Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman (1926–1987) was an American composer whose quiet, often indeterminate music explores subtle changes in sound, repetition, and duration.
Indeterminacy: A compositional approach that leaves some musical decisions open to performers or chance procedures. Feldman used open notation to let performers shape details without abandoning his musical frameworks.
John Cage: An American composer who expanded musical practice through chance operations, silence, and experimental performance. Cage introduced Feldman to chance and helped encourage his move away from conventional notation.
Earle Brown: An American composer associated with open-form composition and the postwar New York School. Brown shared Feldman’s experimental milieu while developing a distinct approach to performer choice.
Projection 1: Feldman’s 1950 composition for solo cello, notated with graphic symbols and broad registers. It exemplifies his early effort to replace fixed pitches and rhythms with visual instructions.
Minimal music: A musical movement built around restricted materials, steady pulse, and gradual change. Feldman also uses repetition, but his irregular pacing and shifting patterns resist minimalism’s regular pulse.
Graphic notation: A way of representing music with visual marks that do not specify every conventional pitch and rhythm. His early graphic scores made musical relationships visible while leaving exact sounds partly undecided.
New York School (artists): A loosely connected group of postwar New York artists, composers, and poets who shared experimental interests. Feldman’s artistic friendships connected his music with the era’s abstract painting and poetry.
Christian Wolff: An American composer whose experimental scores often give performers substantial freedom and responsibility. Wolff was a close colleague in the circle of composers around Cage and Feldman.
Rothko Chapel: A 1971 work by Feldman for soprano, chorus, viola, percussion, and celesta, written for Houston’s Rothko Chapel. Its restrained forces and reflective pacing show how he connected sound with a visual setting.
Serialism: A compositional method that organizes musical parameters through ordered series, especially pitches. Feldman rejected the systematic control associated with serial composition in favor of intuitive choices.