Steve Reich

I have bought a book on minimalism, and one of the pioneers in the style was Steve Reich (born 1936).


This piece called Clapping Music (1972) consists of different performers performing the same rhythm out of phase with each other.


The same concept, sort of, appears in this composition called Piano Phase (1967). What's funny about this film is that a piece for two pianos and two pianists is played by one guy. That one person does both parts is sort of creepy. It also sort of negates the reason for doing it at all.

Minimalism is the opposite of serialism. You could do a piece where absolutely nothing repeats (serialist) or you could do one where there is nothing but repeats (minimalist). What I would like to hear is a minimalist serialist composition. Maybe I should write one.

One of the purposes of blogging for me is to give structure to my own learning.


This is the beginning of Drumming (1971), maybe his most famous piece. The whole piece is about 10 times as long as this clip. After this anything by Philip Glass will be a relief.

If you finish listening to all of these, you never have to listen to Reich again. I always listen to whatever the Kronos Quartet is playing, and they do some Reich.

All these works precede the classic work that marks the official beginning of the minimalist era: Glass' Einstein on the Beach (1976). In the audience at Satyagraha I was sitting next to someone who had seen this opera several times. I still have not. After Drumming I wonder if I'm ready.

Rioting

There are reports of rioting at the opera in Leipzig--see here. I will definitely have to look into this. It's been almost a century since anyone has reported this. It would appear that German audiences have limits after all.

According to various sources there was rioting at the opera:

25 August 1830, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, an uprising followed a performance of Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici.

September 10, 1838, in Paris at a performance of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini with Gilbert Duprez in the title-role.

May 30 1913, in Paris, the premier performance, by the Ballets Russes, of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

"To my knowledge, there hasn't been a significant classical music riot since 1973, when New Yorkers inside the beautiful Carnegie Hall booed so loudly at the US premier of Steve Reich's Four Organs that conductor Michael Tilson Thomas had to abandon the performance halfway through." See here Stretching the definition.

I think I was referring to the Ballets Russes riot. I haven't witnessed any riots at the opera.

Minimalists

I am researching the music of the last 30 years in order to write a chapter about it. I have already compiled and am working on a list of operas. See here.

Minimalism descends from the avant garde of the 1950's and is led by Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley. The first and last of these three I am familiar with through listening to the recordings of the Kronos Quartet. Kronos used to rehearse in the school near my house in Berkeley. I am a big fan of Kronos.

An early landmark is Steve Reich's "Drumming," 1970-71. Which I have heard. It's, what can I say, it's ... a lot of drumming. Not percussion, just drumming. How more minimal can you get? There used to be people who jammed on drums for hours on end on the cement stairs on the Bay at the head of Hyde Street. You could join in if you brought your own drum. They sort of swung, if I recall correctly. Reich is just drumming.

Some of his early stuff is actually tape manipulations of people talking, which I consider more avant garde than minimalist. Glass is the most minimal of the minimalists. He just does simple triads and arpeggios over and over until your mind goes completely numb.

I have been investigating the work of Arvo Pärt recently and find him repetitive. [Insert laughter here.] That is a gag line. If I have to explain it, it isn't funny. He is doing antique textures--Schütz or Perotin--with modern harmony. It generally has a religious context, and is in fact, intensely religious.

The rest of the group of minimalists are John Adams (not so minimal), Le Monte Young, Meredith Monk, Sol Lewitt, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman. Except for Adams, I can't tell you anything about these guys.

It is possible to get your brain around the music of the minimalist school which makes them a huge improvement over most of serialism. Less is more.