Trancing in the Palace: Kabbalah, Altered States, and Morton Feldman’s Palais de Mari (1986) Steven Nuss, Colby College SMT 2015 Feldman on his Patterns in a Chromatic Field: “Do one thing. Then do it another way. It’s all very much like medieval Kabbalah.” Feldman on Kafka: “Usually my pieces began maybe on the tenth measure, kind of getting into it. And then I would look at it and throw away the first ten measures. And that’s why my music has always that opening, you see, because I borrow from all different things. I’ll tell you how I get my opening. I got it from Kafka. I read an article once on Kafka, and I was very fond of Kafka. You’ll notice Kafka’s first sentences: “Someone has been telling lies about Joseph K.” You know that’s Kafka.You are in the world of Kafka. We were all read- ing Kafka in New York at about twenty-one, fantastic thing. I took that idea and I put in in my own music. Kafka definitely influenced my feeling about how to begin a piece. Immediately in the atmosphere. Not like Bartok, mesto or something, another mesto.” German music critic Heinz-Klaus Metzger after hearing a performance of Feldman’s First String Quartet: “… One of my friends, the poet Rolando Damiani with his philologically unfailing instinct, and I cherished the suspicion right after the performance in Venice that –– not to be definitely documented––a subterra- nean stream of tradition from Jewish mysticism, precisely from the prophetic Kabbalah of the 13th cen- tury, whose central exponent was Avraham Ben-Samu’el Abulafia, was secretly feeding into the Feldman Quartet.” (Translated from the German.) Heinz-Klaus Metzger interviewing Feldman about what he called Feldman’s “soft” pieces. Metzger: “Sometimes I think they are a kind of mourning epilogue to murdered Jiddishkeit in Europe and dying Jiddishkeit in America…Is there something true about it?” Feldman: “I must say you did bring up something that I particularly don’t want to talk about publicly, but I do talk privately. …To some degree I do believe for example, like with George Steiner, that after Hitler perhaps there should be no art. Those thoughts are always in my mind.”
Transcript
Trancing in the Palace: Kabbalah, Altered States, and Morton Feldman’s Palais de Mari (1986)
Steven Nuss, Colby CollegeSMT 2015
Feldman on his Patterns in a Chromatic Field:“Do one thing. Then do it another way. It’s all very much like medieval Kabbalah.”
Feldman on Kafka:“Usually my pieces began maybe on the tenth measure, kind of getting into it. And then I would look at it and throw away the first ten measures. And that’s why my music has always that opening, you see, because I borrow from all different things. I’ll tell you how I get my opening. I got it from Kafka. I read an article once on Kafka, and I was very fond of Kafka. You’ll notice Kafka’s first sentences: “Someone has been telling lies about Joseph K.” You know that’s Kafka.You are in the world of Kafka. We were all read-ing Kafka in New York at about twenty-one, fantastic thing. I took that idea and I put in in my own music. Kafka definitely influenced my feeling about how to begin a piece. Immediately in the atmosphere. Not like Bartok, mesto or something, another mesto.”
German music critic Heinz-Klaus Metzger after hearing a performance of Feldman’s First String Quartet:“… One of my friends, the poet Rolando Damiani with his philologically unfailing instinct, and I cherished the suspicion right after the performance in Venice that –– not to be definitely documented––a subterra-nean stream of tradition from Jewish mysticism, precisely from the prophetic Kabbalah of the 13th cen-tury, whose central exponent was Avraham Ben-Samu’el Abulafia, was secretly feeding into the Feldman Quartet.” (Translated from the German.)
Heinz-Klaus Metzger interviewing Feldman about what he called Feldman’s “soft” pieces.
Metzger: “Sometimes I think they are a kind of mourning epilogue to murdered Jiddishkeit in Europe and dying Jiddishkeit in America…Is there something true about it?”
Feldman: “I must say you did bring up something that I particularly don’t want to talk about publicly, but I do talk privately. …To some degree I do believe for example, like with George Steiner, that after Hitler perhaps there should be no art. Those thoughts are always in my mind.”
Figure 1: The “Ineffable Name” / The abbreviated romanization of the Tetragrammaton.
Yod Heh Vav Heh
Y-H-V-H
Figure 2: Idel’s list of requirements for the intonation of a tzeruf of the Tetragrammaton.
1) Creation of a permutation matrix for the Tetragrammaton. 2) Proscribed head motions 3) Recitation/intonation of the letters of the Tetragrammaton.
4) Gematria calculations: numerology of the Hebrew alphabet in which words or other letter combinations of the same numerological sum can be closely related despite what might be strongly contrasting meanings.
5) Regulated breathing 6) Proscribed hand motions
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Figure 3: Abulafia on the effect the Tetragrammaton tzeruf on the practitioner’s body and state of consciousness.
“Abulafia’s way is an original one in terms of the psychological mechanism by which the new consciousness that he reaches is activated. While in the other known techniques —Yoga, Sufism, and hesychasm — the goal is to attain the maximum degree of concentration by means of a generally simple formula, to be repeated over and over again, Abulafia’s method is based on the contemplation of a constantly changing object: one must combine the letters and their vowel signs, “sing” and move the head in accordance with the vocalization, and even lift one’s hands in the gesture of the Priestly Blessing. The combination of constantly changing components is entirely different from what we know of these other techniques. Abulafia is not interested in relaxing the consciousness by means of concentration on a “point,” but in purifying it by the necessity to concentrate intensely on such a large number of activities that it is almost impossible at that moment to think about any other subject. By this means, the consciousness is purified of every subject apart from the names being uttered.” (Idel, 39-40)
Figure 4: Tzeruf permutation (read right to left) of the 1986 “cartouche,” Feldman’s “Divine Name.” The matrix is produced by following a method practiced by Rabbi Yehuda Albotini (1453-1519), a disciple of Abulafia. Not that any four-element set yields 24 permuations. Permutations in boldface are those that appear in Palais. the successive permutation in each row of the matrix are accomplished by the following repeated pattern: between columns 1 & 2, exchange elements 3 & 4; between columns 2 & 3, exchange elements 2 & 4; between columns 3 & 4, exchange elements 3 & 4; between columns 4 & 5, exchange elements 2 & 4; between columns 5 & 6, exchange elements 3 & 4.
Example 1: The first two statements the 1986 cartouche aggregate articulate two formal divisions in Palais (see brackets): mm. 1-38, 39-42. Cartouche pcs (and their repetitions) are highlighted in color: 1=blue, 9=yellow, 8=green, 6=red.
3
Figure 5: Formal divisions of Palais as articulated by 49 completions of the cartouche aggregate. Note that the work ends on an incomplete cartouche collection.
Figure 6: Abulafia’s comments on the required use of the hands as one completes the intonation of a form of the Divine Name.
“And lift your eyes up to the heaven, and lift your left and right hands like the lifting up of hands of the kohen, who divides his fingers, five on one side and five on the other, with two on the right and two on the left [in each hand]...” (Idel, 30)
Example 2: The hand raising and RH/LH dyadic “two-ness” (one miss, and one correct) of cartouche aggregate completion on the first page of Palais. (Black arrows are preparation for the completion of a phrase, red arrows indicate phrase completion.) Measure 37 has no dyadic two-ness before the cadential F#. Measure 41 corrects this “miss.”
Figure 7a: Letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their traditional gematria/numerical values.
Figure 7b: Demonstration of standard gematria calculation for Y-H-V-H, the Tetragrammaton (sounded and counted) as the Hebrew letters Yod, Heh,Vav, Heh.
Yod- Heh- Vav- Heh10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26
Figure 7c: Reduced gematria creates a single digit reading of Y-H-V-H through addition of the two integers of the resulting sum: 26=2+6=8. Palais thus begins (and ends) on the reduced ge-matria sum of the Tetragrammaton. This gematria “eight-ness” is a crucial compositional tool for Feldman throughout Palais.
Example 3: Multi-dimensional expression of the 1986 cartouche through gematria numerology.
1 1
1 1
1
1
73 3
1
1011 11
7
7 7
1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0
7
8
8
2
1411
11
7+ +
+ +
+
+
+
+
+
8 6 6
8
1 1 1 1 1
8 8
8
19
19
16
8
8+3+9+7
13
02
86
6
6 6
--- + ---
+ -- = 54 = (5+4) = 9
27 = (2+7) = 9
------
6
6!!
1 + 10 + 9 +4 = 24 = (2+4) = 6 6
Figure 7: Two orbiting rings of pitch classes exhibit different degrees of relatedness to the 1986 cartouche, the gravitational center of Palais. The pcs of the inner ring relate to one or more members of the cartouche by +/- 1 semitone. Pcs in the outer ring relate to one or more members of the cartouche by +/- 2 semitones.
1986
3
20
5
7
T
4
E
+/- 1+/- 2
Figure 8: Mm. 1-2 of Palais as breathing/intonation gesture: a two-step expansion out from from cartouche space (as pc 8), and subsequent “silent” exhalation/contraction return to cartouche space (maintaining an eighth-note pulse) through the silent 6 duration of the ¾ measure.
1986
1986
53
48
6
7
Example 4: “The Big Breath” translates planetary/orbital relationships into pitch space.
7/orbit 1
cartouchecartouche
cartouche
cartouche
11!/orbit 2
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Supplementary examples for “Trancing in the Palace: Kabbalah, Altered States, and Feldman’s Palais de Mari (1986)”
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1 6 ------------------------------------
1 6 ------------------------------- 9 8!
Supplementary Example 1: Palais mm. 314-323. A registrally dramatic hand crossing articulates the conclusion of a phrase through cartouche aggregate completion on a pc8/9 dyad. (Note that the measure numbers of the first and last measures of the phrase sum to 8: 314 = 3+1+4 = 8 AND 323 = 3+2+3 = 8.)
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Supplementary Example 2: Reduced gematria readings of registrally discreet voice leading in mm. 326-327 reveals a spatial expression of cartouche numbers 6, 8, and 9. (The left hand in mm. 323-333 and 335-336 repeats a B4. The two instances of 11 at these points show that LH pc identity momentari-ly substitutes for intervalic change.)
Supplementary Example 3: Two brief analytical dialogues with excerpts from Dora Hanninen’s compelling associative analysis of Palais in her A Theory of Music Analysis: On Segmentation and Associative Organization, 2012.
Supplementary Example 4: Second analytical dialogue (abbreviated).
Hanninen:“…denser sonorities mark the start of a new passage in m.36.”(Hanninen, 340)
“…mobile series of interrelated harmonies is overlaid with a thread of grace notes.” (Hanninen, 340)
Reply:• The density of the passage arises from the sudden
accumulation of cartouche pcs and anticipates the arrival of pc 6 as F#6(!) in m. 37 and marks the completion of the first cartouche aggregate (8916).
• m. 36 continues the cartouche unfolding with pc1/D♭ within a 6 space (3/4 measure).
• Harmonies are interrelated because they are rich in cartouche pc occurrences.
• Not a “thread of grace notes,” but a powerful physical cartouche gesture in m. 37 signaling and supplying cartouche aggregate completion. The same gesture of aggregate completion occurs again in m. 42 (the last measure of the page) within a new permutation of the cartouche, (9186).
Hanninen: “...this curious sonority.”“…the pcs Ab and D# and pitch D#5 recall set A…”(Hanninen, 337)
“Suspended somewhere between sets A, B, and C… this tetrachord remains an anomaly until m.34.”(Hanninen, 337)
Reply:• Not curious but declarative. It announces pc 9.• Pc 9 in this chord continues the unfolding of the
cartouche within the first simultaneity of the work.• The chord pairs two cartouche pcs, 9/A4 and 8/Ab5. • A♭/pc8 and D#/pc3 are weakly related to each other.
(See Figure 7.)• Not an anomaly. Cartouche pcs 8 and 9 are
transferred to the outside voices in m.34.
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The chord in m. 24.
The chord in m. 37.
Selected Bibliography:
Albotini, Yehudah. Sulam Aliyah. Trans. Yodfat Glazer and Adam Sohom. Providence: Providence University, 2007.
Becker, Judith. Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Clarke, David and Eric Clarke, eds. Music and Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Feldman, Morton. Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman. Edited by B. H. Friedman ed. Cambridge, MA. Exact Change, 2000.
Hanninen, Dora A., A Theory of Music Analysis: On Segmentation and Associative Organization. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer Limited, 2012.
Hirata, Catherine. “The Sounds of the Sounds Themselves: Analyzing the Early Music of Morton Feldman.” Perspectives of New Music 34/1 (1996): 6–27.
Idel, Moshe. The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
Kaplan, Aryeh. Meditation and Kabbalah. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1982.
______. Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, in Theory and Practice. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1990.
Lancaster, Brian. The Essence of Kabbalah. London: Arcturus Publishing, 2005.
Noble, Alistair. Composing Ambiguity: The Early Music of Morton Feldman. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013.
