Morton Feldman: Structures (1951)

Arditti Quartet performs.

"After [my first meeting with John Cage] I brought John a string quartet. He looked at it a long time and then said, 'How did you make this?' I thought of my constant quarrels with Wolpe, and how just a week before, after showing a composition of mine to Milton Babbitt and answering his questions as intelligently as I could, he said to me, 'Morton, I don't understand a word you're saying.' And so, in a very weak voice I answered John, 'I don't know how I made it.'

The response to this was startling. John jumped up and down, and with a kind of high monkey squeal, screeched, 'Isn't that marvelous. Isn't that wonderful. It's so beautiful, and he doesn't know how he made it.' Quite frankly, I sometimes wonder how my music would have turned out if John had not given me those early permissions to have confidence in my instincts." -Morton Feldman (from "Liner Notes")

Category:

Music

Tags:

• 20th
• avantgarde
• century
• feldman
• new
• quartet
• school
• string
• york

[ViewerNotes]

the feldman we all know is in 1:00 to 1:30. This is the only part I found fascinating with all the strange superpositions. But I suspect this piece was one of the "Graphic score" period. Not all Feldman is good

[minirausch]

"structures" is fully notated -- i think this actually predates the graphic scores (intersections, projections), which he started to use later on in 1951.

[FiReFire1]

it's supposed to be quiet

[chiledofthekorn]

this is amazing

if you are a fan of morton feldman you will live

Gabriel Williams - Black on maroon

i promis you will love it

[petezilla]

This is awesome

[MaestroTJS]

"Poop for string quartet."

[rubinsteinway]

I cannot stop ignoring this music.

[LuciaDErrico1]

Cannot stop listening to it

[mattjcarney]

RIP Milton

[ViewerNotes]

@christophertrueman ; x

[christophertrueman]

@ViewerNotes shhhh

[jwf3148]

Morton Feldman's music will endure through the ages...it is so beautiful, and there is none other like it....

[lovesGenet]

wow. It doesn't sound notated but I know it is . This isn't scatter shot all over the place like boulex or barraque. when did American music become so silent and full of space and light ? Not Seeger or Copland ! Wolpe and Babbit aren't like this either.What a revelation! wow ,the contrast with the triplet rtythm at the end .