It is. A Magazine for Abstract Art 4 (Autumn 1959): 73–78.Google Scholar
Cage, John. I–VI. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Cage, John. “On Hearing Morton Feldman's New Recording.” It is. A Magazine for Abstract Art 4 (Autumn 1959): 73.Google Scholar
Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Cage, John. “To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No. 4.” In Silence: Lectures and Writings, 57–59. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Charles, Daniel. For the Birds: John Cage in Conversation with Daniel Charles. Boston: Marion Boyers, 1981.Google Scholar
Claren, Sebastian. Neither: Die Musik Morton Feldmans. Hofheim: Wolke Verlag, 2000.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Austin. “Conversation About Stefan Wolpe.” In Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964–1987, ed. Villars, Chris, 97–113. London: Hyphen Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Austin. “Stefan Wolpe and Abstract Expressionism.” In The New York Schools of Music and Visual Art, ed. Johnson, Steven, 75–112. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Austin. “The Varèse Effect: New York City in the 1950s and 60s.” In Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, ed. Meyer, Felix and Zimmermann, Heidy, 371–81. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press for the Paul Sacher Foundation, 2006.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Austin. Introduction to On the Music of Stefan Wolpe: Essays and Recollections, ed. Clarkson, Austin, 1–28. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Cohen, Brigid. “Diasporic Dialogues in Mid-Century New York: Stefan Wolpe, George Russell, Hannah Arendt, and the Historiography of Displacement.” Journal of the Society for American Music 6/2 (May 2012): 143–73.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. “Current Chronicle: New York.” Musical Quarterly 38/11 (January 1952): 123–36.Google Scholar
Edgar, Natalie, ed.Club Without Walls: Selections from the Journals of Philip Pavia. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “A Life without Bach and Beethoven.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 15–18. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in Listen (May/June 1964): 14.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Between Categories.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 83–89. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. First published as “Mellan kategorierna” in Nutida Musik 12/4 (1968–69): 25–7.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Crippled Symmetry.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 134–49. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in Res 2 (Autumn 1981): 91–103.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Doing it One Way and Doing it Another Way.” In Morton Feldman in Middelburg: Words on Music, Lectures and Conversations, vol. 1, ed. Mörchen, Raoul, 450–92. Köln: MusikTexte, 2008.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Frank O'Hara: Lost Times and Future Hopes.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 103–8. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in Art in America 60/2 (March–April 1972): 52–55.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Give My Regards to Eighth Street.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 93–101. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in Art in America 59/2 (March–April 1971): 96–99.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “I Met Heine on the Rue Fürstemberg.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 112–21. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in the Buffalo Evening News, 21 April 1973.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. Letter to Louise Varèse, 10 December 1965. Morton Feldman Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. Letter to William M. Colleran, 16 December 1975. Morton Feldman Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Liner Notes.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 3–7Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in Kulchur 2/6 (Summer 1962): 57–60.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “On Stefan Wolpe.” In Morton Feldman in Middelburg: Words on Music, Lectures and Conversations, vol. 2, ed. Mörchen, Raoul, 546–90. Köln: MusikTexte, 2008.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. Sketchbook 1, 1950–51. Morton Feldman Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. Sketchbook 2, 1950–51. Morton Feldman Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Some Elementary Questions.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 63–66. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in Art News 66/2 (April 1967): 54, 74.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “Sound, Noise, Varèse, Boulez.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 1–2. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published in It is. A Magazine for Abstract Art 2 (Autumn 1958): 46.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “The Anxiety of Art.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 21–32. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000. Originally published as “Konstens ängslan” in Nutida Musik 12/3 (1968–69): 36–41.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “The Avant Garde: Progress or Stalemate?” New York Times, 5 March 1967, Section D, 27.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “The Future of Local Music.” In Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. Friedman, B. H., 157–95. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. “To Have Known Stefan Wolpe Well.” Typescript. Morton Feldman Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. Untitled sketch on graph paper. David Tudor Papers, Getty Research Institute, Box 9.Google Scholar
Feldman, Morton. Slee Lecture. SUNY–Buffalo, 20 November 1972. Transcript available online at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/music/spcoll/feldman/mfslee315.html.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Paul. “Morton Feldman.” Musical Times 113/1554 (August 1972): 758–59.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music and After. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Holzaepfel, John. “Painting by Numbers: The Intersections of Morton Feldman and David Tudor.” In The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts, ed. Johnson, Steven, 159–72. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Johnson, Steven. “Jasper Johns and Morton Feldman: What Patterns?” In The New York Schools of Music and Visual Art, ed. Johnson, Steven, 217–47. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Johnson, Steven. “Rothko Chapel and Rothko's Chapel.” Perspectives of New Music 32/2 (Summer 1994): 6–53.Google Scholar
Kissane, Seán, ed. Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts. Exhibition catalog. Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2010.Google Scholar
Kopp, Alexander. “Gegenstand und Oberfläche: Morton Feldmans Gedanken über die Beziehung von Kunst und Musik.” In Musik und Bildende Kunst, ed. Kraemer, Rudolf-Dieter, 111–18. Essen: Verlag Die Blaue Eule, 1990.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Malcolm. Varèse: Astronomer in Sound. London: Kahn and Averill, 2003.Google Scholar
Massi, R. Wood. “Captain Cook's First Voyage: An Interview with Morton Feldman.” Cum Notis Variorum, 131 (April 1989): 7–12.Google Scholar
Mattis, Olivia. “From Bebop to Poo-wip: Jazz Influences in Varèse's Poème électronique.” In Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, ed. Meyer, Felix and Zimmermann, Heidy, 309–17. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press for the Paul Sacher Foundation, 2006.Google Scholar
Mattis, Olivia. “The Physical and the Abstract: Varèse and the New York School.” In The New York Schools of Music and Visual Art, ed. Johnson, Steven, 57–74. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Namuth, Hans and Rose, Barbara, eds. Pollock Painting. New York: Agrinde, 1980.Google Scholar
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, et al., eds. The Boulez–Cage Correspondence. Trans. Samuels, Robert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
O'Doherty, Brian. “Feldman Throws a Switch Between Sight and Sound.” New York Times, 2 February 1964, Section 2, 11.Google Scholar
O'Doherty, Brian. Interview with the author. October 27, 2004.Google Scholar
Ouellette, Fernand. Edgard Varèse. Trans. Derek Coltman. New York: The Orion Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Patterson, David W. “Words and Writings.” In The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, ed. Nicholls, David, 85–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Patterson, David W. “Appraising the Catchwords, c. 1942–1959: John Cage's Asian-Derived Rhetoric and the Historical Reference of Black Mountain College.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1996.Google Scholar
Pavia, Philip. Club Without Walls: Selections from the Journals of Philip Pavia. ed. Edgar, Natalie. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Pritchett, James. The Music of John Cage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Sandler, Irving. “The Club.” In Abstract Expressionism: A Critical Record, ed. Shapiro, David and Shapiro, Cecile, 48–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Sandler, Irving. The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.Google Scholar
Saxer, Marion. Between Categories: Studien zum Komponieren Morton Feldmans von 1951 bis 1977. Saarbrücken: PFAU-Verlag, 1998.Google Scholar
Taubman, Howard. “Hisses, Applause for Webern Opus.” New York Times, 27 January 1950, 26.Google Scholar
Varèse, Edgard. “Die heutige musikalische Wisenshaft” [sic]. Typescript, ca. 1950. Edgard Varèse Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Varèse, Edgard. “The Liberation of Sound.” In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music, ed. Schwartz, Elliott and Childs, Barney, 196–208. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.Google Scholar
Varèse, Edgard. “Music and the Times.” Typescript, ca. 1936. Edgard Varèse Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation.Google Scholar
Varèse, Edgard. “Varèse Envisions ‘Space’ Symphonies.” New York Times, 6 December 1936.Google Scholar
Vigil, Ryan. “Compositional Parameters: Projection 4 and an Analytical Methodology for Morton Feldman's Graph Works.” Perspectives of New Music 47/1 (Winter 2009): 233–67.Google Scholar
Welsh, John P. “Projection 1 (1950).” In The Music of Morton Feldman, ed. DeLio, Thomas, 21–35. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Williams, Jan. “An Interview with Morton Feldman.” Percussive Notes 21/6 (September 1983): 4–14. Reprinted in Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964–1987, ed. Villars, Chris, 150–59. London: Hyphen Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian. “Experimental Music around 1950 and Some Consequences and Causes (Social-Political and Musical).” American Music 27/4 (Winter 2009): 424–40.Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian. “Taking Chances.” Music and Musicians 17/9 (May 1969): 38–45.Google Scholar
Wolpe, Hilda Morley. “The Eighth Street Club, from A Thousand Birds.” In On the Music of Stefan Wolpe, ed. Clarkson, Austin, 103–10. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Wolpe, Stefan. “On Proportions.” Trans. Matthew Greenbaum. Perspectives of New Music 34/2 (Summer 1996): 132–84.Google Scholar
Wolpe, Stefan. “Thinking Twice.” In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music, ed. Schwartz, Elliott and Childs, Barney, 274–307. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Heidy. “Recycling, Collage, Work in Progress: Varèse's Thought in Speech and Writing.” In Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, ed. Meyer, Felix and Zimmermann, Heidy, 264–71. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press for the Paul Sacher Foundation, 2006.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Walter. “Conversation Between Morton Feldman and Walter Zimmermann, November 1975.” In Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures, 1964–1987, ed. Villars, Chris, 51–60. London: Hyphen Press, 2006. First published in Desert Plants: Conversations with 23 American Musicians, ed. Walter Zimmermann, 1–20. Vancouver: Aesthetic Research Centre Publications, 1976.Google Scholar