Chapter 10 - In Living Memory: Morton Feldman's Departing Landscapes

Summary

John Cage: What would you say to giving a concert of your work in an architectural situation where something else that was going on was at least partly audible at the same time? Let's imagine that the concert is in a room, and that one door from that room is open; and in the room upon which it opens, radio music is audible. Now, must that door be closed or may it be left open?

Morton Feldman: I would like the door to be left open, but without the radio. You see, I want to leave the door open, but of course …

—John Cage in conversation with Morton Feldman, 1966

If the theaters of my past chapters have ranged from the performative pages of Antonin Artaud's distressed sites of writing (as well the colorful markings of my own), to the art installations of Ann Hamilton and James Turrell, and finally even to John Cage's time within an anechoic chamber, my final chapter will present yet another unconventional space of theater: the concert hall of a Morton Feldman string quartet and piano recital. Feldman figured quite prominently in my previous chapter, as he was spoken of in direct relation to his friend and mentor Cage. Between the two composers, though, important distinctions emerged about their quite different expectations of musical performance, the staging of silence and sound.