Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings

by Morton Feldman, B.H. Friedman (Editor), Frank O'Hara (Afterword)

Morton Feldman wrote as he composed music, carefully placing one element after another, producing some of the avant-garde's most lucid considerations of what it means to make music Morton Feldman (1926–87) is among the most influential American composers of the 20th century, a man whose music is known for its extreme quiet and delicate beauty (while Feldman himself was famously large and loud). Karlheinz Stockhausen once asked the composer what his "secret" "I don't push the sounds around," Feldman replied. His writings resemble his music in their quiet steadiness, their oscillations between assertion and doubt. They are also funny and illuminating, not only about his own music but about the entire New York School of painters, poets and composers that coalesced in the 1950s, including Feldman's friends Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank O'Hara and John Cage. Give My Regards to Eighth Street is an authoritative collection of Feldman's writings, culled from published articles, program notes, LP liners, lectures, interviews and unpublished writings. It is one of those rare books from which anyone can draw inspiration, no matter what the vocation or discipline.

Genres: Music, Art, Essays, Nonfiction, Collections, Classical Music, The United States Of America

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't come across many (any? I must've come across some!) "classical" musicians who write about their art with such accessible universality while remaining focussed on the elusive nature of personal creativity. His writings on music can be applied to life itself or whichever art one happens to be practicing. There is the sense while reading these pieces, some little more than liner notes others fully fleshed essays, of a man intentionally limiting himself to the personal, HIS personal, and from that small space expanding to fill all space. Which is like his music come to think of it. There is an almost saintly/religious approach to music, imagination, and creativity in these writings, but they always keep their footing in the practical and personal and even pragmatic; yet at the same time Feldman comes across as a Romantic Idealist, at least in the realms of Art, quite possibly the last refuge for personal realization these days.

By Romantic Idealism I mean what is exemplified in this passage:

"I was once told about a woman living in Paris - a descendent of Scriabin - who spent her entire life writing music not meant to be heard. What it is, and how she does it, is not very clear; but I have always envied this woman. I envy her insanity, her impracticality."

It's not often one hears someone talking about pure art in this way - egoless (and thus careerless), intent solely on a personal dream (who cares if it's only a dream?!) and unconcerned with the "lust for result". This is inspiring.

In this collection can also be found sentence after sentence intended to undermine the academic approach to art - the obsession with systems and analysis of HOW things were (emphasis on past tense) technically accomplished, and of course the institutionalized smugness and lifelessness masquerading as thorough understanding.

Here's Feldman on academic musicians/composers:

"What it all boils down to is this. If a man teaches composition in a university, how can he not be a composer? He has worked hard, learned his craft. Ergo, he is a composer. A professional. Like a doctor. But there is a doctor who opens you up, does exactly the right thing, closes you up - and you die. He failed to take the chance that might have saved you. Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art."

See what I mean about the universality of these writings? He is not just talking about "classical" music. This can be applied to life itself.

And here's Feldman on how understanding relates to art (from the back cover):

"What was great about the fifties is that for one brief moment - maybe, say, six weeks - nobody understood art. That's why it all happened."

Hyperbole? of course, but the point is obvious - Art is not about building edifices based solely upon knowledge and understanding, but about going out into the unknown and producing things that even the artist doesn't understand. Only by passing through (even staying in) ignorance can we grow.

Which reminds me of something Sun Ra said regarding ignorance - "Ignorance is far more important than knowledge. There's so much more that you don't know than what you do know." Or something like that... I'll try to find the exact quote.

Long live intelligent ignorance!

[Onsetsu Evan Cordes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morton Feldman's initials are MF and that's no coincidence.

You definitely get a taste of Feldman as a person from this book. I'm excited to read the book of interviews with him to hear him speak hopefully a bit more colloquially. Not that he's too theoretical here, but I feel like there's another layer to him that I've yet to see (in words).

This book gives great insight to his work and style.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

One sentence for me, stands as an epigram for this fascinating, provocative, enlightening collection of essays, reminiscences, and riffs:

"What was great about the fifties is that for one brief moment — maybe say, six weeks — nobody understood art. That's why it all happened. Because for a short while these people were left alone. Six weeks is all it takes to get started."

I'm not fond of the star-ratingsystem here, but ... five stars!

[Francisco Fileccia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guston. Pollock. Hating Boulez. Hanging with Cage. Mondrian. Zen! Compositional problems. Webern. German words. Monet. Vermeer. Rothko. New York. Anxiety in Kunst. Judaism. Hating Boulez. Varese. Orchestration. Frank O’hara. Friendship.

[Kevin Parks · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best books about music

[Maryna Ponomaryova]

«Щоб ресторан успішно працював, кухня має бути такого ж розміру, що і зал для відвідувачів. За цією логікою, щоб пояснити мою композицію, мені знадобиться чотири години»

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

End-to-end essential. Feldman thinks very deeply about music, sound, painting, and the life of the artist. He, nearly as much as Cage, really did move the dialogue forward very forcefully in the '50s and onward about music's changing role in our inner lives. Feldman's conversational tone at times drifts toward parables or riddles, but is very clear and concise. You will acquire a new respect not only for his music (and the music of Cage, Wolff, Brown, etc.) but also for the Abstract Expressionists in New York. Almost certainly one of a handful of books I will come back to again and again.

[dimwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

there are only a couple major pieces here, in all honesty, but there are lots of major thoughts... i took more quotes from this book than i have from anything else i've read recently.

"the artist is fighting a heavy sea in a rowboat, while alongside him a pleasure liner takes all these people [students, critics] to the same place."

“in music, when you do something new, something original, you’re an amateur. Your imitators - these are the professionals.”

"what was great about the fifties is that for one brief moment—maybe, say, six weeks—nobody understood art."

"craft is something you do in the light, skill is something you do in the dark."

+ all the halcyon evocations of 50s nyc art community are fun

+ it strikes me that all the lovely & strident thoughts on art here—the thoughts on "surface", literary vestiges in music, indeterminacy, the way in which scale seems to erase form, the obsession with sound as such, orchestration....—all that would be considered conservative by today's standards, when art as such is never discussed at all, only culture, and mostly pop culture, and almost only in terms of representation, genre, not aesthetics.............. etc

good book

[Evan Pincus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morty strikes me as a blowhard who I doubt I'd get along with, but cranky self-righteous assholes can be fun as hell to read! I Hope They Serve Beer at the Concert Hall, perhaps? Sure, he repeats himself a lot - did you know he hung out with Cage and Guston in the 50's? Wow! - but there's lots of delightful shit-talking ("Stockhausen believes in Hegel, I believe in God"), and scattered throughout are essential pearls of wisdom that serve to remind you that this windbag hung up on his own legacy and superiority to other composers was, in fact, an utterly brilliant artist who wrote music few others could ever conceive of.

[Michael Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Need a book to distract you from life? Don’t read this book.
Need a book to make you come up with different questions, challenge your perceptions, and draw from centuries of philosophy, painting, aesthetics, and music?
Then THiS is the book you need to read.
I don’t agree with everything in it, nor should we be expected to. But, it’s a thrill reading the personal accounts of friendships with Jackson Pollack, de Kooning, Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Phillip Guston - among many others.
Feldman discusses topics and observations dominating not just the 20th century, but art and humanity long before himself, and our own lives.

[Jack Bateson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feldman writes very clearly and wears his heart on his sleeve. Without having researched his life much beyond this book I do feel I know him much better now. I appreciate his strong opinions, as modern composers were wont to have, though I do feel he never gets deep enough into his issue with his more systematic contemporaries and forebears; he does not reckon with the possibility that his work is a reaction against theirs, or the extent to which experimental and indeterminate techniques really are an outgrowth of serialism. At worst his polemic writing can come across as shallow, jealous dismissal.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I give this book more than 5 stars? Morton Feldman is my spirit animal. I felt endlessly drawn in by the composer's words. I love his wit, sense of humor, and frankness, and page after page he reveals philosophical insights about music and art in the 20th century that resonate strongly with me. I rarely dog-ear pages when I read, but looking at my just-finished copy, every other page is turned down at the corner for some sentence or passage I didn't want to forget. I would recommend this to any composer to read, perhaps alongside Cage's Silence.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feldman's writings on music and art from 1958-1986. At his best (and least polemic) when speaking about visual arts rather than music, though often the two subjects blend together beautifully in his analysis. Tends to get stuck on a repetition of his experiences in the 1950s. Many of the short, one or two paragraph pieces which were taken from liner notes seem a bit out of place and don't work without reproduced scores or recordings of the music.

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morton Feldman seemed to know every composer, painter, and poet in New York for several decades, beginning with the 1950s. This makes for some fascinating reading. I can't claim to follow all of Feldman's ideas about art, but the gist seems to be the primacy of inspiration over process; he dismisses Boulez and Babbitt as imitators of Schoenberg and Webern.

That's a simplification, of course. In any case, this book, alternately gossipy, snarky, and serious, is well worth reading.

[Marcell Magyari · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can get an amazing view of the 1950's New York art life by reading this book.

[Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stimulating read, makes me want to create a time like theirs anew... "Yes, remember my definition of skill is to do exactly what you want"

[Fran Barajas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillantísimo, agudo, lúcido y muy revelador. Imprescindible para cualquiera que se interese por la música y el arte contemporáneo.

[Max Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Cage's 'Silence' one would think that 'Give My Regards to Eight Street' would be just as good, as Morton Feldman was under the guidance of Cage. Sadly this is not the case; Eighth Street is a very dreary set of writings, based more around Feldman's life. Then later in the book it gets to Feldman's music; which takes chance procedure to the next level from Cage; this is not music that everyone would like; and it would take along time to like his music. Cage on the other hand grows on you.

There are many people that I know that love Morton Feldman, so it's really a matter of taste. An OK book for an OK composer.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morton Feldman was a most charming curmudgeon (if I can call him that) and his thoughts on composing delicate music are boldly pronounced in this book - a collection of lectures and essays. It's informal and skips between personal anecdotes, experience in composing, and general thoughts on music and painting.

Really enjoyable and it helps if you (obviously) have an affinity for the New York School of abstract artists and musicmakers. Regardless, Feldman has some great things to say about the creative process that should appeal to folks interested in creativity and such.

[Blueberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

here's one quote: "and those moments when one loses control, and sound like crystals forms its own planes, and with a thrust there is no sound, no tone, no sentiment, nothing left but the significance of our first breath--"

when i read this book i kept pausing every page to write down a thing i loved. i love reading about the relationship between him and john cage. feldman says, "quite frankly, i sometimes wonder how my music would have turned out if john had not given me those early permissions to have confidence in my instincts."

[snobbess sphaeritalius]

A collection of essays on Feldman's philosophies on composition, music and creativity in general. I picked it up because of his interest in the intersections between the visual and aural, and also because I love the use of space and feeling of intimacy in his brand of minimalism, and was curious about how he came to make that type of work. I've been skipping around in it on and off for a few months now, but "The Anxiety of Art" I felt was particularly resonant for me, anyhow.

[Josh Eustis · Rating 4 out of 5]

You gotta love a fantastic composer like Morton Feldman writing about the Good Old Days of Manhattan and the artistic advancements made then. Name-dropping abounds; it's fantastic to hear about how everyone knew one another and how such a tight-knit community of composers, artists, poets, etc. intermingled. I may not always agree with Feldman's musical opinions but his life opinions are truly enlightening.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morton Feldman was one of the composers involved in the New York School and this is a collection of writings from the man. His compositions are brilliant and his writings provide a great companion to these works. Being involved with painters and artisans of the NY School he often had the chance to meditate on visual as well as audial arts. He was especially close to Guston, thus giving great insight to a man stricken, like most artists, by loneliness.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably essential if you like Feldman's music and/or are interested in the "New York School", possibly bewildering otherwise. Feldman was an excellent writer and clever aphorist, and very insightful about painting (the "N Y S" was very close to the NYC Abstract Expressionist painters of the '50s). Far from a comprehensive collection of Feldman's writing, and I'm not sure about the editing (e.g. on p.210 there are two consecutive paragraphs with a direct repetition), so only four stars.

[Keith Kenniff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of essays by Morton Feldman. Great insight into (arguably) one of the most important voices to come out of the 50's experimental New York music scene. Most interesting is seeing how Feldman's extroverted personality seems in many ways to contradict his musical voice (i.e. soft, delicate, dark, subtle).

[tl · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think there may be no better book to understanding the zeitgeist that was 1950’s in nyc’s greenwich village than “give my regards to eighth street.” morton feldman is one of my favorite contemporary composers but still it amazes me that he could write so clearly about his surroundings, motivations and influences

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great memoir/essay collection by one of the great creative innovators in postmodern classical music. He was closely associated with abstract expressionist painters and the New York poetry scene of the sixties, and the sense of a shared period aesthetic that includes these and the great modernist composers (as well as his friend John Cage) is richly woven into this book.

[Djll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morton Feldman was a professional curmudgeon, at least in his writings. He loves to stick an elbow in the ribs of dogma and pretension. Trouble is, his schtick gets a little pretentious itself after awhile.

There's lots of food for thought in this tome, but really I'd rather listen to his late works.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to Feldman's music (as long as you have some of his compositions handy, so you can listen to them while reading). Also a great introduction to mid 20th cent. American painting. Provides insight into how Feldman saw art generally, and might help interested readers and listeners find their way through 20th and 21st century music like Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Wolff, and so on.

[Phil Overeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised how readable this was, though not being an artist or composer, I was at times lost in the ether. But Feldman, aside from his thought-provoking arguments for intuition and against systems, for sound and (kinda) against music, is one funny and aphoristic writer. In his audacity and provocation and mischief, he reminds me of Wilde.