Aspects of Performance Practice in Morton Feldman's Last Pieces
Robert Archie Morris2020, MusMat: Brazilian Journal of Music and Mathematics
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Abstract
Morton Feldman’s Last Pieces for piano solo of 1959 poses an interesting interpretive problem for the performer. As in many Feldman compositions of the 1950s and 60s, the first movement of the work is notated as a series of "sound events" to be played by the performer choosing the durations for each event. The only tempo indications are "Slow. Soft. Durations are free." This situation is complicated by Feldman’s remark about a similar work from 1960, "[I chose] intervals that seemed to erase or cancel out each sound as soon as we hear the next." I interpret this intension to keep the piece fresh and appealing from sound to sound. So, how the pianist supposed to play Last Pieces in order to supplement the composers desire for a sound to "cancel out" preceding sounds? To answer this question, I propose a way of assessing the salience of each sound event in the first movement of Last Pieces, using various means of associating each of its 43 sound...
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Performance practice denotes the study of information relevant to the performance and perception of music in various historical contexts. Such information may be found in manuscript and printed scores, mechanical or electrical recording devices, music and dance treatises, books and letters, media accounts and visual documentation of concert settings, instrument designs and TEMPERAMENTS, and so on. A temporal art, live music can only manifest itself in ever-varied performances, yet it “remains unchanged behind this relativity” (Rosen). The relationship between the absolute and the relative aspects of music constitutes the basic concern of performance practice. Depending on the resolution of this relationship, two orientations have evolved. The first asserts the inherent value of the past, seen as a repository of the composer’s intentions, and hence the source of presumably immutable truths about proper musical performance. By contrast, the second orientation affirms the all-important contribution of the present, seen not necessarily as a corrupting factor but rather as a re-creative one without whose impulse music would ossify into a lifeless repetition of the past. The three major topics of performance practice—notation, perception, and instruments—will be treated from the often conflicting perspectives of the two orientations, and exemplified by findings of contemporary research.
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