Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

So far I’ve had a difficult time deciding whether or not I’m a fan of Morton Feldman. When we listened to “Piano Four Hands” a few classes ago, I was extremely moved. I thought, and still think, that it is an extremely beautiful, emotionally rich piece. I had then jumped to the conclusion that I really liked Feldman’s work. This may have been a little early for such a decision. After a few listens through “Why Patterns,” I’m not sure if I can maintain the same opinion about him. Luckily, we have nearly twenty hours of his music on our iPods. At first I figured that the length of “Why Patterns” was what turned me off a little bit. Since, I’ve listened to more of the CD that includes “Piano Four Hands.” Some of the pieces (”Piano,” and “Piano Three Hands”) are much longer than the short work that I enjoyed. Even still, I manage a listening experience with these longer works more similar to my listening experience with “Piano Four Hands” than with “Why Patterns.” What have been my absolute favorite Feldman works that I’ve heard so far are some of the String Quartets. I haven’t had a chance to listen to many of them all of the way through, but all of the ones I have heard so far, whether in full or just excerpts, have been thrilling. For the most part, I have thoroughly enjoyed his work. I guess that I just listened to “Why Patterns” with the mentality that it was the be-all-end-all representation of Feldman’s work since it was the piece that professor Alegant selected for us to listen to. In many ways the piece is a good representation of Feldman’s compositional style. For some reason that I cannot seem to articulate, I am just not a huge fan of “Why Patterns.” It seems that it is my duty now to abandon the idea that my lack of interest in that one composition should cast a shadow on the rest of his works. I guess I’ve learned a lesson about the dangers of latching on to first impressions.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 10:01 am and is filed under david, feldman, why patterns?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.