 | Minimalist music: Encyclopedia II - Minimalist music - Brief history
Minimalist music - Brief history
The word "minimalism" was first used in relation to music in 1968 by Michael Nyman in a review of Cornelius Cardew's piece The Great Digest. Nyman later expanded his definition of minimalism in music in his 1974 book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Tom Johnson, one of the few composers to self-identify as minimalist, also claims to have been first to use the word as new music critic for the Village Voice. He describes "minimalism" (1989, p. 5):
"The idea of minimalism is much larger than most people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whisky glasses. It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time. It includes pieces made exclusively from recordings of rivers and streams. It includes pieces that move in endless circles. It includes pieces that set up an unmoving wall of saxophone sound. It includes pieces that take a very long time to move gradually from one kind of music to another kind. It includes pieces that permit all possible pitches, as long as they fall between C and D. It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute."
Many people, especially popular music fans, find minimalist music less difficult music to listen to than serialism and other avant-garde classical music. For some, especially romantic and earlier music fans, it is easy music to find annoying, due to the repetition, perceived lack of complexity, or rigidity of process music. The most prominent minimalist composers are John Adams, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley; while the less well known La Monte Young is generally credited as the "father" of minimalism.
There is much variety in the music called minimal, in every regard from instrumentation to structure to technique. The early compositions of Glass and Reich tended to be very austere, with little embellishment on the principal theme, and written for small instrumental ensembles (of which the composers were members), made up, in Glass' case, of organs, winds--particularly saxophones--and vocalists, in Reich's case with more emphasis on mallet and percussion instruments. (These works would be scored for any combination of such instruments: one piece by Reich, the aptly named Six Pianos, is scored just so.) Adams' works have most often been written for more traditional classical forces: orchestra, string quartet, even solo piano. (Though all four major minimalists have written symphonies and quartets etc, none have written them so exclusively as Adams.) His works tend also to be much more approachable for the classical ear; there is a minimalist core to his work, but there is also a more traditional philosophy and stylistic diversity behind his compositions, and a phrase in an Adams work is less likely to stay unchanged and in the same instrument(s) for a long time than in would be in another minimalist's work. Some of Adams' orchestral works have been described as " maximalist", although this is not a word that would be widely recognized by reviewers as having a consistent meaning, for example serialist Charles Wuorinen self-identifies as a maximalist.
David Cope (1997) lists the following qualities:
- Silence
- Concept music
- Brevity
- Continuities: requiring slow modulation of one or more parameters
- Phase and pattern music, including repetition
It should be noted that the minimalist movement in music bears only an occasional relationship to the movement of the same name in visual art. This connection is probably one reason why many minimalist composers dislike the term. Philip Glass, whose group initially performed at art galleries where his minimalist visual artist friends were showing, reportedly said of minimalism, "That word should be stamped out!"
Other related archives1947, 1960s, 1968, 1974, 1997, Adams, Alvin Lucier, Andrew Poppy, Antigone, Arnold Dreyblatt, Arvo Pärt, Bob Dickinson, Brian Eno, Cage, Carl Orff, Carl Stone, Charlemagne Palestine, Charles Wuorinen, Circle, Coil, Colin McPhee, Concept, Cornelius Cardew, Daniel Goode, Daniel Lentz, Das Rheingold, David Behrman, David Cope, De Stijl, Einstein on the Beach, Elodie Lauten, Erik Satie, Erkki Salmenhaara, Ernesto Rodrigues, Francis Picabia, Frederic Rzewski, Fulvio Caldini, Gavin Bryars, George Antheil, Giovanni Sollima, Glenn Branca, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hans Otte, Harald Weiss, Harold Budd, Hauke Harder, Henryk Górecki, Howard Skempton, Ingram Marshall, Jakob van Domselaer, Jim O'Rourke, Jo Kondo, John Adams, John Tavener, Jon Gibson, Kevin Volans, King Crimson, Kyle Gann, La Monte Young, Louis Andriessen, Low, Lukas Foss, László Melis, László Sáry, László Vidovszky, Meredith Monk, Michael Nyman, Mike Oldfield, Mikel Rouse, Modernism, Morton Feldman, Morton Subotnick, Paul Dresher, Pauline Oliveros, Peter Michael Hamel, Petr Kotik, Philip Corner, Philip Glass, Phill Niblock, Piet Mondrian, Polyrock, Post-minimalism, Process music, Rhys Chatham, Richard Maxfield, Richard Wagner, Robert Moran, Shaker Loops, Shellac, Sigur Rós, Silence, Simeon ten Holt, Sonic Youth, Stephen Scott, Steve Martland, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, The Velvet Underground, Tim Risher, Tirez Tirez, Tom Johnson, Tony Conrad, Tortoise, Village Voice, Vladimir Tošić, Walter Zimmermann, Wayne Siegel, William Duckworth, Wim Mertens, Yoshi Wada, Yves Klein, Zoltán Jeney, cells, classical, classical music, consonant, drones, electronica, experimental music, figures, functional tonality, harmony, kitsch, maximalist, minimalism, modal, modernism, modulation, motifs, musical development, parameters, phrases, post-minimalist, postmodernism, postmodernity, process music, pulses, repetition, serialism, stasis, string quartet, structure, theme, tonal, variation, visual arts, voice leading
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Brief history", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
