How to make a difference

Abstract

An initial juxtaposition between some of the sounds in Feldman's Durations 2 draws our attention to particular features by which we can differentiate or categorize these sounds. Subsequent sounds do not reinforce these categories, rather confound or disengage from them. This technique allows Feldman to achieve his goal of making one sound seem very different from the next. Sounds are differentiated both sonically and with respect to their relations among one another. The extent to which one sound is differentiated from another may itself be a distinguishing feature. Given three sounds, the third may seem more, less, or as different from the second, as the second was different from the first. Lesser differences enable Feldman to soften the discontinuities among successive sounds, thereby bringing those discontinuities in line with the music's subdued sonic qualities.

Keywords:

• Feldman
• Musical Analysis
• Durations
• Differences

Notes

[1] This article develops material from one of the chapters of my dissertation. I am grateful to Joseph Dubiel, as well as the other members of my dissertation committee, for their comments on that chapter. I am also grateful to Emily Snyder Laugesen for her comments on a draft of a portion of this article.

[2] Obviously one could differentiate these books in other ways. For my purposes what is important is not identifying the most striking or important differences, but rather considering how any differences to which our attention is initially drawn impact what we see in subsequent books.

[3] Durations 2 (1960) is actually the first of the set of five Durations that Feldman composed. The performance directions are as follows: ‘The first sound with both instruments simultaneously. The duration of each sound is chosen by the performer. All beats are slow. Sounds should be played with a minimum of attack. Dynamics are very low.’ Example 1 does not show the score, but rather represents a particular performance—namely, that of Frances-Marie Uitti and Nils Vigeland—by showing the order in which the notes are played. The New York School, Hat Art CD 6101.

[4] Later in this article I offer a more detailed description of what we might hear in the piano's first four sounds. The sense of their variously harmonizing the cello's first sounds derives in part from the way that, in this particular performance, the sounds of the two instruments initially follow one another in regular alternation.

[5] Joseph Dubiel discusses a similar kind of undermining of a high-low distinction in the sixth of Schoenberg's Six Little Pieces, Op. 19 (Dubiel, 2004, pp. 191 – 192).

[6] The move from the image of a sound comprised of two ‘new’ pitches and one ‘old’ pitch to an image of a sound that is attached to its immediately preceding sound entails a subtle shift of perspective. In the first image the focus is more exclusively on the G#2-B3-A5, and its relationship with the D2-A5 is interpreted as lending it an almost three-dimensional quality. In the second image the focus spreads across the G#2-B3-A5 and the preceding D2-A5, and their relationship is interpreted as creating an effect of connectedness between them. For more on how Feldman's music sensitizes us to such subtle shifts of perspective, see Hirata (1996).

[7] In fact, one day when I was in a state of confusion over what was going on in Durations 2, I actually found myself reaching for a couple of books—and then, after considering these, reaching for a third book, and so on. As it happened, I had a rather motley collection of books sitting around at the time, so I was finding that the experience of picking up the next book often had much in common with the experience of hearing the next sound in Durations 2. Soon I was beginning to learn from it. Though originating in this real experience, I've somewhat fictionalized the story of the books presented in this article to bring it into close alignment with the story of the sounds.

[8] To speak of hearing a succession of moves in the same direction may be something of a simplification, since one of the striking aspects of the cello's slow, meandering succession, generally, is that pairs of contiguous sounds resist being perceived as having completely collapsed into single moves. In a passage such as the one under discussion, it may be that the more ‘moves’ we hear in the same direction, the more they seem like moves. In any case, the sense of extension that I described is certainly not something that we immediately attune to. It is not that we have any sense, when we hear the E2, Eb3 and C4 (27-29), that they are headed towards the G#4 (even if the preceding pizzicatos encourage us to hear the E2 as the beginning of something). It is only at the moment we hear the E4 that we begin to experience that sense of continuation that derives from the cello's no longer changing direction. In the G#4 we might hear not only a further, but also a more intense, continuation, since here we get not only another upwards move, but also a move—for the first time in the piece—of the exact same size as the previous one (E4 to G#4 being the same size as C4 to E4). And then these four upward moves are balanced with four downward moves. The way in which Feldman's music opens up a range of possibilities between sounds that collapse into moves and sounds that do not is a subject that I explore in Hirata (2005/2006).

[9] Whenever the cello ascends to an Eb4, it is to a harmonic Eb4. The only time it plays an ordinario Eb4 is after the G#4 (31-32).

[10] For more on the way in which relations between sounds might color our perception of individual sounds, see, again, Hirata (1996).

[11] I am indebted to an essay of Joseph Dubiel's for teaching me to question the function of similarities in music, and, more specifically, for its suggestion that similarities between, for example, the first and second themes of a sonata might function primarily to individuate, or create the identity of, those themes (Dubiel 1997).

[12] Other ways in which Feldman tempers the discontinuities in the opening would include his preceding the Db3-C5 with the G#2-B3-A5 so that, as I have already suggested, we might only hear the Db3-C5 as more attached to its preceding C5-Db7 than the G#2-B3-A5 was attached to its preceding D2-A5. We may sometimes also sense an ambiguity as to whether a sound introduces a new category or not. For example, with the cello's succession of D2 and F2 (8-9), I find myself wondering whether it might be playing not just another interval, but the first small interval. What catches my attention, in particular, is the sense that, in combination, these sounds almost completely collapse into a single move. Again, the way in which Feldman's music opens up a range of possibilities between sounds that seem to collapse into moves and sounds that do not is a subject that I explore in Hirata (2005/2006).

[13] Dubiel makes this point actually in the context of focusing more on similarities, rather than differences, between musical events; but he also makes clear that the two are always working in combination. See note 11.