Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.
Morton FeldmanAt one point [Cardew] taught himself to play guitar simply in order to take part in the performance in a composition by Boulez, which is a little like saying he learned Danish to read Kiekegaard.
Morton FeldmanBoulez, who is everything I don't want art to be... Boulez, who once said in an essay that he is not interested in how a piece sounds, only how it is made.
Morton FeldmanI have a very dear friend, a great painter, called me up very upset, the work wasnโt going wellโฆ He asked me to come to his studio -- which I did -- I looked around at the work, dozens of sketches, drawings, large pictures, and I was very close to his work, intensely involved with his work, and he asked me, โWhatโs wrong?โ And I said, โSimple โ itโs a loss of nerve.
Morton FeldmanTo me, I took a militant attitude towards sounds. I wanted sounds to be a metaphor, that they could be as free as a human being might be free. That was my idea about sound. It still is, that they should breathe ... not to be used for the vested interest of an idea. I feel that music should have no vested interests, that you shouldn't know how it's made, that you shouldn't know if there's a system, that you shouldn't know anything about it ... except that it's some kind of life force that to some degree really changes your life ... if you're into it.
Morton Feldman