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Morton Feldman (1926-1987)


Speaking of Music at the Exploratorium (1986)

  1. Speaking of Music at the Exploratorium, Part 1 (1986)
  2. Speaking of Music at the Exploratorium, Part 2 (1986)

Morton Feldman interviewed by Charles Amirkhanian at the Exploratorium's Speaking of Music Series in San Francisco, January 30, 1986.


John Cage / Morton Feldman: Radio Happenings I - V (1967)
Recorded at WBAI, New York City, July 1966 - January 1967

  1. Part 1
  2. Part 2
  3. Part 3
  4. Part 4

John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish "A Year from Monday" in 1967. Most of Feldman's important work was yet to come. These conversations between two old friends, relaxed, smoking, and throwing out ideas, are full of laughter and long ponderous silences. They form an incredible historical record of their concerns and preoccupations with making music, art, society, and politics of the moment.



Morton Feldman Interview, 1967, KPFA

  1. Interview, July 1967

Recording Date: 7/1/1967

This wide ranging, literate, and always fascinating conversation between composer Morton Feldman and writer/composer/journalist (and former KPFA music director) Charles Shere touches on the work of various composers, performers, artists, and writers. Feldman talks about ways of composing, including his own, and to what degree a composer is "on the make" with regard to his audience.

The composers Feldman and Shere discuss include John Cage, Christian Wolff, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Milton Babbitt. Surprisingly, Feldman admits to admiring Babbitt, and wishes that he himself could write serialized music freehand, like Babbitt.

Is it true that music will always have a great past, but never a great future? Is Feldman's music limited because he doesn't believe in Hegel? Discover the answers in this fascinating conversation.




Various Tracks
  1. Chorus and Instruments (II)


  2. Christian Wolff In Cambridge


  3. The King of Denmark (7:23)
    Realzed by Max Neuhaus.

    This recording should be played at very low volume - "so that you almost don't hear it."
    See accompanying text and score.


  4. Give My Regards to Eighth Street (1968)
    Read by Art Lange.

Track 1, 2 from Extended Voices
Track 3 From Aspen No. 5+6
Track 4 From The New York School 3 (Hat Art CD, 1995)

RELATED RESOURCES:
Pollock Painting in UbuWeb Film (1951), directed by Hans Namuth; soundtrack by Morton Feldman



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