Has minimalism been more artistically successful outside the classical trad?

[bwv 1080]

Been thinking how I much prefer Pink Floyd, Brian Eno, Jon Hassel, ECM Jazz (like early Pat Metheny) etc.  to Adams, Glass, Gorecki etc.   My favorite "classical" minimalist, Terry Riley straddles the fence between genres.  Any thoughts?

[karlhenning]

For whatever passel of reasons, I've actually generally preferred Eno's quirky pop-songs (like "I'll Come Running (To Tie Your Shoe)") to his minimalisms.

[gmstudio]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

FWIW, I feel the same way about "electronic" music in general.  IMO, groups like Boards of Canada, Autechre, and BT are the "classical" composers of today, IMO.  It's just packaged, marketed and performed differently.

[Josquin des Prez]

IMO, groups like Boards of Canada, Autechre, and BT are the "classical" composers of today, IMO.

Explain.

[karlhenning]

IMO, groups like Boards of Canada, Autechre, and BT are the "classical" composers of today, IMO.

Does IMO mean something different at the beginning and end of that sentence, or was that just a nod to the topic? 

So, what is Elliott Carter?  The Linda Ronstadt of today? 

[BachQ]

Does IMO mean something different at the beginning and end of that sentence, or was that just a nod to the topic? 

Does it?  IMO, yes ........

[some guy]

bwv 1080, I'm still stuck at your list of classical minimalists: Adams, Glass, Gorecki, etc.

Those are three very different people, and three very different styles of minimalism.

(Who do you put in the etc category would interest me right off hand.)

Anyway, my thought is that you prefer what you prefer. That is, you like certain things you call "minimal" that are outside what you'd call "classical" to some other things that you call "minimal" that are inside what you'd call "classical." OK.

Maybe a little elaboration here, just for me?

[Israfel the Black]

Not so much for Part and Gorecki, as for Glass, I would consider his film scores, which is probably his most classical stuff.

[Sean]

I got hold of Eno's Music for airports only a couple of weeks back- ambience at its best.

[Lethevich]

I'd rather listen to Burzum than Phillip Glass 0:)

Edit: I forgot half the post :x

[bwv 1080]

I got hold of Eno's Music for airports only a couple of weeks back- ambience at its best.

Hey I actually agree with Sean on something!

On a bootleg recording I have of the premier installation at LaGuardia in 1977, you can just barely hear two officials discussing the beginnings of the 9/11 plot.  The plotters realized the effort would bring about a whole genre of relaxing atmospheric music which could be used in the future to lower peoples guard and make them more susceptible to propaganda and misinformation.

[paulb]

Been thinking how I much prefer Pink Floyd, Brian Eno, Jon Hassel, ECM Jazz (like early Pat Metheny) etc.  to Adams, Glass, Gorecki etc.   My favorite "classical" minimalist, Terry Riley straddles the fence between genres.  Any thoughts?

Exactly. Minimal-ISM has nothing to do with that specific genre of music from past epochs that achieved the accolade Classical, meaning High Creative Art Expression.
There's nothing in minimalism that comes even close to true high creative genius.
Its not even convenient to say that M is sub-classical, its not even sub, as the word classical is attached. And that cannot be.
Elliott Carter so poignantly and percisely put it :"minimalism is death"

[Kullervo]

Minimalist techniques as part of a larger musical gestalt has always seemed more interesting to me than echt-Minimalism as we usually know it. Sibelius, Janáček, Bruckner, et al did it first, and did it best.  Some more recent composers have used the techniques of the minimalists in what seems to me a more holistic way, but of course they get labeled "polystylists". 

[Israfel the Black]

More minimalism bashing? It gets terribly old.

[Kullervo]

More minimalism bashing? It gets terribly old.

Do you have anything to say in defense of echt-Minimalism? I would be interested to hear a counterargument.

[Israfel the Black]

Do you have anything to say in defense of echt-Minimalism? I would be interested to hear a counterargument.

Well this is a particularly broad question. I can say many things in defense of modern minimalism, but probably nothing of which that would yield a radical shift in the way of one's thinking. In order to avoid delving into the much exhausted debate of the music's comparative technical merits (which I no doubt can do if need be), the ultimate determining agency of whether or not one can value minimalism as a music is if one can value late modernist art in its own right, which would entail all the minimalism, pastiche, theory, and paradoxical tensions that embody the postmodern movement. Minimalism is the result of a paradigm movement in the late modernist arts which signified a radical change in the way high art and commercial art are understood. I find there is something very intellectual in the works of Glass and Reich, and this is how I am able to appreciate the music. Ergo, it is a cognitive approach initially, but the music says much about the modern era, and I find the technical experiments and the sustaining moods in the tradition of Bruckner or Sibelius no less satisfying. I do not find that classical music should entail a single meta-narrative in the way of development, expression, and progression. I would not expect as much of painting, theater, and literature, for which minimalism no doubt coincides.

[Josquin des Prez]

I think you are just trying to legitimize crackpot theories from crackpot charlatans. My two cents.

[Israfel the Black]

I think you are just trying to legitimize crackpot theories from crackpot charlatans. My two cents.

No, no, that is far cry from two cents. There is no value in any such ridiculous reductionism, which is an outright disrespect to my position for which I was in no way forcefully imposing. I was rather attempting to provide some possible insight and some personal sentiment hopefully worth discussing. Alas, this is this same kind of cultural solipsism that no doubt blinds individuals to the reality of the world that exists outside of their own. Yes, art is not some purely subjective fantasy world that exists merely to serve your personal feelings and allows you to say whatever asinine trash you want, nor does it give any credence or any value worth anyone's interest to your laughably weak blanket statements. Instead, you recede into the superficial masses just like the rest – another impetuous voice goes unheard for lacking any sort of rational perspective.

[paulb]

Well this is a particularly broad question. I can say many things in defense of modern minimalism, but probably nothing of which that would yield a radical shift in the way of one's thinking. In order to avoid delving into the much exhausted debate of the music's comparative technical merits (which I no doubt can do if need be), the ultimate determining agency of whether or not one can value minimalism as a music is if one can value late modernist art in its own right, which would entail all the minimalism, pastiche, theory, and paradoxical tensions that embody the postmodern movement. Minimalism is the result of a paradigm movement in the late modernist arts which signified a radical change in the way high art and commercial art are understood. I find there is something very intellectual in the works of Glass and Reich, and this is how I am able to appreciate the music. Ergo, it is a cognitive approach initially, but the music says much about the modern era, and I find the technical experiments and the sustaining moods in the tradition of Bruckner or Sibelius no less satisfying. I do not find that classical music should entail a single meta-narrative in the way of development, expression, and progression. I would not expect as much of painting, theater, and literature, for which minimalism no doubt coincides.

ahh now i clearly understand why i have slowly lost, and now totally become dis-interested in Sibelius syms. I prefer the single narrative approach. Sibeluis reminds me too much of Beethoven's piece-meal styling, sectional, things not leading from one to the other/disjointed-ness. Beautiful passages at times, but akward at the joining points.
Sure Schnittke can appear at tims like this, but from first note to very last, there is something intensely taking place, there's no waste, everything has meaning and a connection to the whole.. No meandering , "Ok I got it" repeats, as i find in Sibelius. Bruckner i hear as a  direct continuation of what Beethoven would be writing had he lived  another 30 yrs. Beethoven has this minimalist tendency, passages dived off, with little sense of meaning of what went before and comes after wards. His 9th is a perfect example of Beethoven at his typical. His 3,5 syms are less so with these issues. Someone said Beethoven was poor at orchestration. i tend to think so.
. Mozart does not suffer from any of these issues in his late works.

[some guy]

ahh now i clearly understand why i have slowly lost, and now totally become dis-interested in Sibelius syms. I prefer the single narrative approach.

But Paul, Israfel's not talking about compositional technique. He's talking about how we talk about music. Pointing out that the ways of talking about it that exclude perfectly good (and perfectly "classical") things is perhaps not quite the thing. Diminishes our enjoyment of what we INclude, I'd add. (To be fair, the words "development, expression, and progression" are also musical terms!)

Beethoven has this minimalist tendency, passages dived off, with little sense of meaning of what went before and comes after wards.

Well, I didn't have any luck getting bwv 1080 to elaborate HIS point, which is a great pity, as he's articulate and erudite. But oh well, you're not bwv 1080, so maybe it's worth asking you to elaborate your point. Which minimal pieces do you know in which passages are "dived off, with little sense of meaning of what went before and comes after wards"? That sounds like no minimalism I've ever heard or even read about.