An Interview with Earle Brown

Abstract

The following is an edited transcription of a telephone interview the author conducted with Earle Brown on 23 June 1997 (she was at her home in Ann Arbor, Michigan; he was at his home in Rye, New York). Questions have been removed to allow more fluid reading. The stories he tells here largely reflect the nature of the interview questions, which focused primarily on Brown's (and Morton Feldman's) professional activities and reception in West Germany. This particular interview with Earle Brown was the very first of several dozen interviews the author has conducted with composers and musicians in Europe and the United States, interviews that form the foundation of all of her historical research. She has always felt lucky that her first attempt was welcomed so graciously by such a generous, patient and light-hearted subject.

Keywords:

• Pierre Boulez
• Earle Brown
• DAAD
• Darmstadt
• Morton Feldman
• Ferienkurse
• Graphic notation
• Bruno Maderna
• Karlheinz Stockhausen
• David Tudor

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Rebecca Stuhlbarg for helping prepare this transcription.

Notes

[1] Boulez's Aléa was delivered by Heinz-Klaus Metzger at the 1957 Darmstadt courses and was then published in the Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik 1 (Mainz: Schott Verlag, 1958).

[2] During our conversation Brown did not recall the specific chronology of Tudor's first performances in Germany. I have provided the correct dates here.

[3] Brown's importance as a sound engineer and music producer (of 18 records between 1960 and 1973, including works by 49 different composers from over a dozen different countries) for Time-Mainstream Records' Contemporary Sound Series should not be underestimated.

[4] Brown's Music for Cello and Piano was premiered in Darmstadt by Werner Taube (cello) and Aloys Kontarsky (piano) on 27 July 1957.

[5] Brown is referring to his Darmstadt lectures ‘Notation and Performance of New Music' (1964) and ‘Form in New Music' (1965), published respectively (in translation) as ‘Notation und Ausführung neuer Musik', Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuer Musik 9 (1965), 64 – 86; and ‘Form in der Neuen Musik', Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik 10 (1966), 57 – 69.

[6] From the 1960s on, Brown enjoyed composer-residencies at a variety of educational institutions, including the California Institute of the Arts, UC Berkeley, Peabody Conservatory, Rotterdam Kunststichting, the Basel Conservatory of Music, Yale University, Indiana University, the American Academy in Rome, Aspen, and Tanglewood.

[7] The work was commissioned by John and Dominique de Menil in memory of painter (and Feldman's close friend) Mark Rothko, who committed suicide in 1970 shortly before the completion of the chapel he designed for the Menil Foundation. Feldman completed his piece in 1971 and it was premiered in the Rothko Chapel in Houston.

[8] ‘New Simplicity' (‘Neue Einfachheit') was a term used to describe a WDR Musik der Zeit concert series in early 1977 for which Wolfgang Becker commissioned a new work (Elemental Procedures) from Feldman.