Selected Writings

 

Composing Ambiguity: the early music of Morton Feldman. (Ashgate, March 2013).

Based upon several years of analytical and archival research, this book presents detailed and groundbreaking analysis of Morton Feldman’s 1950s music. As this was the crucial period for the formation of his language and compositional processes, this also sheds light on his later work.

 

 

“Noble was too modest when he said he hoped ‘to place a few solid foundation stones for future scholars in this field to build upon’; in fact, he has supplied the foundation itself. With this book, Feldman scholarship enters a new stage of maturity.”

American Record Guide

 

“…fascinating in its forensic detail, and the central analytic work is compelling… Noble's cautious, highly informed writing here and elsewhere – especially when dealing with the rather complex issue of Feldman's Jewishness and his relation to the Holocaust – is very engaging.”

Tempo

 

“As a pianist himself, Noble approaches Feldman’s pieces with a subtle performer’s sensitivity for the sonority, touch, registral and dynamic richness of his instrument - a sense of technical and artistic proficiency he shares with the composer himself. The manifold original insights into Feldman’s compositional practice based upon the investigation of primary sources make this book worthy of recommendation to any reader curious to explore the technical aspect of this music or to seek a different approach to his distinctive sonorities.”

IRASM (International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music)

 

 

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"Reawakening the Killing-tone: sound art of Lin Chi-wei", in White Fungus (Issue 15, 2016).

 

"Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music (BIFEM) 2015" [Review Essay], in Tempo (Cambridge University Press, volume 70, issue 275, January 2016, 94-95)

 

“Wang Fujui and the Fascination of Mysterious Sounds”, in White Fungus (Issue 14, 2015), 130-145.

A major feature article and interview with the important Taiwanese sound artist Wang Fujui. This is the first major interview and analytical discussion about this artist’s work to be published in English.

 

Review articles for the Music Trust

• Collaborative Creative Thought and Practice in Music

• Verklärung: ecstatic exercises for cello

• X-ray Baby. Works by Hsieh, Martin, Pinto d’Aguiar, Neal

• Lina Andonovska: Flute. Music by Bach, Martinu, & Vine

• Encounters: musical meetings between Australia and China

• China Wind: Robert Schubert plays the clarinet music of Julian Yu

• Malign

• Mosaic: Australian Guitar Concertos. Works by Richard Charlton, Ross Edwards, Philip Bracanin, Peter Sculthorpe

• Mozart: Stolen Beauties. Chamber music by Mozart, Punto and Michael Haydn

• Mozart: Violin Concertos 3 & 5, Sinfonia Concertante

• Not Music Yet by David Young

• Open Polar Sea. Works by Col Fuhler, Salvatore Sciarrino, Morton Feldman, Damien Barbeler, Daniel Blinkhorn and Anna McMichael

• Roger Woodward: A Concerto Collection

• Schumann Piano Trios

• Semblances: Thomas Reiner Chamber Works

• Ten. Chopin: Etudes, Op. 10. Godowsky: Studies on Chopin’s Etudes, Op. 10

 

Concert Reviews for The Australian

 

Articles for The Conversation

• Why Bendigo’s exploratory music festival is worth trumpeting

• Explainer: extreme duration in the performing arts

• Tourism over tradition in Taiwan – how to be a culture vulture abroad

 

Review essays for Partial Durations: writing about new music

• Kupka’s Piano: Outer Sounds

• Sydney Chamber Opera: Fly Away Peter

• Nils Frahm at the Old Museum

• Speak Percussion: 8th Taiwan International Percussion Convention

 

'Bendigo International Festival Of Exploratory Music' [review essay] in The Wire (Issue 359, January 2014).

 

Sounds in Translation: intersections of sound, science and society. Amy Chan & Alistair Noble, editors. The Australian National University Press (August 2009).

A multi-author book, developed from an international conference that I convened in the Faculty of Arts at ANU in 2005.