Morton Feldman Quotes

• We do not hear what we hear..., only what we remember.

  Morton Feldman

  Remember

  15 Copy quote

• Any professional knows that the flute and the piano is a boring combination. All you've got to arrive at is a kind of typical gestural crap, right? You might agree, though you wouldn't call it gestural crap

  Morton Feldman

  Piano, Typical, Might

  46 Copy quote

• The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection.

  Morton Feldman

  Perfection, Tragedy, Music Is

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  16 Copy quote

• The composer makes plans, music laughs.

  Morton Feldman

  Laughing, Composer, Plans

  Morton Feldman (2000). “Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman”

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• To me, I took a militant attitude towards sounds. I wanted sounds to be a metaphor, that they could be as free as a human being might be free. That was my idea about sound. It still is, that they should breathe ... not to be used for the vested interest of an idea. I feel that music should have no vested interests, that you shouldn't know how it's made, that you shouldn't know if there's a system, that you shouldn't know anything about it ... except that it's some kind of life force that to some degree really changes your life ... if you're into it.

  Morton Feldman

  Attitude, Should Have, Ideas

  20 Copy quote

• Music can imply the infinite if enough things depart from the norm far enough. Strange "abnormal" events can lead to the feeling that anything can happen, and you have a music with no boundaries.

  Morton Feldman

  Feelings, Events, Abnormal

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  17 Copy quote

• For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.

  Morton Feldman

  Years, Rivals, Chairs

  Morton Feldman (2000). “Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman”

  9 Copy quote

• Art in relation to life is nothing more than a glove turned inside out. It seems to have the same shapes and contours, but it can never be used for the same purpose. Art teaches nothing about life, just as life teaches us nothing about art.

  Morton Feldman

  Art, Purpose, Gloves

  Morton Feldman (2000). “Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman”

  18 Copy quote

• Music is essentially built upon primitive memory structures.

  Morton Feldman

  Memories, Structure, Music Is

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  11 Copy quote

• The most interesting aspect for me, composing exclusively with patterns, is that there is not one organizational procedure more advantageous than another, perhaps because no one pattern ever takes precedence over the others

  Morton Feldman

  Interesting, Patterns, Procedures

  Morton Feldman (1985). “Essays”

  16 Copy quote

• I never understood what rules I was supposed to learn, and what rules I was supposed to break

  Morton Feldman

  Break, Understood

  10 Copy quote

• What was great about the 50s is that for one brief moment - maybe, say, six weeks - nobody understood art.

  Morton Feldman

  Art, Six, Moments

  Morton Feldman (1985). “Essays”

  7 Copy quote

• It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don't happen. They must be constructed....To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the composition...Only by 'unfixing' the elements traditionally used to construct a piece of music could the sounds exist in themselves--not as symbols, or memories which were memories of other music to begin with.

  Morton Feldman

  Music, Memories, Ideas

  "Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music" by Richard Kostelanetz, Joseph Darby, 1996.

  9 Copy quote

• To understand what music has to be, you have to live for music. Who's ready to do that?

  Morton Feldman

  Ready, Be You

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  9 Copy quote

• I have a very dear friend, a great painter, called me up very upset, the work wasn’t going well… He asked me to come to his studio -- which I did -- I looked around at the work, dozens of sketches, drawings, large pictures, and I was very close to his work, intensely involved with his work, and he asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘Simple – it’s a loss of nerve.

  Morton Feldman

  Loss, Simple, Drawing

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  16 Copy quote

• Boulez, who is everything I don't want art to be... Boulez, who once said in an essay that he is not interested in how a piece sounds, only how it is made.

  Morton Feldman

  Art, Sound, Pieces

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  5 Copy quote

• If you think you might have secret information listening to me, you're lost.

  Morton Feldman

  Thinking, Secret, Listening

  10 Copy quote

• Do we have anything in music that really wipes everything out? That just cleans everything away?

  Morton Feldman

  Wipe

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  13 Copy quote

• After all, Jews invented psychiatry to help other Jews become Gentiles.

  Morton Feldman

  Helping Others, Jew, Psychiatry

  Morton Feldman (2000). “Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman”

  7 Copy quote

• Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.

  Morton Feldman

  Cages, Metaphor, Parables

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

  11 Copy quote

• Compositionally I always wanted to be like Fred Astaire.

  Morton Feldman

  Wanted

  10 Copy quote

• I never feel that my music is sparse or minimalist; the way fat people never really think they're fat. I certainly don't consider myself minimalist at all

  Morton Feldman

  Thinking, People, Way

  7 Copy quote

• Since music has never had a Rembrandt, we have remained nothing more than musicians.

  Morton Feldman

  Musician

  Morton Feldman (2000). “Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman”

  6 Copy quote

• At one point [Cardew] taught himself to play guitar simply in order to take part in the performance in a composition by Boulez, which is a little like saying he learned Danish to read Kiekegaard.

  Morton Feldman

  Guitar, Order, Play

  8 Copy quote

• For me it's the instrument. If I want to think of a flute and the state of the arts I hear a vibrato; I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me

  Morton Feldman

  Art, Thinking, Play

  7 Copy quote

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