INTERVIEW WITH NOVELIST STEPHEN CHANCE
First of all, why did you decide to write the novel and tell this story?
SC: The initial trigger was somewhat prosaic: my wife Wendy spotted a CD in the shop at Snape Maltings. It was a Rothko painting on the cover that drew her attention to it. When Rothko died in 1970, John and Dominique de Menil commissioned a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas in which fourteen of his paintings would be displayed in a spiritual and meditative space. Feldman was invited to compose music to be performed there, his piece 'Rothko Chapel'. And three passions of mine are architecture, art, and music.
That was the first piece of Feldman’s that I got to know, one of his more accessible, even tuneful, pieces, a choral piece. After that, listening to the Kronos Quartet's version of 'Piano and String Quartet' of 1985 cemented my attraction to Feldman’s music, and I’d already started to become intrigued by Feldman’s apparent character, variously described as brash, loud, arrogant, bombastic, and so on, in stark contrast to the beautiful, soft, long, stately character of many of his compositions.
Around the same time I was in conversation with Gavin Bryars who, along with Fred Orton, had interviewed Feldman in 1976. Gavin did this great impression of Feldman’s Brooklyn accent. After my initial introduction to Feldman’s work and conversations with Bryars, the artist James Hugonin, musician Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) and others, I developed my ideas for a book focused on the friendship between Feldman and the painter Philip Guston. Then I went to New York to research. And, what an interesting time it was in the Lower East Side in the 1950s, in a New York of poets, painters, McCarthyism, the Rosenbergs...
The novel moves between incidents that are in the historical record as documented facts, and details which are presumably made up or fictionalised. Such things often occur in historically-based novels, but were you happy to operate in that blurred area between fact and fiction?
SC: I've read and enjoyed novels that operate in that 'blurred area', which really do add an emotional dimension to the facts, such as 'A Country Road, a Tree' by Jo Baker, a novel about Beckett's time in the French Resistance, or Julian Barnes' novel about Shostakovich. What people say is you try to achieve an "emotional truth."
In a novel that keeps pretty much to the facts, that's attempted in two ways – through the dialogue between characters, and through the character's inner voice. In my novel, which is written in "close third", we are always and only with Feldman, seeing the world only from my evocation of Feldman's point of view.
Also, I've pretty much boiled the 'life' down to a "two-hander" between Feldman and Guston (I had a really good editor, Neil Griffiths, who was influential in that).
Would it bother you if readers came back with alternative interpretations which contest the way your novel presents aspects of Feldman’s life?
SC: I expect some readers – especially Feldman aficionados – to have their own views on the way I represent Feldman in my version.
Of course, as a Feldman fan, I hope that a novel (as opposed to a musicological book) will bring a new audience to him and his music.
The title – Feldman in Love – is quite provocative. Given various allegations and revelations from some of the women in Feldman’s life, I expected that to be central to the novel. But his relationships with women remain at the margins, and you focus on Feldman’s friendship with the Philip Guston.
I had various working titles, some alluding to Feldman pieces like Crippled Symmetry or Triadic Memories, and some things like 'Playing From Memory' but in the end Feldman in Love is better. It's direct, it names him, there is a certain resemblance to some of Philip Roth's pithier titles, and of course there is an echo of DH Lawrence.
So Feldman in Love could be regarded as somewhat ironic, but that would depend on your view of what happens near the end of his life: that is, in his final relationship.
I was interested in a comment of the poet Bill Berkson's* something like: "I always thought that Feldman had a secret life when it came to women". It seems to me that his relations with women were broadly unsuccessful – three wives and several affairs, sometimes with his students. One day, a persistent biographer will excavate all that.
Could one describe their relationship as you portray it as a ‘bromance’? And did you intend there to be a strong homoerotic current in the novel?
SC: There was no 'bromantic' or homoerotic intent in the novel. But I do conjecture that the most important relationship in Feldman's life was a male friendship: the one with Guston. It took work, particularly on Feldman's side, to maintain it and, in his interview with Gavin Bryars, Feldman says of Guston: "Boy… was he demanding! "
Another reason I thought there was scope for a novel is that Feldman himself was quite inconsistent and made mistakes and contradicted himself. Even a critical moment like Feldman seeing Guston's Marlborough pictures is contested. There seem to be several versions of how, where and when that happened. And if you read the footnotes to his Middelburg lectures, you'll see notes like: "in this story Feldman quotes Stravinsky, but in the same story in last year's lecture… it was Stockhausen". Things like that.
Feldman said: "You have to be discreet. You cannot tell the whole story."
I take that to be a useful comment on his music. But I also quoted that as the epigraph to my novel.
I’m interested in the change over time in their relationship as you portray it. At first Guston seems very much the senior partner – like a big brother who takes the younger Feldman under his wing. But, even though at the start of their friendship Guston is by far the more successful and critically acclaimed, we begin to see him as more needy and insecure, repeatedly experiencing self-doubt about his work and looking to Feldman for reassurance. In contrast Feldman’s music is being played to very small and rather unappreciative audiences, which is disappointing, but it doesn’t seem to knock his self-belief. Is this difference in personality something that is documented, or is it something you’ve creatively imagined? Is it what Feldman meant when he said “Boy…he was demanding!”
Yes, this was the sense I got by extrapolating between numerous sources, people’s anecdotes and Feldman's own writings and lectures. He must have had doubts - not least from those disdainful reviews he sometimes received. But he seems to have had an inner strength. Ironically, my sense is that he got some of that from seeing value in what Guston was painting in his abstract period. Whereas Guston said "my whole life is based on anxiety – where else does art come from?”.
I was taken by the long last section of your novel, which jumps forward to well after Guston has died, and after Feldman has become relatively successful, with a university professorship and a growing appreciation for his music. Feldman is in hospital, having to explain himself to doctors rather than artists or musicians, and struggling to face up to his coming death. I found this an effective turn in the narrative, but why did you decide to tell so much of the story from this very late moment in Feldman’s life?
I envisaged a two-part structure to the novel pretty much from the outset. Part one is more propulsive – rising action. I wanted part 2 to be more reflective, elegiac.
I thought someone from a different generation could gently provoke Feldman, at a time when he would be feeling vulnerable (in hospital) and therefore I give him a chance to reflect on earlier relationships – with Guston and others. Feldman is looking back on the male dominated 50s, but only from the late 80s (hardly a #MeToo perspective).
But it's where Feldman, at least partly, reveals some feelings and reservations about his earlier behaviour. It's more reflective and he's talking to the doctor – but nevertheless, it's still Feldman, so there is still that combination of charm, wit and chutzpah even if he admits to a few regrets
I’ve met musicians who knew Feldman personally and feel positively about him, but, although I love a lot of his music, I never warmed to him as a human being – insofar as one can judge from his writings and other people’s stories. Even before the allegations made by Bunita Marcus, I felt this isn’t someone who I would have liked, however gorgeous his music. I imagine that if you wanted to write a novel about him, you may feel differently. How do you assess him as a human being?
I was interested in how significant innovation (like Feldman achieved with his graph pieces and his slow, 'flat' late works) comes out of friendly/rivalrous groups, cliques and interpersonal relationships – such those people at that period in that particular location.
I would guess that the real Feldman was – like most people – a flawed human being. I wanted to stay away completely from the controversy that has circulated online relating to Bunita Marcus. Marcus was clearly a very important person in the real Feldman's life – but not in my novel.
Coming back to 'Feldman in Love', I can only reiterate that I purposefully focus on the dynamic of artistic friendship – how it creates the need to outdo the other, and how the critical mutual support can slide over into resentment.
But as you say, and how you continue to demonstrate in your great Another Timbre recordings, Feldman's music remains a wonder.
For more information, and to buy a copy of 'Feldman in Love', go to
https://www.stephenchance.co.uk/
