8 ms·
Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
- pertinhower 14y agoAre you serious? This isn't a joke?
- appleflaxen 14y agoHere's a link to a clip of the music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8e3qaF1ocU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8e3qaF1ocU Doesn't do much for me, but I'm no music afficianado.
- deweerdt 14y agoCiting Feldman's turkish carpet study as a reference is interesting: Christopher Alexander (architectural design patterns, at the origin of software design patterns) also studied turkish carpets in 'Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets (1993)'
- zoul 14y agoIt doesn’t make much sense to “try Feldman” by listening to excerpts, you have to experience the whole piece if possible. The process of trying to find some meaning in the music and the eventual point of giving up and just accepting it is very interesting. At least that’s my point of view after listening to a live concert of Feldman’s For John Cage (70 minutes).
- ivancdg 14y agoIn my experience it is highly impractical to expect someone to try anything for 70 minutes before deciding if they like it. Some kind of step-wise introduction is more helpful. It's not easy with Feldman, but I am convinced it is possible. Here is a 2 minute excerpt of "Palais de Mari" from 1986 (for solo piano) that may help people decide whether they want to hear more: http://ivancdg.com/music/1.mp3 http://ivancdg.com/music/1.mp3 People have told me that this reminds them of Debussy (the Prélude "Footprints in the Snow", specifically).
- DenisM 14y agoNot sure about Debussy, but this clip you posted reminds me of Für Alina by Arvo Pärt, 1976.
- mgunes 14y agoWhile that is true, Feldman did encourage people to walk out, do their daily chores, have some fresh air etc. and come back in if they wanted to, in the brief introduction speeches to some of the performances of his longer (5+ hour) pieces.
- jtheory 14y agoThis is nicely worded, near the end of the review: But by that final two hours I was, however, not exactly caught up in the music, but surrounded by it, subdued by it, quelled. There are bound to be things that a piece of music can do to you, with you, if it has 6 hours to become part of your mental landscape... to wait out your normal attempts to "listen" consciously and make sense of it. I've never been to a similar concert, but it makes me think about long car voyages I've taken with (accidentally) only one CD in the car. Some albums turn to crap after a few hours. Others keep getting better, or more interesting, or a presence you are comfortable with even if it's not moving you anymore. Interesting stuff to play with, though of course who has the time, normally...
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- MichailP 14y agoI never quite understood why music went this way. My take is that, as always, musicians had to have some kind of sponsorship, and it slowly shifted from musician being sponsored by noble family (for example Liszt and Esterhazy) to getting a stipend from some institutions board (for example Arnold Schoenberg who worked as a bank clerk and got his first stipend through intervention of friends). That is why nowadays you get much more quality from say jazz than you get from classically trained composers.
- coldtea 14y ago>That is why nowadays you get much more quality from say jazz than you get from classically trained composers. Define quality. If you mean "you get much more to stomp your feet in the beat to", then OK.
- cschmidt 14y agoThere is good, quality classical still being written today. Try John Adams, for example. His website is www.earbox.com My favorite piece of his is Harmonielehre, but there is lots of great stuff there.
- MichailP 14y agoThanks for the link. I also like minimalism, I can say that it is my favorite style in modern classical music. Found this little clip while I was preparing my music history exams few years ago, it really explains Philip Glass nicely :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNiOqa1nWgI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNiOqa1nWgI
- scrozier 14y ago+1 for John Adams. Or Steve Reich. Or Phillip Glass. Or Morton Lauridsen.
- cschmidt 14y agoMorton Lauridsen was new to me. I just downloaded an album from iTunes - O Nata Lux is fantastic. Kind of funny to get classical tips on HN :-).
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- JasonFruit 14y agoI'm always fascinated by the response of everyday people to music like this. I'm a former professional musician — my degree was in viola performance, and I freelanced for a number of years before I decided paying the rent was important — and my perspective on contemporary music has changed since I ceased actively performing. I think the largest change is that I've become less concerned with interesting music, and more concerned with beauty; in this, I think I've become more like a regular audience member, who is less concerned with novelty and innovation and more concerned with whether listening to the piece is an enjoyable experience. I think Feldman straddles that boundary with remarkable balance. I haven't listened to his second quartet, but I've listened with intensity to his first (only an 1/½ hour work), and it's effective on both levels. It is non-traditional in its organization and its sonorities, but it has a straightforward structure that is simple enough for a lay listener to at least partly grasp in a single hearing, allowing them to appreciate it as an object of beauty. At the same time, its form and content are original enough to pique a more demanding student's interest. From the OP's description, it sounds like the second quartet is similar. Feldman strikes me as a composer who has partly avoided and partly succumbed to the trap — all too common, as I see it — of deciding that the state of constant revolution that music has been in since about 1885 means that they can do anything they please and write music according to their own inscrutable (and often mechanical) system, shattering so many expectations so their music defies evaluation and nobody can tell them it isn't good. (The stories I could tell about some "composers" and their methods…) I blame the vast difference between the expectations of academia, which is the main supporter of contemporary composers, and those of the general audience.
- Tycho 14y agoPersonally I think it's a real shame that many advanced musicians focus on making 'interesting' music and seem to turn their noses up at merely 'enjoyable' music. It's corrupted entire genres like classical and jazz (Radiohead even managed to almost do it to rock).
- Anchor 14y agoThe same argument is made for contemporary architecture by Christopher Alexander: almost everyone focuses on creating something novel instead of structures of lasting value and source of, well, goodness. Alexander called this quality 'life'. I think it is a sad state of affairs that it is indeed so in the modern world. It is also interesting that it happens in so many distinct areas. Perhaps it is a property of the society and how it is structured today. It is of course rare for a community of nonprofessionals to be able to build a complete modern house. Why this affects musicians too, is not clear to me. The rise of individualism maybe?
- ivancdg 14y agoKyle Gann (the author of this essay) has written some of the best English language essays on Morton Feldman. There's another good essay by Alex Ross, music critic at the New Yorker: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/06/morton_feldman_.html http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/06/morton_feldman_.html
- ivancdg 14y agoMorton Feldman (1926-1987) was convinced that he was a major 20th century composer. That point of view put him in the minority. Now, 26 years after his untimely death, people are starting to agree. Classical music-lovers, numb from all of the brutal, post-war contemporary music, are intrigued by this unusually intuitive composer and his tender, obsessive music. Feldman's "late" works are the most remarkable. Often spanning hours in length, he transformed the concert into a ritual. "Is music an art form?" he liked to ask. In other words, is music more than just entertainment? His answer was clearly: "Yes". Feldman's works are not just listened to, they are experienced. They are a mixture of music, performance art, and philosophy. Unlike John Cage, his close friend and mentor, Feldman was not interested in Zen philosophy. But listening to Feldman’s music leads to a heightened state of mind, a kind of musical enlightenment. I just recorded two of Feldman's greatest works for solo piano: "Palais de Mari" (1986, 23') and "For Bunita Marcus" (1985, 67'). 15 minutes ago, I would've put the probability of seeing an article about Feldman on Hacker News at zero. Bravo. Feldman's "Rothko Chapel" is a great way to get into his music (written following the suicide of painter Mark Rothko). Here is part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxSt_w2ODaQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxSt_w2ODaQ The story of the Rothko Chapel is well worth reading if you like abstract expressionist artwork (de Kooning, Rothko, Kline, Pollock, etc). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel Also, I recommend listening to the conversations between John Cage and Morton Feldman: http://archive.org/details/CageFeldmanConversation1 http://archive.org/details/CageFeldmanConversation1 They talk, drink, smoke in the radio studio. It's all very 1960's but the insight into the lives of great composers is priceless.
- lmg643 14y agoPalais de Mari is a great piece of music, very accessible considering the style. is the recording available online, either youtube or for sale?
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- lutusp 14y ago> Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was convinced that he was a major 20th century composer. That point of view put him in the minority. Now, 26 years after his untimely death, people are starting to agree. It's Béla Bartók all over again. I wonder if there's an unwritten rule in nature that truly creative composers have to die before people recognize the value of their work? A counterexample to this pattern is Philip Glass, who is receiving some recognition, but by virtue of being recognized in his own lifetime, may undercut his own reputation.
- mgunes 14y agoHere's a thoroughly thought-provoking hour of Feldman in conversation with John Cage on radio, from 1966: http://archive.org/details/CageFeldman3 http://archive.org/details/CageFeldman3 I highly recommend listening to the entire series, of which this is part three.
- visarga 14y agoI am impressed contemporary classical music has such a warm welcome here in a technological community.
- dmbaggett 14y agoInteresting analysis of another amazing Feldman work, "Piano and String Quartet", including a visualization of the "Turkish Rug" formalism: http://www.cnvill.net/mfsani2.htm http://www.cnvill.net/mfsani2.htm Looks a bit like cellular automata. :)
- n0mad01 14y agoContemporary art tries to describe some kind of distorted reality. We live in really fucked up times, more fragmented and complex, better documented and infomercialed but at the same time less understood in it's entirety than ever before. Modern art tends to describe this condition rather then to appease or to gloss over it. But that is nothing where people in 300 years will look back as something beautiful ( try to listen to ancient greek music, you will know what i mean ), point.
- zoul 14y agoI think that one of the major points of modern(ish) art is being free from having to describe anything.
- aolol 14y agoLink to the full piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amiNYqJQzQA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amiNYqJQzQA
- scrozier 14y ago"Intermittent silences grew longer, and finally one arrived that seemed endless, until we broke it with a fortissimo of applause." I had a similar experience as a performer of Terry Riley's "In C" in 1978. As I finished the piece (everyone finishes at their own pace), I walked off stage and went around to the back of the auditorium, with the audience. As the last performers left the stage, the only sound left was the repetitive octave C eighth notes on the piano that had started the piece 45 minutes earlier. Then that too stopped, leaving us in total silence. It took a good 10-15 seconds for it to sink in that the piece was over, then the audience erupted in great applause.
- martinced 14y agoThere's a saying to describe such a performance and the people who do appreciate that kind of 'stuff': artsy fartsy. I'm sure half of the pleasure is to then talk about how incredible, magnificent and transcendental it was to assist to such a performance. Must make one feel special in NYC. I also do appreciate the humility in that title: "Almost too beautiful". Sure, we mere mortals can't understand this, because it's too beautiful for us. Several people have asked if this was a joke... By now I'm honestly beginning to think that HN has been trolled by a ring with sufficient accounts to upvote anything they want on the HN front page :-/
- unalone 14y agoIt's really easy to sneer at anybody trying to talk about something impossible to put into words, any experience which cannot be recreated through language. Yet this is the subject of some of the greatest works of art in every medium. If you have truly never experienced something that jolted you suddenly and thoroughly into recognizing yourself as a small person in the wake of something large and vast, that's a shame. But I assure you that such experiences exist, and that they are indeed magical.