Give My Regards to Eighth Street


Book Description

Afterword by Frank O'Hara Morton Feldman (1926-1987) is among the most influential American composers of the 20th Century. While his music is known for its exteme quiet and delicate beauty, Feldman himself was famously large and loud. His writings are both funny and illuminating, not only about his own music but about the entire New York School of painters, poets and composers that coalesced in the 1950s, including his friends Jackson Pollack, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank O Hara, and John Cage.




Silence


Book Description

John Cage is the outstanding composer of avant-garde music today. The Saturday Review said of him: “Cage possesses one of the rarest qualities of the true creator- that of an original mind- and whether that originality pleases, irritates, amuses or outrages is irrelevant.” “He refuses to sermonize or pontificate. What John Cage offers is more refreshing, more spirited, much more fun-a kind of carefree skinny-dipping in the infinite. It’s what’s happening now.” –The American Record Guide “There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. Sounds occur whether intended or not; the psychological turning in direction of those not intended seems at first to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity. But one must see that humanity and nature, not separate, are in this world together, that nothing was lost when everything was given away.”




The Graph Music of Morton Feldman


Book Description

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




Composing Ambiguity: The Early Music of Morton Feldman


Book Description

American composer Morton Feldman is increasingly seen to have been one of the key figures in late-twentieth-century music, with his work exerting a powerful influence into the twenty-first century. At the same time, much about his music remains enigmatic, largely due to long-standing myths about supposedly intuitive or aleatoric working practices. In Composing Ambiguity, Alistair Noble reveals key aspects of Feldman's musical language as it developed during a crucial period in the early 1950s. Drawing models from primary sources, including Feldman's musical sketches, he shows that Feldman worked deliberately within a two-dimensional frame, allowing a focus upon the fundamental materials of sounding pitch in time. Beyond this, Feldman's work is revealed to be essentially concerned with the 12-tone chromatic field, and with the delineation of complexes of simple proportions in 'crystalline' forms. Through close reading of several important works from the early 1950s, Noble shows that there is a remarkable consistency of compositional method, despite the varied experimental notations used by Feldman at this time. Not only are there direct relations to be found between staff-notated works and grid scores, but much of the language developed by Feldman in this period was still in use even in his late works of the 1980s.




Confronting Silence


Book Description

In these writings, available here in English for the first time, the distinguished Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu reflects on his contemporaries, including John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, and Merce Cunningham; on nature, which has profoundly influenced his composition; on film and painting; on relationships between East and West; on traditional Japanese music; and on his own compositions.




Silence


Book Description

John Cage is the outstanding composer of avant-garde music today. The Saturday Review said of him: “Cage possesses one of the rarest qualities of the true creator- that of an original mind- and whether that originality pleases, irritates, amuses or outrages is irrelevant.” “He refuses to sermonize or pontificate. What John Cage offers is more refreshing, more spirited, much more fun-a kind of carefree skinny-dipping in the infinite. It’s what’s happening now.” –The American Record Guide “There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. Sounds occur whether intended or not; the psychological turning in direction of those not intended seems at first to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity. But one must see that humanity and nature, not separate, are in this world together, that nothing was lost when everything was given away.”




Morton Feldman


Book Description

Morton Feldman: Friendship and Mourning in the New York Avant-Garde documents the collaborations and conflicts essential to the history of the post-war avant-garde. It offers a study of composer Morton Feldman's associations and friendships with artists like John Cage, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Frank O'Hara, Charlotte Moorman, and others. Arguing that friendship and mourning sustained the collective aesthetics of the New York School, Dohoney has written an emotional and intimate revision of New York modernism from the point of view of Feldman's agonistic community.




Morton Feldman


Book Description

Morton Feldman: Friendship and Mourning in the New York Avant-Garde documents the collaborations and conflicts essential to the history of the post-war avant-garde. It offers a study of composer Morton Feldman's associations and friendships with artists like John Cage, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Frank O'Hara, Charlotte Moorman, and others. Arguing that friendship and mourning sustained the collective aesthetics of the New York School, Dohoney has written an emotional and intimate revision of New York modernism from the point of view of Feldman's agonistic community.




Morton Feldman Says


Book Description

Alongside John Cage and Edgar Varese, Morton Feldman is regarded by many as one of the foremost American composers of the 20th century. Evidence of his lifelong passion for music can be found in the numerous interviews and lectures he gave about his life and work. But despite his reputation and creative output, very little has been published on this charismatic figure. In Morton Feldman Says, editor Chris Villars has collected two decades of interviews, many available here for the first time, illustrating Feldman's creative process and his wide range of cultural interests and references, especially to visual art. Morton Feldman Says contains the first English translation of Sebastian Claren's biographical notes as well as conversations with Gavin Bryars, Kevin Volans and Walter Zimmermann. There are also transcriptions of two of Feldman's lectures, held in Toronto (1982) and Johannesburg (1983).




Eight Dates


Book Description

Whether you’re newly together and eager to make it work or a longtime couple looking to strengthen and deepen your bond, Eight Dates offers a program of how, why, and when to have eight basic conversations with your partner that can result in a lifetime of love. “Happily ever after” is not by chance, it’s by choice– the choice each person in a relationship makes to remain open, remain curious, and, most of all, to keep talking to one another. From award-winning marriage researcher and bestselling author Dr. John Gottman and fellow researcher Julie Gottman, Eight Dates offers an ingenious and simple-to-implement approach to effective relationship communication. Here are the subjects that every serious couple should discuss: Trust. Family. Sex and intimacy. Dealing with conflict. Work and money. Dreams, and more. And here is how to talk about them—how to broach subjects that are difficult or embarrassing, how to be brave enough to say what you really feel. There are also suggestions for where and when to go on each date—book your favorite romantic restaurant for the Sex & Intimacy conversation (and maybe go to a yoga or dance class beforehand). There are questionnaires, innovative exercises, real-life case studies, and skills to master, including the Four Skills of Intimate Conversation and the Art of Listening. Because making love last is not about having a certain feeling—it’s about both of you being active and involved.