If you listen to much Morton Feldman you will develop a whole new sense of the word "minimal." Take this piece for example, De Kooning from 1963:
Next to that anything by Philip Glass or Steve Reich is going to sound horribly cluttered and "busy." But austere, spare music like this has its unique appeal.
Amongst fellow musicians I am known for being succinct as a composer and yes, I do tend to prefer to use fewer notes where others might use more. But compared to Morton Feldman I feel positively prolix. Some music, like some sauces, is greatly improved by reduction. We are so often tempted by more: more notes, faster tempos, higher notes and louder notes. But given that those have been the trends for a couple of hundred years now, surely there is more to discover on the other end of the spectrum, among the quiet, few, scattered notes. At least, that seems to be the message from Morton Feldman.
Listening to the music of Feldman is like a new kind of ear-training. You find yourself straining to remember exactly what the pitch of that previous note was. And is the new note really a fourth higher?
And you thought Billie Eilish was minimal!
I have a particular admiration for those composers for whom every single note is almost overburdened with meaning, nothing is excess: Part, much of Gubaidulina, Ruggles, Mompou, Webern of course. I do not yet 'get' most of Feldman's music but I hope to with time. I certainly find it fascinating. It's strange because with writers I often prefer wafflers (my tastes go more towards digressive novels and 18th/early 19th century English prose and away from Orwellian brevity). Maybe it is as you sort of imply, searching for relief from the dominant modern style or trend, simply the desire for something different.
ReplyDeleteI think if I took Feldman's approach of writing the odd tone every umpteen bars I could get a lot more composed and a lot quicker. At least in theory. In practise I find it much easier to be extravagant than austere. It's that Pascal (I think?) quotation: I could have written a shorter letter but I didn't have the time.
A temptation is suddenly forming in my mind: to take I work I don't much like, say one of the Mahler symphonies, and try reducing it down as much as possible, see if it can be improved that way...
Haha yes Mahler's symphonies could certainly be improved by cutting them by 1/3. Personally I think 5-8 plus #1 are not worth the effort but 2, 3 ,9 and 10 would certainly benefit. You could use #4 as a model. Of course the wrath of Mahler fans would ring in your ears for desecrating the Master. Then you can follow with Wagner's operas.
ReplyDeleteMinimalism can be effective but it punishes the slightest bit of slackness. Every moment must have some intensity and variety to work. Interestingly there have been some pop albums which have used it: Randy Newman's 12 Songs, the Cars and more recently Spoon (at least starting with their 3rd album). I think it is easier to manage with vocal music. I would have to say that the works I have heard by Bryan do not seem minimalist, merely examples of brevity.
The work I heard of yours suggested more a talent for musical flow which I think is badly needed currently. To me there are only 2 rules of composition that must be adhered to: 1. have a plan no matter how silly and follow it, and 2. follow the Keith Richards rule of doing something different every 5 seconds. When you listen to the old polyphony of the Renaissance you get a feel for how natural musical flow can be.
The idea of angering Mahler fans is exactly my sort of fun, may well try it. I was thinking of cutting it down by more like 9/10ths.
ReplyDeleteI certainly appreciate the compliment. One device in many modern styles I often feel is too frequently used is suddenness. Yes I too love the flow of the great polyphonists. (One of my favourite composers to play on guitar is Francesco da Milano for that reason.) I'm not sure about the necessity of having a plan when composing (we go back Bryan's post on chance). Or at least it may be necessary to have a plan, but it isn't necessary to follow it.
Regarding plans they don't have to be serial in nature, just unity in variety. The vast majority of composers have had a plan ready made for them called a style. Yes there is a chance element to it but it is like picking a jelly bean from a jar of jellybeans. The one you pick is by chance but you were going to pick some jellybean. The problem today for composers is the lack of a ready style which as noted reduces productivity.
ReplyDeleteBTW I totally agree with your comment about suddenness; it was a fault introduced by Beethoven. It needs to be used very sparingly and strategically.
Interesting that Steven sees every note in Gubaidulina as "burdened with meaning", because I would say the opposite. Gubaidulina’s main interest since the mid 1980s has been crafting overall form from the Fibonacci sequence (and other numerical sequences). The actual notes themselves are rather irrelevant, they exist only to fill in time, and it is that passage of time that is the meaning of the work. And unfortunately, many of the actual notes have been the same stock gestures repeated again and again from one commission to the next.
ReplyDeleteThere are some Gubaidulina pieces, mainly chamber works, that break out of this mold, but I wouldn't categorize Gubaidulina as an "every note counts" composer.
Interesting, perhaps 'overburned with meaning' is overstating it. I find a Webern-like spareness and deliberateness in much of her music. If I read through a Gubaidulina work I see much less excess than most composers. I see a clear texture with lots of silence. I often see an unusual focus on individual notes.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that because she uses certain systems to decide notes the actual notes themselves are therefore 'rather irrelevant'. Sure, time is a very important and particular consideration in Gubaidulina's music, but if we wanted to we could say most notes in most works exist to 'fill in time', no? One could say of a lot of musical forms that the notes are largely irrelevant and it is just about getting from a to b.
Heh, I actually like and listen to her chamber works more than the other works. I do somewhat agree that there is a problem of her repeating certain gestures in many works in insufficiently interesting ways. (Another modern composer -- who I nonetheless like a lot -- for whom I'd also say this is a problem is James Macmillan.)
Meaningfulness is a really murky concept when applied to pure music. In vocal works at least we can judge whether the music fits with the lyrics or even enhances them in some way. Technically meaning is just a term for something that points to something else that points to something else that points to something else .... If the near pointer terms are important to us then we call it big meaning while if they are not important to us we call it trivial meaning. Of course eventually everything points to everything else. Meaningfulness, if it is not personal, is formed by consensus, not deduction. It is useful to read historical commentary to see the shifts in described meaning.
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