Epilogue

The epilogue tracks the aftermath of the premiere of Rothko Chapel and focuses on the subsequent recording of the piece and its role in the life of the Chapel. The record managed to extend the circulation of both Feldman’s music and the chapel but also lead to conflicts between the de Menils’s and Feldman in his new position as composition professor at the University of Buffalo. It concludes with a broader reflection on the place of religion in the study of experimental music and notes the ways in which the Rothko Chapel event exemplifies the process by which events are deemed religious, that is taken as experiences are freighted with spiritual meaning.

Abstract Ecumenism

In Chapter 4, it is argued that Feldman’s involvement in the Rothko Chapel came about through two profound losses—the suicide of Mark Rothko and the collapse of de Menils’s relationship with the University of St. Thomas. These events produced a problem of representation for the Chapel, now dissociated from the Catholic Church. Dominique de Menil turned to Feldman to solve this problem with music equal to its ecumenical outlook. Feldman’s music premiered on April 9, 1972. Feldman and de Menil struggled over the structure of the event, with Feldman envisioning it as a “service” in his words that needed a few sermons (by poet Stanley Kunitz and critic Brian O’Doherty). Mrs. de Menil refused the inclusion of other speakers and put the onus of Feldman’s music to shape the affective atmosphere of the Chapel through the power of sound itself.

Shaken into Seeing and Hearing

Chapter 3 chronicles the intersection of Feldman’s and Dominique de Menil’s spiritual aesthetics. It begins by reconstructing the conditions of their first meeting: the New York City Ballet’s 1966 performance of Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace, re-choreographed for George Balanchine. It goes on to document Feldman and de Menil’s 1967 collaboration on the gallery show Six Painters at the University of St. Thomas. Through her family’s patronage, as well as Dominique’s presence as self-installed head of the art department, the University became a major presenting organization offering avant-garde cultural events in the city. Six Painters featured paintings by Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, and Franz Kline. Feldman was also given a residency at the university in 1967, where he lectured on abstract expressionism and his own musical aesthetics as well as presented a concert of his music.

Pursuing Anxiety

Chapter 1 develops Feldman’s religious mystique in contrast to the politics of the 1960s neo-avant-garde. It begins with an analysis of Feldman’s distinction between mystique and politics as borrowed from Charles Péguy. Feldman elaborates this distinction through a critique of the neo-avant-garde whom he faults for failing to handle sound “with love and interest” and for substituting an “image of personality” in place of true artistic experience. Feldman develops instead a theistic conception of “sound itself” that was an unequivocal religious ideal he termed “abstract experience.” The chapter locates Feldman’s conversion toward this ideal within his early 1960s milieu, noting that it coincided with the beginning of his friendship with Mark Rothko (which he remembers occurring around 1962) and his immersion in the writings of Kierkegaard (a favorite author of Rothko).

The de Menils’s Reality

Chapter 2 continues with the theme of conversion and shifts to a discussion of Dominique de Menil’s aesthetico-religious development. The first section of the chapter focuses on de Menil’s conversion to Catholicism in the early 1930s and her immersion in the renouveau catholique. Mrs. de Menil’s adoption of ideals of the renouveau was mediated through the friendship and spiritual direction of Fr. Marie-Alain Couturier. He was a leader of L’Art Sacré, a group seeking to enroll the best modernist artist in the service of the church. Working from a discussion of his collection of essays Art et Catholicisme, the chapter argues that Couturier identifies a formal affective structure of intuitive revelation that is capable of translating aesthetic experience into religious experience through abstraction. The reproduction of this formal structure lies at the heart of de Menil’s patronage aesthetics.

Introduction

The introduction argues for a broader investigation into Morton Feldman’s music for the Rothko Chapel beyond a model of ekphrasis that considers only how Feldman translates Rothko’s paintings into music. Instead of focusing on the dyadic relationship of influence between Rothko and Feldman, it argues that the role of the patrons John and Dominique de Menil must figure in any account of Feldman’s Rothko Chapel. This leads to a reconsideration of Feldman’s music not as translation of Rothko’s painting, but as a broader event in which conflicting intentions and interpretations of abstraction, ecumentical spirituality, experimental music were held in productive tension with one another. Furthermore, it argues for the inclusion of religion as a category of analysis in the study of experimental music.