Minimalism: favourite works

[Petrushka]

None.
Please don't all shout at me at once,form an orderly queue.

Same here, I'm afraid.

[gurnemanz]

Nixon in China.

[Roslynmuse]

Some good answers here. I liked the Satie one; in similar vein I would say that parts of the final tableau of Petrushka do the repetitive thing to perfection ie Stravinsky knows when to stop and move on. Never been to a performance of Satie's Vexations but would like to experience it for all the reasons Jonathan Kramer gives in The Time of Music.

More seriously, I'm not sure that giving my favourite Reich titles really answers the question. The Desert Music, the much-vilified Sextet (why?) - I love them but am not totally convinced they fall within a strict definition of minimalism. It's Gonna Rain, Come Out, Drumming, Clapping Music, Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ, Music for 18 Musicians; they're the great (and often simplest) pieces for me. I've never felt wholly comfortable with John Adams, and have tried without success to see anything in Philip Glass; my affection for Terry Riley's In C is probably more down to memories of student performances than the piece itself. Are we willing to look at the Dutch version of minimalism? Andriessen's De Staat, De Tijd and De Materie are all pieces I go back to frequently.

[jayne lee wilson]

BEETHOVEN Symphony No.7 (Allegretto)
SIBELIUS Night Ride and Sunrise
DSCH Symphony No.7 (i)
...
JOHN ADAMS Shaker Loops, Common Tones in Simple Time, Fearful Symmetries (YAY! WOW! etc.), Grand Pianola Music, El Dorado (ii), Violin Concerto...
STEVE REICH Octet, Desert Music, Music for Large Ensemble, Triple Quartet...
COLIN MATTHEWS Fourth Sonata
LOUIS ANDRIESSEN De Snelheid
ANDERS HILLBORG King Tide

"MINIMALISM?" ...It's a never-ending story...
"When I use a word", Humpty-Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less..."

[MrGongGong]

BEETHOVEN Symphony No.7 (Allegretto)

Which can be used to show that what people think of as a "beautiful melody" can be purely contextual and only one by implication.

Wim Mertens is worth a mention
as is

Rzewski: Les Moutons de Panurge

[Bryn]

Which can be used to show that what people think of as a "beautiful melody" can be purely contextual and only one by implication.

Wim Mertens is worth a mention
as is

Rzewski: Les Moutons de Panurge

And Schubert: Final movement of the 'Great' C major.

Re. Rzewski, Coming Together, which uses a similar additive/subtractive repetition technique to Moutons

Oh, and Nyman's own partly self-mocking Think Slow, Act Fast and his sadly/stupidly withdrawn A Handsom, Smooth, Sweet, Smart, Clear Stroke: Or Else Play Not At All. What a Oozlum bird he can sometimes be when he puts his mind to it.

[ahinton]

And Schubert: Final movement of the 'Great' C major.

Yes, that's as effective an illustration as any of all that there is about minimalism that fails to engage me!

Rzewski, Coming Together

If only there'd been a sequel, Coming Apart...

[ahinton]

COLIN MATTHEWS Fourth Sonata

That's an interesting choice, just as it's an interesting milestone on the minimalist road, given that it's almost a less than flattering commentary on minimalism written before minimalism had really caught on in Britain (Nyman notwithstanding).

That said, it's by no means your only interesting choice here! - although you must have a kilo of patience for every milligram of mine...

The answer's "none" from me, too (as if I needed to mention that)...

[Don Petter]

I'll happily add to the 'None's Chorus'.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'll happily add to the 'None's Chorus'.

Oh, very good!

[MrGongGong]

When people say they don't like "any of it"
how much is that to do with the context in which they have listened to it ?
The last time I went to see La Monte Young (at the Barbican a few years ago) the first note lasted about 35 minutes
on a recording this would be tedious but in the hall with the presence of the rest of the audience and the liveness of the performance it was mesmerising.
Much of the music which people might attach the term to in it's purest sense is very "fragile"

Ryoji Ikeda ?

[Roehre]

I'll happily add to the 'None's Chorus'.

As I do.

[Roehre]

....Are we willing to look at the Dutch version of minimalism? Andriessen's De Staat, De Tijd and De Materie are all pieces I go back to frequently.

And what about De Volharding, with which it all started in 1972 (the recording of the premiere one of my treasured ones, the sheer brutality as it was perceived then....)

[ahinton]

Oh, very good!

And, given that 2 × 9 = Eighteen (a number to which you rather delightfully referred upthread), what about No, No, Nonette - No, No, Nonette?

Ahem...

But then what about works that might appear on the surface to be minimalist but are in fact anything but; I'm thinking, for example, of Ronald Stevenson's Passacaglia on D-S-C-H, for piano, which comprises 340+ variations on a short theme which is itself a four-note statement followed by two varied repatitions thereof - an 80-or-so-minute miracle...

[Pabmusic]

Nonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenoneno nenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenone nonenonenonenonenonenonenonenonenoneatallnoneatall noneatallnoneatallnoneatallnoneatallnoneatallnonea tallnoneatallnoneatallnoneatallnoneatallpretentiou srubbishloadarubbishsloadanotonenotonenotonenotone notonenotonenotonenotonenotonenotonenotonenotoneno tonenotonenotonenotonenotonenotone [cont. p. 94]

Sincere apologies to Ferney, whose idea I plagarised.