The composers once called "minimalist," different as they were, shared certain traits. They embraced tonality and repetition at a time when serious composers disdained both; and they all rejected the label "minimalist." As a marketing tool, the label did its job for me in the 1980s. I was sold on the idea of composers who made a lot from a little.
[Photo: AKHNATEN, staged at the Metropolitan Opera, to be broadcast to theatres Live in HD this month.]
Preparing this list, I took an hour or so to listen again to Steve Reich's Variations for orchestra. The colors are bright and warm, the texture transparent. While much of the ensemble percolates with rapid little motifs, sustained chords in the brass loom and fall like stately arches over the action. When we focus closely, we hear each new motif emerge from the background patterns and recede.
Other Reich pieces, even those for small ensembles like Six Pianos, still share most of these traits. Sure, in one way, the music is static, certainly not telling a story or making an argument as Beethoven would do. But, it's a living organic active entity, performed with virtuosic concentration and precision by musicians in close concert, music that we can either let wash over us, or we can concentrate on the way minute shifts in the pattern readjust the whole texture. So focused, relentless, energetic, and connected, Reich's music can be, for player and listener alike, a musical representation of what athletes and creative artists call being "in the zone." (See my review of a live performance of Drumming.)
The other minimalists' compositions put us in the zone, though they have their own signature sounds.
On a purely personal note, I feel grateful to these composers for opening a new chapter in my life. Hearing music by Glass, Reich, and Adams was like watching a painter paint: the joy was in perceiving the process, and composition suddenly became something accessible that I could learn by doing. At age 26, I'd found through the minimalists a new avocation.
Here, then, are my appreciations of the minimalists, a list that I expect to update on my new page, The Minimalist Zone.
- Philip Glass
- 05/2016 Philip Glass: An Affinity with Bach? Glass responded to this question on Terry Gross's Fresh Air, in a month when I'd seen a documentary about his life and I'd read his memoir. I enlarge on his answer.
- 06/2012 Staging Philip Glass: Kepler at Spoleto . I was gratified to see that the director himself responded to my review.
- 01/2009 Oh, Mr. Glass? is what I wanted to tell Philip Glass when I encountered him during a staged concert of AKHNATEN at Emory in 2009.
- 07/2008 Jokers at the Gate: Batman and Barbarians concerns timely disturbing themes that showed up both in the libretto of Glass's opera Barbarians at the Gates and in the Batman movie of 2008.
- 04/2008 Glass Full: Gandhi Opera at the Met relates the experience seeing an opera I'd known well by hearing only, Satyagraha. This wasn't live on screen, but actually at the Met.
- Steve Reich
- 05/2016 Stephen and Steve: Sondheim Appreciates Reich . Thanks to YouTube, I saw a staged conversation between the two composers, with performances of pieces that show some mutual appreciation. The Broadway musical Pacific Overtures was the first by Stephen Sondheim to be composed under the influence of Reich. 05/2017 Pacific Overtures: Sondheim's Joy
- 07/2012 Drumming Live with Sonic Generator . This review of a live performance is the best piece I've written about Reich, and one of the most satisfying pieces I've written about anything.
- John Adams
- 10/2008 Thanks to and from Composer John Adams is my general appreciation of Adams after I read his memoir.
- 07/2016 Slow Motion Emotion: John Adams's "Christian Zeal and Activity" explores a piece that chokes me up with something akin to joy.
- 10/2015 Nixon's Voice reflects on Nixon in China by Adams, Alice Goodman, and Peter Sellars, along with other representations of Nixon in fiction and film.
- 11/2008 Doctor Atomic Staged Two Ways considers the live in HD staging of the Adams - Sellars opera at the Met, and a concert staging in Atlanta.
- 07/2006 30 Second Composer on John Adams details my correspondence online with a composer who has worked with Adams.
- 07/2006 Composer John Adams Musical Landscapes reflects on Adams's own description of his music.
- Minimalism Adopted by Other Composers
- 04/2008 Nothing Minimal About It concerns a staged concert performance of Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat at Emory University, 2008.
- 11/2018 Nico Muhly's Marnie live in HD from the Met reviews an opera by a composer that I first encountered in person, when I thought he was an undergraduate composition student at the local university. I soon discovered that he was already world-famous, and part-time assistant to Philip Glass.
- During his long tenure with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano has cultivated composers whose works often show the influence of John Adams. Here are a couple of articles about some of those: 05/2015 Phoenix meets Firebird: Music at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra ; and 04/2013 Robert Spano and the ASO: Bringing New Composers into the Family. Adams's music is frequently performed in Atlanta, and he has been our guest several times. I've seen him conduct his second violin concerto for us.
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