Comments on: It’s a Short Six Hours

By: Chris Becker

Chris Becker — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:06:06 +0000

Don’t forget “The piece is a lot better than it sounds…”

By: Sparky P.

Sparky P. — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:53:41 +0000

As a side note, it’s kinda interesting that, if in a small circle way, the phrase “It’s a short [six] hours” has landed nicely into the vernacular, in the same way as “This goes to eleven” (from This is Spinal Tap) and “Three people who have never been in my kitchen” (uttered by Cliff in the Jeopardy epidose of “Cheers”).

By: John Kennedy

John Kennedy — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:46:52 +0000

This is from Feldman’s spoken introduction to “For Philip Guston” on 4/21/85:

“As I say, the piece is long. Don’t feel that you’re a captive audience, and don’t be embarrassed if you have to leave. A lot of good friends might have to pick up a daughter from a birthday party. Other friends who are here have to pick up someone from the airport…so it’s perfectly OK.”

By: David Toub

David Toub — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:43:00 +0000

I second the notion that Feldman’s late music was never meant to be Muzak. It calls for active listening. Others have certainly written long works (Einstein, The Well-Tuned Piano, Vingt Regards pour l’enfant Jesus, etc). But none of those involved music that is so quiet, so often delicate and where every nuance is exposed. It’s not a gimmick. FSQ2 cut down would not work. Same with For Philip Guston, For Christian Wolff and everything else Feldman wrote that lasts more than an hour. What’s strange, though, is that FSQ2 has overshadowed the shorter and also great String Quartet #1. BTW, I think that was the piece about which Feldman used the words “It’s a fucking masterpiece,” not FSQ2. This was, I think, because the first quartet was poorly received and somewhat ironically, considered “too long.” In some ways, the fact that Feldman went on to write several much longer works has always struck me as a big “fuck you” to those critics of his first quartet.

By: Chris Becker

Chris Becker — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:09:35 +0000

Thanks everyone. Give My Regards to Eighth Street is a life changing book, so thank you for referring back to it Zeno, Christian and Casey.

By: zeno

zeno — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:12:06 +0000

I recall Phillip Glass not expecting audiences to concentrate uninterruptedly on Einstein on the Beach in 1976. For his part in the project, he expected MET audience members to come and go “at will”, attending to stretches of the work but not necessarily the full work as an integrated whole. He expected attendees would take drink, snack, and toilet breaks at any time desired. I recall attending the later, nine-hour, all-night Peter Brook’s Mahabarata, in Brooklyn, featuring set intermissions and meal breaks — unlike the Einstein.

One of the reasons that I didn’t attend Wagner’s Götterdämmerung the afternoon of June 5th of this year was that the sun was shining briefly between rainy spells, and the performance was in the afternoon starting at 1 PM. I prefer late afternoon or evening start-times for very long works of formalistic performance art. (Hence, it was fine that Anna Halpern’s outdoor’s “Planetary Dance” began last Sunday at 11 AM on Mount Tamalpais.)

Again, I think often of Feldman’s Western (and Judaic) art ambition as expressed in chapters of his ‘Give My Regards to Eighth Street” mentioned above.

By: Casey

Casey — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:09:35 +0000

P.S. I totally know what you mean though Chris, but I think much of what you bring up (open-endedness, ongoing process) is more of a Cageian attitude then Feldman. Even a huge canvas still has borders.

By: Casey

Casey — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:06:19 +0000

Well said^^
I think the answer Chris is yes and no. Feldman knew that the length challenges the typical concert hall experience but that’s only part of the point. I think bits of it can certainly be enjoyed for what they are and Feldman probably wouldn’t mind that, but to feel its full effect the piece really needs to be heard in its entirety. Though people can move around the concert space, he certainly didn’t mean it as ambient music (ie. something to listen to while you do something else). Rather it demands deep attention to work its magic on the listener. Personally, I found it very easy to pay close attention and my mind rarely felt distracted. I yawned far less that I would during a long Mahler or Beethoven piece.

Also, I don’t think the analogy to starring at a Rothko is quite right. Feldman equated length in music to scale in art. So a better analogy is that listening to bits of SQ 2 vs. hearing the whole thing is the difference between seeing a postcard of a Rothko vs. an original huge canvas.

By: Christian Carey

Christian Carey — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:12:30 +0000

Hi Chris.

I tend to think that if Feldman called something a “masterpiece,” which he did when defending the SQ#2, he must in some way be thinking of it as a work with some sort of timeline or trajectory. Perhaps I’m being too literal-minded, but I tend to think that we ought to be able to evaluate a masterpiece as a work in its entirety.

Moreover, his comment about a “short five hours,” which I’ve adapted above to indicate FLUX’s performance timing, seems to indicate that he was aware that he was asking audiences to undergo an endurance test. In a pre-concert lecture reprinted in ‘Give My Regards to Eighth Street,” Feldman jocularly mentions to the audience that, although they are being asked to listen for a long time, they should remember that he has to sit through these long pieces over and over.

Now, anecdotes aside, whether he really expected for SQ #2 to be listened to as a traditional piece of concert hall literature is debatable. After all, lots of performances of his music are in non-traditional venues which do allow for a great deal of coming and going. My sense is that the ideal experience probably involves listening closely, but that Feldman realized that it might not be possible or even desirable for the entire audience to listen to the work in this fashion without pause.

By the way, I have a friend who is a Rothko buffs who does indeed spend hours in front of a single painting.

Best,
C

By: Chris Becker

Chris Becker — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:45:06 +0000

Very interesting comments. To be clear, because Feldman’s works cross over into mediums other than music – most notably painting which is art form he wrote about quite a bit in his lifetime, I just wondered if Feldman was as uninterested in our traditional concert hall ritual as he was with traditional timelines prescribed to compositions (“I’m not a clockmaker…” is something he said more than once). Everyone here could just as easily be describing a night at the opera or a Tangerine Dream/Vangelis double bill.

Did he really expect or even desire people to listen to his music for these great lengths? Did he even think of his later works as having a beginning or and ending?