Running to four and a half hours without a break, Morton Feldman’s late work For Philip Guston is long by any standards. Non-athletes can finish marathons in less time; even the apocalyptic final instalment of Wagner’s Ring cycle is shorter. Yet the most striking thing about the work is its economy. An opening sequence of four pitches played by three musicians provides the musical material that is transformed, transposed, stretched and compressed throughout. Notes and motifs are repeated and multiply, echoing across the ever-sparse texture. The tempo is consistently slow, the dynamic consistently quiet. Rhythms are complex, but subtly so, making the instances of absolute synchrony into passing miracles. Time is the only resource with which Feldman is profligate.
Challenged on the work’s scale, Feldman once quipped, “it’s a short four hours!” I’m not sure all attending this rare performance in Kings Place’s Memory Unwrapped series would have agreed. Seats creaked constantly as people wriggled, late arrivals crept in and others trickled out. Coughs were half stifled. Phones buzzed. Someone near me went through an inexplicable, maddening phase of humming along.
