The Graph Music of Morton Feldman

David Cline provides a detailed analysis of Morton Feldman's graph works and how they changed the course of post-war music.

David Cline (Author)

9781107109230, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 May 2016

410 pages, 15 b/w illus. 14 tables 100 music examples
25.3 x 18 x 2.3 cm, 0.95 kg

Morton Feldman is widely regarded as one of America's greatest composers. His music is famously idiosyncratic, but, in many cases, the way he presented it is also unusual because, in the 1950s and 1960s, he often composed in non-standard musical notations, including a groundbreaking variety on graph paper that facilitated deliberately imprecise specifications of pitch and, at times, other musical parameters. Feldman used this notation, intermittently, over seventeen years, producing numerous graph works that invite analysis as an evolving series. Taking this approach, David Cline marshals a wide range of source materials - many previously unpublished - in clarifying the ideology, organisation and generative history of these graphs and their formative role in the chronicle of post-war music. This assists in pinpointing connections with Feldman's compositions in other formats, works by other composers, notably John Cage, and contemporary currents in painting. Performance practice is examined through analysis of Feldman's non-notated preferences and David Tudor's celebrated interpretations.

Introduction
1. Early graphs, 1950–3
2. Later graphs, 1958–67
3. Notation
4. Ideology
5. Holism
6. Compositional methods I
7. Compositional methods II
8. Non-notated preferences
9. Tudor's performances
10. Connections with works in other notations
11. Moving on
Epilogue
Appendix 1. Two unpublished graphs
Appendix 2. Other perspectives on compositional methods.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Music [AV], Performance art [AFKP], Painting & paintings [AFC], Art & design styles: c 1900 to c 1960 [ACXD], History of art / art & design styles [AC]