Form and Process in Morton Feldman's Spring of Chosroes

Abstract

AbstractMorton Feldman's Spring of Chosroes is named after a legendary Persian garden carpet. Although it is assumed that the asymmetrical geometric designs of garden carpets inspired the design of the piece, this article is primarily concerned with musical form and process. The music segments into discrete units, which I call modules, that are affiliated by coincident structural features and developmental relationships. The interconnected modules, particularly those that share aspects of pitch, rhythm and register, articulate the work's form. The formal plan is ABA′: section A′ engages the modular structure of section A, and parallelisms in section B create palindromic relationships. Two sets of modules, each of which is connected by developmental processes, make up large‐scale frameworks that reflect the ternary sectional structure and the palindromic design of section B. The music is structurally weighted towards its two central modules, each of which bisects a set of palindromically related modules and, together, the piece as a whole. Organic and inorganic processes unite all levels of form, connecting local and large‐scale structures. Effects of disconnectedness are shown to be surface phenomena arising from the interaction of disparate, ordered structures.