Minimalism: favourite works

[teamsaint]

I wouldn’t say I was a big fan, but I feel like going back. Reich is my favourite. I’ve started to listen to Music For 18 Musicians, 6 pianos and Music For A Large Ensemble on my portable player at the gym. Works very well on the jogging machine!

Anyone got any suggestions for other minimalist composers?

Not particularly.

But I'm going to try a bit of Charlemagne Palestine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN7ghZVZTr0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQGKzmXiOd4

Beefy, I think you will love the second one !! Hope so.

[pastoralguy]

I can't believe I've missed this thread.


Steve Reich 'Different Trains' is a wonderful piece and a work Mrs. P.G and I often listen to.

[gurnemanz]

I remember getting and enjoying Michael Torke's Chamber Works on Argo - something of a cult hit at the time (1990). Seems to be nla

[Beef Oven!]

teamsaint - yes, I did enjoy that second one, very much.

gurnemanz - thanks, I’m listening to the Torke as I type. It’s excellent! It’s available to stream on Apple Music.

pastoralguy - Yes, I’d forgotten about this thread (Alison did start it 3 years ago, now!). I totally agree about Different Trains. So poignant, too.

[jayne lee wilson]

I wouldn’t say I was a big fan, but I feel like going back. Reich is my favourite. I’ve started to listen to Music For 18 Musicians, 6 pianos and Music For A Large Ensemble on my portable player at the gym. Works very well on the jogging machine!

Anyone got any suggestions for other minimalist composers?

See #20 (Hillborg especially), but try this gorgeous 2016 album.... (which I loved so much I bought disc and download...)

http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recording-ole-buck-sinfonietta-works.aspx

Take a listen to the music of Sebastian Fagerlund (nota bene - Clarinet & Violin Concertos) on BIS too. "Minimalism" is now too much of a catch-all, but these composers have taken something essential from its Reichian, Adamsesque or other sources...

http://www.eclassical.com/labels/bis/sebastian-fagerlund-darkness-in-light.html

(The lento intenso here is soi-disant minimalism at its most, well.... intense. And spiritual sister to the dream flowing through the chaconne of the stunning John Adams Violin Concerto itself...)
The booklet note to the Fagerlund Isola album gives a very good overview of his work.
http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115...SA_booklet.pdf).

(Not to mention Spiritual Minimalists like Kancheli, Gorecki or Pärt, but that's a different chapter in a long and winding tale....)

[BBMmk2]

John Adams: Phrygian Gates

[Beef Oven!]

See #20 (Hillborg especially), but try this gorgeous 2016 album.... (which I loved so much I bought disc and download...)

http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recording-ole-buck-sinfonietta-works.aspx

Take a listen to the music of Sebastian Fagerlund (nota bene - Clarinet & Violin Concertos) on BIS too. "Minimalism" is now too much of a catch-all, but these composers have taken something essential from its Reichian, Adamsesque or other sources...

http://www.eclassical.com/labels/bis/sebastian-fagerlund-darkness-in-light.html

(The lento intenso here is soi-disant minimalism at its most, well.... intense. And spiritual sister to the dream flowing through the chaconne of the stunning John Adams Violin Concerto itself...)
The booklet note to the Fagerlund Isola album gives a very good overview of his work.
http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115...SA_booklet.pdf).

(Not to mention Spiritual Minimalists like Kancheli, Gorecki or Pärt, but that's a different chapter in a long and winding tale....)

Thanks Jayne. I enjoyed the Ole Buck and shall be returning because it’s clear there is much to his music that might not be picked up on one listen. Fagerlund I need more time with before I know what I think, there’s a fair bit of his material available on Youtube etc.

Right now though, I’m really enjoying Ol' Skool .... A new one on me is Reich's 'The Desert Music' I think this is great stuff!

[Pulcinella]

This is one of my favourite collections, bought originally as a Virgin release, LCO8:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minimalists-Adams-London-Chamber-Orchestra/dp/B00AB7J9GI/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490018369&sr=1-5&keywords=lco+london+chamber+orchestra

Adams: Shaker Loops
Glass: Façades
Reich: Eight Lines
Glass: Company
Heath: The Frontier

The London Chamber Orchestra
Music Director: Christopher Warren-Green

[Beef Oven!]

This is one of my favourite collections, bought originally as a Virgin release, LCO8:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minimalists-Adams-London-Chamber-Orchestra/dp/B00AB7J9GI/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490018369&sr=1-5&keywords=lco+london+chamber+orchestra

Adams: Shaker Loops
Glass: Façades
Reich: Eight Lines
Glass: Company
Heath: The Frontier

The London Chamber Orchestra
Music Director: Christopher Warren-Green

Mine too. Had it years. Bought it on the strength of my trusted Penguine Guide circa 1992. Have been looking for it for the last few days - nowhere to be seen.

[HighlandDougie]

A new one on me is Reich's 'The Desert Music' I think this is great stuff!

I first heard 'The Desert Music' at a Prom - I've just looked it up and am amazed/horrified that it was in 1985 (can I be that old?). It was done again in 1991, converting at least one person I know to not just Steve Reich but any music composed post-1960. Having been thrilled last week by the LPO's performance of 'Music for Eighteen Musicians' (the choreography of the marimba-swapping was something to be seen, as well as the concentration of the musicians), I think that most other supposed 'minimalists' pale by comparison with Reich, even John Adams, whom I once accosted while I was out running in the hills above Berkeley (he was walking his dog). A very sweaty HD: "Excuse me, are you John Adams?". JA: "Yes". HD "Ooerr, guv. I heard that, 'Nixon in China' at the BBC Proms. It was really good. Can I have your autograph?". OK, I made that bit about the autograph up but he was very approachable. And had a very nice dog (it was a German Pointer, I think). Not minimalists in any way but I'm increasingly fascinated by the music of Olga Neuwirth and Jürg Frey, which I feel sure Beefy will know.

[Richard Barrett]

I first heard 'The Desert Music' at a Prom - I've just looked it up and am amazed/horrified that it was in 1985

I was there too, and left after about ten minutes of Reich after getting the lie of that particular land. I was mainly there for the Xenakis in the first half, but after all those beautiful pieces Reich wrote in previous years up to and including Tehillim this seemed to be a step backwards into a sound world that was like classical music but with the interesting parts taken out and the rest repeated to fill up the empty space. This reconciliation, of what used to be a radical way of rethinking music with the tradition it had supposedly outgrown, is what really irritates me about not only Reich but also Glass and Adams. I have much more respect for "minimalist" composers who kept the rethinking process going, rather than losing their nerve: Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Morton Feldman. But I see that's not an opinion shared by very many round here!

[Serial_Apologist]

I was there too, and left after about ten minutes of Reich after getting the lie of that particular land. I was mainly there for the Xenakis in the first half, but after all those beautiful pieces Reich wrote in previous years up to and including Tehillim this seemed to be a step backwards into a sound world that was like classical music but with the interesting parts taken out and the rest repeated to fill up the empty space. This reconciliation, of what used to be a radical way of rethinking music with the tradition it had supposedly outgrown, is what really irritates me about not only Reich but also Glass and Adams. I have much more respect for "minimalist" composers who kept the rethinking process going, rather than losing their nerve: Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Morton Feldman. But I see that's not an opinion shared by very many round here!

It's very much shared where I am! I well remember an interval discussion led by Richard Steinitz and including Anthony Gilbert, David Bedford and James Dillon during one of the Huddersfield New Music broadcasts, in which they performed music by John Buller, Michael Torke and Stephen Albert. Much of the chat was concerned with controversy surrounding the Festival's embrace of Minimalism and various manfestations of Postmodernism - this was 1987, and I know because i kept the cassettes: am I that old??? The Torke work was his Adjustable Wrench, the three contributants comparing the works post-Reich language to Copland, and Bedford comparing the music's progress to a film score to a Western, but without the big melody expectation being fulfilled! That summed it up for me, and for most Minimalist music (accidentally hit the Z key there ) post-1980 approximately. As you say, its filler stuff to a void, effectively. And it's why I don't have any favorite music in this area to declare.

[Richard Barrett]

Anyway, some "favourite music that could be described as minimalist", one piece per composer, much of which has already been mentioned on the thread:

Louis Andriessen, Hoketus
Morton Feldman, Violin and String Quartet
Philip Glass, Music in Twelve Parts
Roland Kayn, Tektra
Michael Nyman, 1-100
Eliane Radigue, Trilogie de la mort
Steve Reich, Drumming
Terry Riley, Shri Camel
Frederic Rzewski, Coming Together
La Monte Young, The Well-Tuned Piano

[Pulcinella]

I first heard 'The Desert Music' at a Prom - I've just looked it up and am amazed/horrified that it was in 1985 (can I be that old?).

That Proms performance was recently as a BBC MM cover CD (previously on a Carlton BBC Radio Classics CD, also still available).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reich-Desert-Music-Adams-Shaker-x/dp/B000025BOZ/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490033266&sr=1-3&keywords=reich+desert+music

[Boilk]

The less-trodden minimalist path is a darn sight more interesting than Reich, Glass, et al. What about some of Britain's home-grown minimalist composers, who have penned some fine pieces...

Orlando Gough: Buzz Buzz Buzz Went The Honeybee
Andrew Poppy: The Object Is a Hungy Wolf
Man Jumping: Belle Dux On The Beach
King Crimson: Discipline

...and some Norwegian minimalism (remind me of Arvo Part):
Geir Jenssen: Poa Alpina