
Almost Too Beautiful (2003) - quesebifurcan
http://www.cnvill.net/mfkgann2.htm
======
JasonFruit
I'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.

~~~
cyrus_
Relevant quote from David Foster Wallace:

If you, the writer, succumb to the idea that the audience is too stupid, then
there are two pitfalls. Number one is the avant-garde pitfall, where you have
the idea that you’re writing for other writers, so you don’t worry about
making yourself accessible or relevant. You worry about making it structurally
and technically cutting edge: involuted in the right ways, making the
appropriate intertextual references, making it look smart. Not really caring
about whether you’re communicating with a reader who cares something about
that feeling in the stomach which is why we read. Then, the other end of it is
very crass, cynical, commercial pieces of fiction that are done in a formulaic
way — essentially television on the page — that manipulate the reader, that
set out grotesquely simplified stuff in a childishly riveting way.

What’s weird is that I see these two sides fight with each other and really
they both come out of the same thing, which is a contempt for the reader, an
idea that literature’s current marginalization is the reader’s fault. The
project that’s worth trying is to do stuff that has some of the richness and
challenge and emotional and intellectual difficulty of avant-garde literary
stuff, stuff that makes the reader confront things rather than ignore them,
but to do that in such a way that it’s also pleasurable to read. The reader
feels like someone is talking to him rather than striking a number of poses.

~~~
derleth
> television on the page

By which he means most novels, I suppose, which, in turn, means it's nothing
to do with television. Add to that all of the wonderful programs on
television, such as the films on TCM, the serial dramas on AMC, HBO, and PBS,
and the better comedies on the major networks, and this becomes puzzling.

Oh. Wait. No, it doesn't. It becomes a relic from an earlier time, the 1950s
and the 1960s, primarily, which has been repeated mindlessly down through the
decades as it feeds into a certain classist mindset in the kinds of people who
read David Foster Wallace. It reassures them that, even if they haven't given
to NPR in five years, they're still better than Those People who still watch
television.

~~~
cyrus_
Before a hundred channels of cable TV, most TV entertainment was pretty
unchallenging because they needed to please everyone. Modern TV can carve
deeper niches because there are more channels. I don't know if it's gotten
more challenging in those niches, but perhaps it has.

~~~
derleth
Breaking Bad is certainly more challenging than Gilligan's Island. And yes,
the broadening of television did save it.

------
ivancdg
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. 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>

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>

Also, I recommend listening to the conversations between John Cage and Morton
Feldman:

<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.

~~~
lutusp
> 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.

~~~
Tloewald
Wouldn't Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart be obvious counterexamples?

~~~
lutusp
I was thinking of modern times, "modern" in the sense that thoughtful music is
rare.

~~~
Tloewald
I suspect that the high concept musicians of our era will not be the ones that
are remembered. John Williams or (shudder) Andrew Lloyd Weber perhaps will,
and they dodn't need to die to receive recognition. Those unacknowledged
geniuses composing difficult music will be obscure footnotes.

------
jtheory
This 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...

------
scrozier
"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.

------
ivancdg
Kyle 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>

------
MichailP
I 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.

~~~
cschmidt
There 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.

~~~
scrozier
+1 for John Adams. Or Steve Reich. Or Phillip Glass. Or Morton Lauridsen.

~~~
cschmidt
Morton 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 :-).

------
appleflaxen
Here's a link to a clip of the music

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8e3qaF1ocU>

Doesn't do much for me, but I'm no music afficianado.

~~~
zoul
It 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
In 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>

People have told me that this reminds them of Debussy (the Prélude "Footprints
in the Snow", specifically).

~~~
DenisM
Not sure about Debussy, but this clip you posted reminds me of Für Alina by
Arvo Pärt, 1976.

------
visarga
I am impressed contemporary classical music has such a warm welcome here in a
technological community.

------
mgunes
Here's a thoroughly thought-provoking hour of Feldman in conversation with
John Cage on radio, from 1966:

<http://archive.org/details/CageFeldman3>

I highly recommend listening to the entire series, of which this is part
three.

------
n0mad01
Contemporary 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
I think that one of the major points of modern(ish) art is being free from
having to describe anything.

------
pertinhower
Are you serious? This isn't a joke?

~~~
sp332
I know it's hard to tell with modernists sometimes (especially when John Cage
is involved!), but this one is serious.

~~~
xyzzy123
I think the endurance of the performers is what impresses me most...

------
aolol
Link to the full piece:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amiNYqJQzQA>

------
dmbaggett
Interesting analysis of another amazing Feldman work, "Piano and String
Quartet", including a visualization of the "Turkish Rug" formalism:
<http://www.cnvill.net/mfsani2.htm>

Looks a bit like cellular automata. :)

------
martinced
There'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
It'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.

