Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman: Friendship and Mourning in the New York Avant-Garde documents the collaborations and conflicts essential to the history of the post-war avant-garde. It offers a study of composer Morton Feldman's associations and friendships with artists like John Cage, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Frank O'Hara, Charlotte Moorman, and others. Arguing that friendship and mourning sustained the collective aesthetics of the New York School, Dohoney has written an emotional and intimate revision of New York modernism from the point of view of Feldman's agonistic community.

Ryan Dohoney is Associate Professor of Musicology in the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, USA. He specializes in experimental music in the US and Europe since World War II.

List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Spontaneity, Intimacy, and Friendship in the 1950s 2. "Élan vital . and how to fake it" Intermission: The Necessary Other 3. The Elegiac Science 4. "We broke up because of style" Conclusion: Friendship's Silence Acknowledgments Bibliography Index