The pioneers of minimalism - BBC4 21:00 today

[teamsaint]

Are you inferring that Kraftwerk are a blues-based rock band?

If you care to read it that way.

Imagine The Model played by a Kinks covers band.


On second thoughts, probably best not ........

[MrGongGong]

What did folks think about the second installment?

I thought it was a missed opportunity to hear some of Laurie Speigel's music

[Lat-Literal]

What did folks think about the second installment?

I thought it was a missed opportunity to hear some of Laurie Speigel's music

I caught the last fifteen minutes and now want to see the rest of it and also episode one. Quite a bit of this thread to date is about categories. In my mind, I have Riley and Reich together with Adams close by and Glass not quite as close as Adams. La Monte Young would be somewhat distinct, almost more in the direction of Cowell, Brant and Monk. I put this forward with a sort of am-I-wrong question because from what I gathered the programme was not only categorising Reich, Riley, Glass and Young as one but there was no Adams.

Secondly, what there will never be is an equivalent supportive dialogue for new age music. New Age, for example, will not be described as minimalism was as classical music's most recent "big development". And yet when people are willing to bring their categorical barriers down, is there a huge difference between, say, Glass and someone like Isham? I don't hear it. My links would extend to de Grassi, Hedges, Ackerman and others on the Windham Hill label. Most of the minimalists and the new ageists are in my CD collection. Given that the programme emphasised the significance of New York to the minimalists, I will tentatively suggest than the distinctions made are in essence just a bit of anti Californian prejudice.

Thirdly, I would agree that Kraftwerk are not rock as in rhythm and blues. However, I would question whether that matters in a context where Glass has produced works on David Bowie and the nature of the contributions of Oldfield and Bedford could be considered too before the former veers off musically in the direction of Tomita and the latter towards David Munrow.

Fouthly, I felt that some of the new minimalist music featured very briefly in the programme sounded interesting. It has if nothing else encouraged me to explore those composers. And finally, I thought Dave2002 had posted a threaded about the ice music festival in Norway to which nobody responded so I am wondering if it has disappeared? I have now seen an interesting feature on the BBC Travel programme about it. It sounds like another form of minimalism to me and also world music which has links to minimalism that are underplayed.