Minimalism

And while were on the subject; here's an email to the same freind that was on the other side of the auditorium. The piece was played by USC's school of music grad students. Technically very profficient. it was called Decasia by Gordon/Morrison. It was music to a film and premeired in Switzerland then here. The film maker had this project in mind and on a trip to North Carolina found some old film stock that was corroding and spoiling the images. He thought the travelogs and old newsreel images interesting and how the nitrates were altering the images fascinating. So the colaboration with composer began by reviewing images and final editing after composition was done.

Leland, I really enjoyed last night's performance. Much heated debate over it in the car on the way home tho. David didn't like it Harry was trying to find a grander theme, but knew he couldn't, tho tenuous life and mortality was obvious. He alternately loved parts and hated others. But I thought it was just great as being experimental. Sure if I was the editor or composer I'd have changed parts or aspects, but I loved seeing the old clips and how distorted the images were and the patterns and textures of corroded film. Plus much of contemporary art is about banal images and some of teh sequences were a bit long and repetitive, but that's minimalism. It was too loud for too long tho. I felt like I was standing by the train tracks with a locomotive going by blasting his horn at the mid point... I looked over and David was crouching in the seat with hands over his ears, obviously not liking it. Some of the distorted sounds were wonderfully orchestrated, microphonics are tricky, you love them or hate them and he did a good job of incorporating them. Then of course there were the many brake shoes from cars that were ringing in the early part. Quite a rush, tho if it was just the music I'd probably go mad or drive my neighbors crazy. the demonic sound make teh banal images depressing or ominous. I told the guys about seeing Glass' A Thousand Airplanes on the Roof years ago, but they didn't equate that with this project.

David thought the "found art" just wasn't good enough and just because it was found didn't mean to make an artwork out of it. Or even call it art. Whenever he critisizes contemporary art he alsays says it's like second rate graduate work without much thought put into it. I think I've seen more contemporary stuff that reiterates the banal images. I'm glad I got to see what they mean by corroded film and thought it a very worthwhile experience.

We saw John Adams and wife in the audience. I bet they enjoyed it since she's a photographer. We'll be able to hear his Dr. Atomic next year at the met broadcast tho I would really like his work with visuals also. So we'll miss that aspect. I'll just have to dig out his Naive and Sentimental Music CD again soon. Drive my neighbor crazy.

glenn

Hi Glenn,

Sorry, I just don't get minimalist music. I would prefer an ear wig to most of Phillip Glass' music, but maybe that's just me.

From your recent posts, it sounds like you are getting out to a lot of concerts. I got next year's LA Phil. schedule in the mail the other day; I will try to get down there for a few concerts.

Norman

Does Erik Satie count as minimalism - not one note too many nor one too few - the maximum with the minimum?

No, that's the thing, at least as far as I'm concerned. Glass' music takes a whole lot of notes to go absolutely no where. The music did make an interesting background for that 80s Japanese time elapsed movie whose name I couldn't even begin to spell. Something like Koinashagi (sorry). OK for background, but not for a serious listen. But again, that is probabaly just me.

Norman

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:
Does Erik Satie count as minimalism - not one note too many nor one too few - the maximum with the minimum?

Hi Erik,

Satie is not often classified as a minimalist, but there are significant elements of your namesake's music which foreshadow minimalism, not the least of which, and probably the most obvious, is his piece Vexations -- not quite two minutes' worth of music repeated 840 times (duration roughly 28 hours).

A Google search of "Erik Satie" and "minimalism" returns 38,000 hits, the first of which is a review the album The Minimalism Of Erik Satie by the Vienna Art Orchestra. That album uses Satie's music as a jumping off point for improvisation, and shouldn't be taken as a standard performance of Satie's work, enjoyable as it may or may not be (I haven't heard it).

If you want to read a cogent and insightful analysis of the connection between Satie and minimalism, try this excellent essay: Parallels & Points of Contact by Caitlin Rowley is a Sydney-based composer, musicologist and web designer. It's on her wonderful self-designed site Erik Satie's Crystal Ball which takes its name from composer Darius Milhaud's claim that that Satie, who died in 1925, had prophesied the major movements in classical music to appear throughout the 20th century. Here's a link for her essay:

http://www.comcen.com.au/~carowley/points.htm

Rowley discerns Satie's work as being more influential on European minimalists such as Gavin Bryars, Arvo Pärt, and Michael Nyman (cf. his film score for The Piano, which is definitely Satie-influenced) than on American minimalists such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Philip Glass; an assessment that has much merit. Aside from the aforementioned Vexations and a few other works such as the Ogives, Satie didn't use pure repetition as a compositional tool the way Riley, Reich and Glass have; it's more the spare quality of his work, the idea of "not one note too many nor one too few" as you rightly wrote, that influenced Pärt and Nyman.

Satie is often mistakenly considered a forerunner of Impression, and even more mistakenly labeled an Impressionist himself. He was a genre unto himself, closer in spirit to the Dadaist artists and poets. His use of humor was rare in the world of "serious" music, and in this, as well as some of his musical ideas, his influence on composer Frank Zappa can easily be seen; for starters, a comparison of Satie's and Zappa's titles is telling.

I've been a life long devotee of Satie; my childhood piano teacher encouraged me in learning his music, and there are overt signs of his work in my own compositions.

Fred

quote:

Originally posted by Cosmoliu:
Sorry, I just don't get minimalist music. I would prefer an ear wig to most of Phillip Glass' music, but maybe that's just me.

Norman, I'm a big fan of certain minimalist composers, but Glass is not one of them. I find his music clunky, uninspired, unimaginative, and lacking grace.

My two favorites are Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich, and if you really want a proper introduction to what I think is the best minimalism has to offer, I'd suggest these two albums:



Alina - Arvo Pärt


This album contains two compositions, one of which is performed twice and the other three times, each with slight changes of instrumentation and interpretation. In these works Pärt reflects more of the influence of Erik Satie (see my post above on this); its slow and stark soundscape is mesmerizing and transcendental.







Music for 18 Musicians - Steve Reich


This is a cornerstone work of minimalism, especially of the American school, in which small cells and motifs are used in shifting polyrhythmic repetition as the building blocks of the whole. Images that come to mind are the circuitry of a beehive, or, even more apt, a musical depiction of the inner workings of an atom.

Please try at least these two albums before dismissing all of minimalism; they're both works of great beauty.

Fred

quote:

Originally posted by fred simon:

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:
Does Erik Satie count as minimalism - not one note too many nor one too few - the maximum with the minimum?

Hi Erik,

Satie is not often classified as a minimalist, but there are significant elements of your namesake's music which foreshadow minimalism, not the least of which, and probably the most obvious, is his piece Vexations -- not quite two minutes' worth of music repeated 840 times (duration roughly 28 hours).

A Google search of "Erik Satie" and "minimalism" returns 38,000 hits, the first of which is a review the album The Minimalism Of Erik Satie by the Vienna Art Orchestra. That album uses Satie's music as a jumping off point for improvisation, and shouldn't be taken as a standard performance of Satie's work, enjoyable as it may or may not be (I haven't heard it).

If you want to read a cogent and insightful analysis of the connection between Satie and minimalism, try this excellent essay Satie and minimalism: Parallels & Points of Contact by Caitlin Rowley is a Sydney-based composer, musicologist and web designer. It's on her wonderful self-designed site Erik Satie's Crystal Ball which takes its name from composer Darius Milhaud's claim that that Satie, who died in 1925, had prophesied the major movements in classical music to appear throughout the 20th century. Here's a link for her essay:

http://www.comcen.com.au/~carowley/points.htm

Rowley discerns Satie's work as being more influential on European minimalists such as Gavin Bryars, Arvo Pärt, and Michael Nyman (cf. his film score for The Piano, which is definitely Satie-influenced) than on American minimalists such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Philip Glass; an assessment that has much merit. Aside from the aforementioned Vexations and a few other works such as the Ogives, Satie didn't use pure repetition as a compositional tool the way Riley, Reich and Glass have; it's more the spare quality of his work, the idea of "not one note too many nor one too few" as you rightly wrote, that influenced Pärt and Nyman.

Satie is often mistakenly considered a forerunner of Impression, and even more mistakenly labeled an Impressionist himself. He was a genre unto himself, closer in spirit to the Dadaist artists and poets. His use of humor was rare in the world of "serious" music, and in this, as well as some of his musical ideas, his influence on composer Frank Zappa can easily be seen; for starters, a comparison of Satie's and Zappa's titles is telling.

I've been a life long devotee of Satie; my childhood piano teacher encouraged me in learning his music, and there are overt signs of his work in my own compositions.

Fred

Fred,

What a stunning reply. Thank you Fred. I was quite a fan from an early age but it was the film 'Being there' there that really turned me on to Satie and later the french film 'Diva'. His work is sort of 'Zen and the art of piano composition' IMO.

Is it difficult to play? It seems so simple or is it deceptive? I've often thought about learning the piano and playing Satie would be a possible goal (whereas Rach3 would never be).

When I first heard Satie I was often perplexed by his endings, they seemed sort of unresolved if that makes sense. First I found it perplxing, then irritating, then humorous and now, however I don't know how they could end in any other way.

Have you heard the piano music in the french film 'Amelie' by Jean-Pierre Jeunet? It's sort of a Satie/Nyman/glass crossover and not unpleasant.

I think of Satie as being the poet of music as he says so much with so few words (notes) - who says quite so much with so few notes?

I am going to explore the website you mention. Once again, thank you for a great reply.

Regards,

Erik

Fred,

Thanks for the well crafted posts above. Well, if we at least agree on P. Glass, I guess I owe it to you and myself to try your two recommendations. Some of my favorite discoveries in the last couple of years have been on this forum. I'll keep you posted.

Norman

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:
I think of Satie as being the poet of music as he says so much with so few words (notes) - who says quite so much with so few notes?

Well said.

I've always been attracted to artists who say a lot with a little. Certainly Satie and Arvo Pärt (check out Alina if you haven't yet), in jazz there's Miles Davis, Bill Frisell, and Paul Bley, and even in poets William Carlos Williams and Robert Creeley.

Thanks for the kind words.

Fred

Interesting read. And an area I know very little about (since I own no discs by most of the main composers mentioned here - though I do have somewhere a video of the LSO performing John Cage's 4'33).

Fred - quite right to mention Davis, Kind of Blue was in many ways minimalist. (As indeed, in terms of orchestration, was the Birth of the Cool).

Out of interest, where do the modern composers I know and like fit in with minimalism? I'm thinking mainly of Ades, Adams and Norgard.

regards, Tam

I've heard some Ades, don't know where to place him. Adams I love, but some are better than others. I think he used the repetitive background as a jumping off point and has moved on with his work rather than staying stiff like Glass and Reich. I have several of Reich's and 18 musicians is great fun, and to some very annoying. I usually play it while i'm doing other things.

I had a traditional animation class and used an Adams piece and contemplated more ideas using Reich as background. But these were just exercises, but kept thinking of all the geometrics I could do. It drove one of my friends crazy listening to them all the time. I"ve passed that stage and on to other things.

I too love Satie. I"ve given more than a few of his CDs as gifts, I like Pasqual Roget's interpretations and heard him do a bunch of French short piano pieces in concert of which they were center stage. That small auditorim was absoulutely silent. Tho I don't consider him a minimalist.

Minimalism is about repetitive patterns overlayed and progressing and receeding rhythms. total abstraction, like the above cover on the gray CD. It does drive most people mad. I've often thought of it as better with visuals, that's why I posted above, to see what other people thought and experienced.

I remember seeing Koyanoskatsi with two friends in a theater when it came out. I'd just read a review and thought I'd try it as an 'art' film. One was a friend that had exposure to modern art and one was an engineer, with calculating mind but little art exposure. 15 minutes into the film the second one leaned over and said "When are they going to start speaking?" I said "I don't know if they are" he immediately froze up and I could feel the seething hate from then on. He about exploded when the lights came on (of course all directed at me, I let it pass). I had no idea what it was about going in and had told him so. James and I were in a daze from the hypnotic images and music walking out. We talked about the use of land, oppressive development and natural beauty that was expressed on the drive home. Human subjegation of the planet. Alex just didn't get it. c'est la vie.

Glenn,

I agree with you about Adams (the more so since the wonderful Klinghoffer I saw last summer, which, if memory serves me, we've discussed before). Have you heard his 9/11 piece, which I'm also rather fond of.

Ades is annoyingly talented (I've heard him play the piano live, wonderfully, and conduct stunning a Beethoven 4 and Tchaikovsky 6 and that's not to mention his composing). His recent piano quintet (which is coupled with a nice reading of the Trout) is well worth picking up.

regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Wolf:
I think [Adams] used the repetitive background as a jumping off point and has moved on with his work rather than staying stiff like Glass and Reich.

I've never thought of Reich as stiff in the first place, and not now, either. But in any case, he certain hasn't stagnated. Are you familiar with later works such as Different Trains, The Cave, and the recent You Are (Variations)? These works use certain elements of his earlier rhythmic pattern-based technique, but with an expanded harmonic palette, including the use of sudden harmonic shifts, a higher degree of tuneful melodicism, short bursts and jump-cut shifts of texture, and the use of instrumental intonation of spoken word phrases, both in alignment with the spoken words and independent of them. These works also reflect his growing interest in theatrical multimedia formats, incorporating sampled voices and sounds, film, and other visual images.

quote:

Originally posted by Wolf:
Minimalism is about repetitive patterns overlayed and progressing and receeding rhythms. total abstraction, like the above cover on the gray CD. It does drive most people mad.

Not most people, some people. And plenty of things drive some people mad.

Music based on shifting repetitive rhythmic and melodic cells is only one technique of minimalism, albeit the one most commonly associated with the genre thanks to the popularity of Glass, and, to a lesser extent, Reich.

But what of the works of Arvo Pärt, Gavin Bryars, or John Tavener? Surely Pärt's album Alina can be considered a minimalist work, but there is little similarity to the minimalism of Riley, Young, Reich, and Glass.

Or consider Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, which uses repetition but not at all in the sense of Reich's repetitive rhythmic layered melodic cells.

Rather, I'd define minimalism as music in which minimal materials are used to make a larger whole. In much, but not all, minimalism there's a pervasive stark and spare aesthetic. Finally, it's a way of making music which certainly follows the credo: "less is more."

Fred

Well put Fred,
I don't have a total knowledge of all composers and contemporary music tho i like it and look out for great Experiences. And LA has a lot to offer in that respect. I only own one Tavener and 2 Part pieces that I gave one away after a while as it was too quiet and didn't involve me enough. ALTHOUGH, I do have his DG 21 disc with 3 works, Tabula rasa, Fratres and Symphony 3 which is fabulous, great listening late at night. I've played this for some friends and they all seemed intrigued tho it's quite dark and mysterious. That said, I still wouldn't call him a minimalist. I had one early works CD I gave away because it was so bombastic and irritating to me, obviously 12 tone inspired tho he seems to have dropped that and moved on.

Yesterday I went back to Disney for the last concert which was 4 selections from Glass' Akhnaten opera and Adams conducting his own Harmonielehre which I'd not heard before. I had heard a recording of the opera many years ago. It was a stunning concert with 4 principal singers one representing Akhnaten was a counter tenor with a beautiful hymnn to sing after a wild drum based funeral march. Full LA Chorus backing vocals. Really edge of your seat involving music that was so sublime. Then Harmonielehre on the second half was a perfect foil for full orchestra and both Adams chose for being close in age. It was a good move as it was really dynamic and a good closing piece. I did hear tho many common techniques that pop up in his later big works of Naive and Sentimental Music and his Violin Concerto which I own.

Adams was interviewed beforehand which we got to hear. There were 3 criteria that they set out for this Minimalist Jukebox series. It had to be tonal rhythmically repetitive to create a pulse and has to unfold over a long time. I'm sure there are many other definitions of minimalism and composers either like or hate being labeled minimalists. But these were the criteria for this festival. Adams also made a comment about it being an American born idiom tho it has obviously spread. The roots of it are based on some of the West Coast composers influenced by eastern music, especially Gamalon, for Lou Harrison and John McPhee and Terry Riley, and Indian Ragas from Glass and West African drumming from Reich. Adams said his experience in orchestras and Harvard education separates him a bit because his work has always been symphony based and all the others were developed from what he called indigenous ensembles created by the compoosers to show off their work.

I just put on Taveners Ikon of Light and two Hymns to the Mother of God, Eonia and a few others. I'd not classify that as minimalist as in the definition above tho it's quite wonderful. I now have on a McPhee Symphony 2 and Concerto for Piano and Wind Octette and I feel it's borderline, but probably more seminal to the movement than minimalist in itself. Strong basis on eastern work tho worked into a western sensibility. Of Reich's works I have one CD with no title, but it contains 3 pieces; Proverb, Nagoya Maimbas, and City Life. The last being one of his tape loop pieces. Also music for 18 Musicians is in my collection. and one called ReMixed Reich which he gave Japanese DJs his original tapes of early works for tehm to experiment with and make trance works out of. I had his Desert Music LP and gave it away, too rough for me at the time. and I missed his production of The Cave, which I'm sure was great with visuals. I have about 8 CDs of Adams, just love his work. Tho one CD is called American Elegies which has 6 pieces only one of which is a piano piece of his. But all American composers that is really stunning work Starting with Ives' the Unanswered Question.

I know this has all stimulated me to dig back into my contemporary collection and explore it all over. I must say that I'd rather hear minimalist pieces than the late 20th C stuff that stems from the second Vienese school which i've been hearing so much of lately. It just seems friendlier. Adams made comments about that too since almost all of them had serious education in that field, but all turned away from it and pursued this tonal work.

Thanks all for your responses and interest. It sure got me uplifted to write about something I enjoy and organize my thoughts to share. I don't expect to win converts, or eliminate other composers who are associated with this field, but there seem to be some others with similar interests. It does go to show that there's good 20th C music to be explored.

Glenn,

Seems like DG were there recording some of those concerts:

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/special/?ID=dg-concerts

regards, Tam

Major Philip Glass fan here and a top tip if you like Glass is to see Koyaniskotsi (or any of the trilogy) played live.

They have the film playing in the background and the visuals combined with live music is amazing. I've seen all of them apart from Noyskatsi live and Koyaniskotsi live four times now.

Keep an eye on www.philipglass.com for dates.