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morton feldman

Away from the Big Cities: Morton Feldman interviewed by Jean-Yves Bosseur

Away from the Big Cities: Morton Feldman interviewed by Jean-Yves Bosseur

A feature by Ivan Ilić

I’ve come to the conclusion that the closer you get to big cities, the more you realize that the intelligentsia there is rigid, jaded. Living in Paris or in New York is like having a passport for stupidity. New York is no different than Paris; New York has its own pride. The people are from New York, they are New York, which they would like to believe can’t be bad. I just came from Great Britain, I spent three weeks there. I left from Scotland. Their audiences are informed; they knew my music. Then, I went down, down, closer and closer to London. Cambridge? Stupid! That’s why it’s best to stay away from the big cities; too many things, too many stupid things …

Listening to Morton Feldman's <i>For Bunita Marcus</i>

Listening to Morton Feldman's For Bunita Marcus

A feature by Ivan Ilic

. . . The challenge for inexperienced listeners is that they can be so baffled by what they hear in the first few minutes of a piece by Feldman, that they may give up well before their ears adapt. To make matters worse, many listeners are loath to admit that they don’t “get it,” for fear of revealing a lack of musical expertise. Even though I have listened to many of Feldman’s works multiple times, and I regularly perform his piano music, I still need time to adjust too. I wonder: would it be possible to describe this adjustment, so that listeners know what to expect?...