Mutually speaking

Musical Times, Autumn 2001 by Smith, Nicola Walker

NICOLA WALKER SMITH introduces a brief talk by, and talks to Christian Wolff about, Morton Feldman

IN 1973, Morton Feldman invited Christian Wolff to SUNY, Buffalo, where Feldman had recently been appointed the Varese Professor of Music. In this brief introductory talk, given before a performance of Wolff's music, Feldman gives a rare insight into the powerful impact that Christian Wolff had on the members of the so-called `New York School' of composers in the 1950s.

About Christian Wolff: a talk by Morton Feldman

Kierkegaard tells the story about a man who notices a large printed sign in a storefront window. On the sign is written, `We press clothes'. So he goes back to his room, gathers up some suits and brings them to the store. `You've made a mistake,' they said, `we don't press clothes here. We just print the sign in the window.' Most likely, Kierkegaard was attacking Hegel for just giving us the sign and not the real thing. Now, the real thing in today's music, especially in today's music, is up for grabs. But I do know that our notion about what it could be or should be is probably just the sign in someone else's window.

When I first met John Cage in 1950, not long after, Christian Wolff appeared on the scene. He was sixteen years old. Christian Wolff was studying with Grete Sultan. She was a friend of John Cage's and, being that Christian was composing, probably thought that it would be a good idea for them both to meet each other. John Cage and myself were living in the same building at that time and so I got to hear the news as soon as it happened. In fact, I had lunch with Cage the very afternoon that Christian Wolff was expected. Later on in the afternoon, John came downstairs and tumbled into my apartment, shaking with excitement. He just couldn't get over the music that he'd brought, especially from someone so young. We must be reminded that, in early 1950, in New York City, there was very little, practically no, experimental music being done. Boulez was on his way, but his music wasn't known here at all until about a year later. Stockhausen was in Paris studying with Messiaen. There was really no avant-garde in either America or Europe of an experimental nature.

Some years after this meeting with Cage and Christian, Cage went on to say that he felt that Christian Wolff's importance at this time is equal to Webern's. I agree with that precisely. Though Christian Wolff is still an extremely young man, he has been a tremendous influence on two generations of composers. One of the most notable of these composers he has influenced is John Cage. I am sure that if John Cage didn't have Christian's music with him all these years as his North Star, his trip would have been quite different. I too am profoundly indebted to Christian Wolff. I think of him as my artistic conscience. I'm a composer who desperately needs an artistic conscience. For as long as I remember, I've dangled between the real thing and the sign in the window. Or, more precisely, that mammoth sign in that mammoth window with the legend written, `The Big Time'. In a sense, Christian Wolff has ruined my life, but he has saved my art!

This talk was given as part of the Slee Lecture Series at SUNY Buffalo, on 15 April 1973. It was transcribed from tape (on file in the Feldman Archive at Buffalo) by Nicola Walker Smith.

IN AN INTERVIEW conducted in 1999, on one of his rare visits to England, Christian Wolff returns the favour by giving a glimpse of his own personal insights into the music of Morton Feldman.

About Feldman: an interview with Christian Wolff

Nicola Walker Smith

When Feldman died you wrote a short paragraph for a special edition of MusikTexte in which you talk of the mystery of his music, the way in which Feldman appears to leave no trace of how he's put it together. You say, `He is the only composer I know whose work appears to be put together in such a way that it can only be explained through the impossibility of becoming the composer ourselves.' This puts me directly in mind of Rothko: we see no brush strokes, no means of creation.1

It's almost as if the paintings have just 'materialised' or come into being of their own accord...

Christian Wolff

Yes, but, the paradoc is that only Rothko could have made them. And only Feldman could have made the music.

NWS

Both artist's work is devoid of any visible or traceable means of construction yet, as you say, both are very much 'in' the work. It reminds me of the story Feldman tells about Mondrian who once tried spray painting his areas of a single flat colour. He said, `Not only did the picture not have the feel of a Mondrian, it didn't even have the look of a Mondrian!'.2 How can we explain that mystery?

CW

Well, mystery is mystery and all you can do is kind of circle around it! I was once asked to contribute something to a collection of essays and analyses of Feldman by Tom DeLio.3 I spent a long time looking at Piano piece (1952) - the one that consists entirely of dotted quarter notes and, whilst there were all kinds of tantalising suggestions, it soon became clear that there was no ,system'. So I found myself just describing it. He had done it entirely by ear - there was no other way to see it. In the essay I suggested that Feldman's music was unanalysable and, as a result, DeLio refused to print it. I seemed to be undermining the whole project!