As I started working on Morton Feldman's For Christian Wolff, I aimed to learn the notated rhythms accurately. The published score is a reproduction of Feldman's handwriting. Some things puzzled me. There are a few measures that don't add up to the expected number of beats (mistakes?). (The top staff is the flute part. The lower staff is the keyboard part: notes with stems up, played by the keyboardist's right hand on the piano, notes with … [Read more...]
Police witness
In U.S. criminal trials, juries are instructed that testimony given by police officers is no more or less reliable than testimony given by other witnesses. It has to be scrutinized. After Foucault, it seems absurd that in classical music we might still be so obsessed with "what the Composer wanted." Idris Khan: every ... stave of Frederick Chopin's Nocturnes for the piano We have texts. Texts that can be read variously, can be entered … [Read more...]