For Christian Wolff (review)

For Christian Wolff (1986), for flute and piano/celesta, is dedicated to Morton Feldman's friend and fellow composer Christian Wolff. It is one among many "dedication" pieces, dedicated to friends, teachers, writers, painters, and other composers with whom Feldman felt a close affinity throughout his career.

Although Feldman, who died in 1987, became known for the extreme length of his later compositions, his early work consisted primarily of miniatures. Among these is his three-minute vignette Christian Wolff in Cambridge (1963) for a cappella chorus. The title was inspired by two trips, made approximately six years apart, which Feldman made to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to visit Christian Wolff at his Harvard University dormitory room. On both occasions Feldman entered Wolff's room to find him, surrounded by his books and papers, sitting at the same desk. Wolff said, "I think the sense of not changing over long periods of time is what gave him the idea of that title."¹

Indeed, a monolithic sense of "not changing over long periods of time," very much encapsulates the impression one has while listening to Bridge's 2008 three-disc recording of Feldman's three-hour-long composition For Christian Wolff, performed by the California E.A.R. Unit.

Many of Feldman's longer compositions tend to fall into two general categories: those that are approximately seventy-five to ninety minutes long and those that are three to six hours long. Notable compositions in the first category include Triadic Memories (1981) for piano; Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981) for cello and piano; For John Cage (1982) for violin and piano; Crippled Symmetry (1983) for flutes, percussion and piano/celesta; and Piano and String Quartet (1985).

There are three compositions that fall into the three- to six-hour category: String Quartet no. 2 (1983); For Philip Guston (1984) for flute, piano, and percussion; and For Christian Wolff (1986) for flute and piano/celesta.² Both For Philip Guston and For Christian Wolff are among the last "dedication" pieces Feldman composed before his death.³ The similarity in instrumentation (flute, piano and percussion) of a number of Feldman's later compositions was the result of his work at the University of Buffalo with flautist Eberhard Blum, pianist nils vigeland, and percussionist Jan Williams. Blum and vigeland performed the premier of For Christian Wolff and subsequently recorded it on HatHutRecords.⁴

Feldman's relationship with Christian Wolff was less conflicted than that with Philip Guston. Wolff, born in 1934 in France, is both a composer and literary scholar. Coming from a distinguished european literary publishing background, Wolff studied classics and comparative literature at Harvard University. He would eventually teach classics at Harvard and later classics, comparative literature and music at dartmouth college. Unlike Feldman or Guston, he has spent a large part of his career in academia.

In 1950, at the age of sixteen, Wolff began a brief, though highly significant, period of composition and counterpoint studies with John cage. It was at this time that he first came into contact with Feldman and the composer earle Brown, both then in their twenties. These four are now collectively known as the new York School of composers. Wolff is the sole survivor of the group.

Although Feldman's dedication pieces are actually more about the music than the person to whom they are dedicated, an interesting study could still be made of the degree to which these compositions are a reflection of each of the unique individuals to whom they are dedicated. For Christian Wolff is a more austere, abstract, unembellished, and, ultimately, less elegiac composition than For Philip Guston. This is partly due to both the nature of the musical material and the more limited instrumentation. Such factors may have been influenced by the differences between Guston and Wolff's personalities, their relationship to Feldman, or their own personal backgrounds. The austerity of Wolff's own early minimalist compositions may also have had an influence...