Minimalist Mash-Up!

[Ken B]

The ... repetitive nature of the music also tends to lose my interest in a short amount of time.

There's your problem! It's not really so repetitive, it is changing (slowly I grant you!) all the time. Minimalism is a rethinking of how music works. Music, any kind of music even the atonal kind  , creates and then fulfills or dashes anticipations. (Syncopation is a simple example of that.) The minimalists do that in a new way. Once you get over the gaaah! get me out of here before I lose my mind reaction, which was my first response to Glass, it affects how you listen to every other piece of music. Or at least it did me and I have heard the same thought from others.   "and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

[Ken B]

Yeah, I know, I've actually read analyses of some Glass works. 

Emphasis added. 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I am not going to try to make a case for or against any of these composers as being 'minimalist' because it seems as if the word can be taken to mean such a wide variety of things anyway and others have made the same points I would have made.

Ignoring the word 'minimalist' and just voting for the composer here whose music I enjoy the most, I will pick Pärt—but really I enjoy his works from before Für Alina most of all.

[Keep Going]

I think you are falsely elevating Glass's work by associating it with Eastern or Indian religious traditions.

I'm not sure. Certainly there's a lot of mention of Zen and other Eastern influences concerning Cage's music. I think it's just good context, not necessarily intending to elevate.

Reich was greatly influenced by African music (he travelled to Ghana) and its drumming, rhythms, etc. Riley studied under Pran Nath and performed Eastern music during numerous trips to India.

And even Adams hasn't been oblivious to music from non-Western backgrounds - namely, Dharma at Big Sur explores just intonation, and showcases a solo electric violin part with an oriental lyricism.

[Andante]

I am not going to try to make a case for or against any of these composers as being 'minimalist' because it seems as if the word can be taken to mean such a wide variety of things anyway and others have made the same points I would have made.

Ignoring the word 'minimalist' and just voting for the composer here whose music I enjoy the most, I will pick Pärt—but really I enjoy his works from before Für Alina most of all.

I just knew that eventually we would agree on something  made my day. Thanks

[Monsieur Croche]

I'd rather vote for Morton Feldman, who is directly one of my aesthetic tastes.
Is he generally considered a minimalist?

Not at all.  Feldman is more of a 'loner,' the only thing 'minimal' about his music is the sparseness of his materials within a piece.  But, people will categorize because those materials, even for the lengthier pieces, are 'minimal.'

His procedures are completely different from what 'qualifies' as in that School of Minimalism a la Glass, Reich, and (earlier) John Adams.

[Monsieur Croche]

Pärt's Tabula Rasa has to be one of the greatest pieces of minimalism ever created IMHO. A masterpiece.

I haven't checked sources, but to me, Pärt's music is far from having those features of 'process' which are by definition inherent to 'minimalism.'  Yeah, stuff repeats; yeah, it is 'minimally simple' at times, but he didn't write anything like those pieces built on small repetitive cells and variants thereof. 

There is that dreadfully named category, "Spiritual Minimalism," which shares, to my ears, shares just about none of the means or procedures of early Terry Riley, early John Adams, or most all of Reich and Glass.

[amw]

there is nothing wrong with pop music, I like it - but I don't even think Glass's music is good pop music;

This is kind of my issue as well—even "early" "ground-breaking" "much better than all of his newer stuff" Glass like Music in 12 Parts sounds like 70s art rock. But without the rock. Or the art.

No shade on those who connect with it but I guess I'd rather listen to Bowie or whatever.

I don't think that particular style is completely beyond my ability to relate to. When I was getting on the flight home from Canada, knowing I would not be able to see my partner again for a long time and our schedules would soon make long conversations extremely infrequent, the piece of music I turned to was Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. (After that, Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts.) I still listen to La Monte Young's Well-Tuned Piano and Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato when time permits. I even enjoyed John Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur, presumably due to a temporary fit of insanity. Maybe I haven't yet heard the Glass piece that will resonate with me but it hasn't been any of the ones I have come across to date.

[Monsieur Croche]

I didn't vote, which is most usual for me when it comes to polls.

The term Minimalism was coined by musicologist/composer/critic Michael Nyman, and by the later full definition of the term, Riley, Glass, Reich and Adams are "minimalist" composers; Gorecki and Pärt are... just not.

I very much like some works of Riley, including his later Requiem for Adam.

Reich's Music for 18 musicians and his Different Trains I've found have a strong staying power -- over many years, these works remain vital and still hold my attention.

Adams' earlier period works are 'by the book' minimalist, with the later works veering in another direction while still retaining a number of features which are the procedures of Minimalism.  The composer said "I'm a minimalist composer who has become tired of minimalism."  I've found about half his works fine enough, with the other half either 'academic' and / or uninspired.  A lot of it sounds very well, and is downright fun, like John's book of alleged dances, or Fearful Symmetries.  I simply do not get all the huzzahs for his Harmonieliehr, which I think both academic, self-conscious and a general fail, though be it perhaps an 'interesting fail.'  Harmonium is quite good, while over the years on repeat listens it has lost its appeal.  I wonder about/ think that a lot of his music has a decent but not terribly long shelf-life for multiple repeat listens over the years -- not a crime, but a factor. His more recent Dharma at Big Sur right now I think a masterpiece, while that is 'newer' and also may have less than a 'lifetime's shelf-life.')

I think I actually made it through the entire duration Glass' 1st violin concerto once, and did make it all the way through Koyaanisqatsi only because I was at a 'mystery preview/pre-release' premiere of the film when it was first made.  Other than that, I've been unable to listen through to any of the rest of his music.  I think he is most, or only, effective as a film / theater composer.  Einstein on the Beach, for example, with all other elements in play, is tremendously effective.

The Europeans listed, not actually 'minimalist' while their music at times shares some traits, well, I think little of Part; it is often 'very pretty,' and trance-stasis effective, while I find absolutely "No there there" (to quote that lady from Oakland.)


Best regards. 

[Monsieur Croche]

Shouldn't that be Jacob Kirkegaard : Tinnitus ?    Sounds like it to me, anyway 

Sarge

Sounds like someone left a vacuum cleaner running, several rooms away...

[Monsieur Croche]

I love some of La Monte Young's work very much, but then it gets to the point the Monsieur Croche pointed out

O.K. Re: your quote tag of the moment, "Sorry, I was busy at the modernist dance party."

Dude, you simply must supply a score, a series of short(er) pieces, which are conceptually, the dance music for that party.  (This could spawn a later sequel set of 'after party' pieces titled -- doh -- "Post Modernist Dance Party.")

(You're welcome ;-)


Best regards

[Rinaldo]

Shouldn't that be Jacob Kirkegaard : Tinnitus ?    Sounds like it to me, anyway 

Sarge

Then you're hearing it right..

Jacob Kirkegaard has turned his ears inwards: His new work LABYRINTHITIS is an interactive sound piece that consists entirely of sounds generated in the artist's auditory organs ' and will cause audible responses in those of the audience.

[milk]

https://www.youtube.com/v/h0NwiTHIhGM