Although not a biography, Give My Regards to Eighth Street is an excellent book

If you read the lectures of Stravinsky he demystifies composing and describes it in very physical terms like the reach of his hands or how long a piece will be before even starting. Feldman here does much the same with practical answers to pretentious questions. Both were against the romantic myths of artistic inspiration and expression. You don't need to agree.

Thanks for the interesting observation. . and for the permission 'not to agree'. . .which I don't, but on several levels rather than just one. As a composer of over 60 years dedicated creative output, and a great student of may if not most of the major and minor composers of the last 4 centuries who, if it can be believed, has gone to the extent of spending hundreds--nay, thousands of hours copying, dissecting and reassembling many masterpieces (& not-so-masterpieces) in order to be skillful in understanding exactly the warp & woof of the respective styles of Ravel, Stravinsky, Barber, Walton, Prokofiev, Respighi - hundreds of indivudals - I know for certain that what a man (or woman) says about their work, their aesthetic, their 'game-plan' has, more often than not, absolutely Nothing to do with the actual essence and origin of what they have created. In other words, even great creators are largely 'out to lunch' about the source and subliminal inspirations of their work. Talentless intellectuals, like Feldman, who was but one of thousands of composer clones in Academia who sacrificed their souls to the reigning Musical Intellectuallism of the first half of the 20th century, first spawned by the Seconde Viennese School and then infecting legions of other artistically bankrupt 'composers,' inspiring them to fill the halls of American learning with the most irrational and chaotic of sounds in the name of profundity. I know, because I was challenged to study and listen and work amidst many of the most prestigious exponents of this Cognitive Nightmare called Dodecaphony or 12-tone music. Rational? Yes. Ordered? Yes. Structured? Yes. Music? No, no and no again. And the more I stuck to my lyrical, tonal guns (which did not mean I used limited means or eschewed dissonances or 'intensities' or 'simultaneities', the more my exalted professors (the dean of 12-tone theory, & a terrible composer, Dr. George Perle and many others) marvelled at the emotional power of my Muses, which never ever came from my cerebrum leading the way. But, like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, everyone was too intimidated to call this madness out for what it was - the attempt of artistically barren wannabees to justify their impoverishment - for to call out even a single colleague on these naughty behaviors would be to call out all of them, as well as their hallowed paragons - such as the mid to late-life Stravinsky. I truly love Stravinsky, both the music and the man, and no matter what his plan and formula (for he was very depressed & quite convinced that his composing days were over before stumbling upon his new jigsaw toy of dodecaphism). Being an obsessively methodical soul, he seized upon it and it provided an exuse, a flimsy one - upon which to craft some new sounds and structures. Good enough - let him have his little cake and eat it - for he more than did his true and eternal creating long before, perhaps culminating most profoundly in his Symphony of Psalms. But, you know, Stravinsky was melodically wheel-chair-bound; the poor man simply could not come up with a truly artful melody. His entire art is pastiche - pasting one element against another, against a third, fourth, etc., even in such works as 'The Rite of Spring' 'The Firebird' or 'Petrouchka' - each of which still has enough kinetic energy and orchestral brilliance to qualify as mountain peaks in the repertoire. But no real melody. In fact, a friend deeply researched Igor and his methods, and discovered from a multi-volume biography of the man that, throughout his life, he kept a personal 'diary' of traditional Russian folk melodies, from which he would repeatedly draw any themes that he did finally seize upon for his works, which is why, in all of them, if you strip away the brilliant sonics & tectures and orchestrational wizardry, you can hear 'tunes' or 'motifs which any Russian peasant of the 19th century would sound natural singing. This holds true even in the most granular 12-tone pieces he wrote. . .IT's impossible to hear them, good bad or indifferent without knowing we're hearing Stravinsky. . .and for that reason they have more integrity than your run-of-the-mill Academic composer's 12 tone mimicry, or even Schoenberg's for that matter, for as Ravel rightly said after hearing SChoenberg's attempt at music, 'That's not music, that was born in a Laboratory!' Look - or rather listen - again, my friend, that rascal Emperor really doesn't have any clothes on! .@@henrybrant-z4l

@@josephmarcello7481 the Rite is far from pastiche, it has no precedent. His most accurate description of it was 'architectonic', the orchestra as raw sound material and the writing as raw building blocks. Melody is everywhere in Stravinsky, he just throws them away as soon as they are born. Same with harmony which he reduces to structural material. Plenty of modern composers like Schwantner, Barber, Ginastera are more traditionally melodic so what's the problem. As Milhaud said 'we write music about the music we love'. Much of your complaint is most valid against the 12 tone school and the generations of composers who chained themselves to that failed experiment. I've met Perle, being from NYC, argh.

Thanks for this insightful information!

Thanks for this insightful information!

Correction: ... it's only going to have ...

A glib mindless statement.

It's good enough to write down in words at least in part. I've found that approach useful for fuller interiorisation of very full and rich texts, which I think this is.

the transcript is here www.cnvill.net/mfshere.pdf

that’s because he was

Interesting...