Chapter 7

‘Doing it one way and doing it another way’:1 Morton Feldman’s

One of the most interesting and successful attempts to set a Beckett text is Morton Feldman’s one-act opera for a single soprano and or- chestra, Neither. First performed in May 1977 at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, with staging by Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Martha Han- neman in the soprano role, it was composed on a text specifically re- quested for the purpose, which was supplied to Feldman by Beckett in 1976. Feldman rarely chose to work with large orchestra or with words (even when writing for voice).2 Moreover, the idea of him composing an opera is especially surprising, considering his lack of interest in dramatic or narrative forms. He once told Tom Johnson (2006, 36), ‘The reason I don’t like theater pieces is that one usually has to sacrifice some of the musical for the sake of the theatrical’. Nevertheless, according to Sebastian Claren (2000, 15), Feldman ac- cepted a contract with Rome Opera for a stage work to be performed in 1977, later discovering that the opera house’s director was under the misapprehension that he was going to collaborate with Beckett.3

1 Morton Feldman on more than one occasion recalled Jasper Johns using this phrase to describe his approach to patterning and variation in his crosshatch paintings of the 1970s. In ‘Doing It One Way and Doing It Another’, Feldman (2008, 1:450) related his own compositional techniques to this idea, also making a direct link to Beckett. 2 Paul Griffiths (1999) states, ‘Feldman’s absorption with the orchestra was a phe- nomenon of the 1970’s’: there are few pieces for orchestra outside this decade. 3 Sebastian Claren (2000, 15–28) provides the most substantial account of the genesis of the opera and the 1976 meeting between Beckett and Feldman. Unlike most of this book, my analysis of Neither was written some time ago, in the mid 1990s; until now it has remained unpublished in full. In the mean time, Claren published his substan- tial, fascinating study of Feldman’s work (in German), which includes a lengthy anal- ysis of Neither (Claren 2000). Claren’s approach is similar to mine in certain respects, but different in others (particularly with respect to the understanding of Feldman’s presentation of the ‘self’ and ‘unself’, as discussed later in this chapter). Ultimately, the two accounts are complementary, I believe, and for that reason I have not revised 256 Headaches among the Overtones

Certainly, Feldman had expressed a wish to work with Beckett, and had recently used some lines from the script for Beckett’s Film in Elemental Procedures (1976, for soprano, choir, and orchestra). His interest in Beckett’s work was long-standing. In conversation with Stuart Morgan, Feldman commented: ‘Even though he’s twenty years older than me, in New York we felt he was such a contemporary be- cause he was publicized at the same time as we were all growing up. . . . So he was very much part of our life’ (Feldman and Morgan 2006, 83). Later in life, in his lectures and conversations, Feldman made re- peated reference to Beckett’s works from through to the televi- sion plays, though his accounts are full of half-remembered, often in- accurate description.4 Feldman followed up the possibility of a text from Beckett. A mu- tual friend told Beckett of Feldman’s wish to set some of his work to music and Beckett suggested some already existing materials. Feld- man, however, felt that none of these pieces needed music (Skempton 2006, 75). The pair then met in Berlin, where Beckett was working on the production of . If Feldman’s story of his encounter with Beckett at the Schiller Theater is to be believed, it started rather comi- cally, with the extremely short-sighted composer falling off the stage: as he groped his way towards Beckett to shake his hand, Feldman missed and lost his balance.5 At this initially rather awkward meeting, the author embarrassedly explained that he liked neither opera nor his words being set to music, only to find that Feldman was in complete the details of my analysis in relation to his. However, some sections of Claren’s work in this book and his later published article in English (2009, which I helped to edit) contain essential factual information. In particular, since other sources are not always so reliable, I have drawn on Claren’s texts for information on the genesis of the opera and communications between Feldman and Beckett. 4 For example, in the lectures and conversations published as Morton Feldman in Middelburg, Feldman twice attributes to Beckett a ‘statistical analysis’ of the cobble- stones of Charlus’s courtyard in Remembrance of Things Past. Elsewhere he seems to confuse Beckett’s Ghost Trio with one of the radio plays, possibly Rough for Radio I. He also references , Footfalls (which he watched in rehearsal, with Beck- ett directing), Krapp’s Last Tape, and (Feldman 2008, 1:82, 86, 282, 292; 2:688, 838, 840). 5 Feldman told this story to composer Frank Denyer at a dinner party at Denyer’s house in Devon, England, with composers James Fulkerson and Jo Kondo also pre- sent (Denyer, pers. comm.). John Dwyer (1976) gives a similar version of the events, though the source for this is unclear (though quite possibly this, too, came from Feld- man). Another account is given by Feldman’s friend Brian O’Doherty (2010, 74).