Spartito #16: Man On the Street

Man On The Street

My teacher Stefan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. . . . He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window, and he said, “What about the man on the street?” At that moment . . . Jackson Pollock was crossing the street. The crazy artist of my generation was crossing the street at that moment.
– Morton Feldman

Piano and String Quartet (1985) performed by Aki Takahashi and the Kronos Quartet

This episode was inspired in part by Alex Ross’s essay American Sublime.

The soundscapes are based on these recordings.

Curated by KitKat.