1. Terminology

The origins of the term „minimalist music“can be traced back to a style of music written by a number of mostly American composers between 1964 and 1976. The term itself is not indisputable, a problem which Werner Grünzweig addresses in detail in his article in the MGG (Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart – Music throughout History to the Present). Minimalist music became a common term in the early 1970s encompassing up until then such labels as “…pulse music, pattern music, repetitive music…” (Grünzweig, 295). Despite the fact that the composers concerned rejected the label due to its negative connotations it has remained in use up to the present day.

La Monte Young’s “Composition 1960 no. 7” has been ascribed the status of being the first “minimalist” composition containing “the most famous and significant fifth in music history” (Götte, 16). However, the minimalist music style only achieved its breakthrough some four years later with Terry Riley’s “In C”.

2. Leading Exponents

There is general agreement about which composers write minimalist music. Alongside Young and Riley (both born in 1935) two other Americans, Steve Reich (1936 - ) and Philip Glass (1937 - ), are recognised as creators of this trend. The composers were born within 18 months of one another which suggests a “school” or “generation”; an impression further supported by the fact that some knew one other personally and were active in their colleagues ensembles (Reich lived from 1962 to 1965 in California and was a sporadic member of Riley’s ensemble). Both Reich and Glass were active in the New York jazz scene while Young and Riley met each other at the University of California in Berkley.

As with all attempts to identify a school or movement it becomes clear on closer inspection that the work of the four composers is pronouncedly heterogeneous in character. La Monte Young’s style of minimalism “sustained pitches, the idea of endlessness, reduction in an extreme form and working with just intonation” (Götte, 25) distinguishes itself immediately from that of his three colleagues.

Chance and improvisation are important elements for Riley which bring his conception of “interpreter and composer” into a “scarcely to be redressed ‘false relation’” (Göte, 37) according to the ideals of minimalist music formulated by Reich. The fact that Riley has been able to establish himself so adamantly on the list of minimalist composers is probably due to the significance attributed to the work “In C” written in 1964. It should be mentioned that this work, contrary to popular myth, rather than being an isolated occurrence is in fact a further development of work from previous years. For this reason it is surprising that the status of “revolutionary pioneering work” is given to a piece where chance operations and elements related to free jazz are just as present as minimalist qualities.

The two remaining composers, Reich and Glass, are ultimately most similar to one another and have contributed most to defining a “minimalist” sound.

3. “Music as a Gradual Process”

In 1968 Reich wrote an essay “Music as a Gradual Process” in which he describes within a short space his personal motivations behind composition and the associated musical aesthetic.

The most significant statements are summarised here:

(a) “Gradual Process”, as the title suggests, doesn’t imply the task of composing but rather the occurring musical process; the work itself.

(b) Musical processes are the basis of the piece (a kind of nucleus) as well as determining the internal structure (“note to note details”).

(c) Reich distinguishes himself from serial composers as well as from Cage (and his I-Ching chance operations) in asserting that musical processes should be perceptible for the listener. The process itself thus becomes an important part of the piece rather than remaining a hidden procedure or abstract concept.

(d) Reich recognises musical performance from either people or machines as being equally valid (“A tape is interesting when it’s an interesting tape”).

(e) The composer is the inventor of the process and therefore the piece even though all sound events aren’t predictable. Nevertheless the composer has to accept the result of his processes.

(f) Viewed in this way the composition resolves itself in the moment the process is set in operation by the composer and functions alone. The musical becomes literally ‘impersonal’.

(g) The use of hidden musical moments is not desired. Everything should be perceived by the ear. The richness of the sound tapestry prevents boredom.

(h) All musical processes need to proceed very slowly in order to give the ear the chance to perceive them. (“…I mean extremely gradual”).

(i) Music that develops out of processes can’t offer opportunities for improvisation. The concepts of musical process and improvisation are mutually exclusive. (cf. Reich, 9ff).

This theoretical basis remains on a meta-level. Concrete musical phenomena such as melody, harmony and rhythm are not addressed by Reich even though the treatment of such is definitive for the minimalist sound. If one views the above mentioned characteristics as Reich’s personal manifesto for minimalist music (a term which he tried to avoid in the essay by using its title – ‘gradual process’ - repeatedly throughout), then “Music for 18 Musicians”, composed in 1976, is the end of pure minimalist music as Reich abandons the strict development according to his own criteria.

4. Characteristics of Minimalist Music

In observing the music of the four “founding fathers” three very different approaches become apparent:

Steve Reich works with the smallest of musical cells, which are developed constantly thus reaching ever new transformations (cf. “Drumming”), an approach which “…belongs to the highest demands of artistic economy…” (Grünzweig, 298)

In contrast to this Terry Riley works almost lavishly with his material achieving “…a continual, constant pulse and slowly changing sound produced by many different motives…” (Grünzweig, 298; cf. “In C”).

A third approach can be observed in the work of La Monte Young who achieves a unique effect “through especially long, sustained pitches or a completely mechanical repetition of a cluster… removing melodic reminiscences from the music and releasing sound into apparently suspended or ‘frozen’ time” (Grünzweig, 298; cf. “Composition 1960 no. 7”).

There are, in addition, a number of other typical characteristics commonly associated with minimalist music. To be fair to the various composers of the minimalist “school” it should be mentioned that the following characteristics are not prescriptive: many of the works commonly denoted as “minimalist” contain most while the least of the works contain all.

One of these typical characteristics is that the music is built from “patterns”, meaning small (rhythmic and melodic) motif cells which, contrary to European classical tradition, do not strive toward immediate development. Rather they are repeated unchanged over a long time period until, finally, the process of variation and step-by-step change is completed.

Another significant characteristic is phase shifting, something which developed out of electronic music. When two tapes with identical content are played simultaneously acoustic interference occurs due to minute differences in playback speed. Reich’s pieces “It’s gonna rain” (1965) and “Come out” (1966) are based on this technique. Later he transferred this electronic technique to traditional instruments, e.g. “Piano Phase” (1967) whereby two pianos play an identical phrase, one of them after a while playing slightly faster with the result that after five minutes the slightly faster piano has overtaken the piano at original tempo. This continual phase shifting exists in contrast to non-continual phase shifting whereby two rhythmic designs overlay each other for an extended period of time, one of them then begins jumping around the other, shifting incrementally in small note values. An example for this can be found in “Clapping Music” (1971).

Another way of dealing with gradual change is through the use of additive processes (cf. Teetz, 194). “Drumming” (1971) by Steve Reich uses an eight quaver note motif (in 6/4 time) at first reduced to a single pulse with rests being replaced by notes until the phrase takes its final shape. In a similar way Philip Glass used additive processes for “Music in Similar Motion” (1969). Here patterns are created and changed by adding and subtracting notes and rests shifting in relation to one another.

The application of such techniques can lead to a variety of psycho-acoustic phenomena which Reich addressed in “Music as a Gradual Process”:

“Even when all the cards are on the table and everyone hears what is gradually happening in a musical process, there are still enough mysteries to satisfy all. These mysteries are the impersonal, unintended, psycho-acoustic by-products of the intended process. These might include sub-melodies within repeated melodic patterns, stereophonic effects due to listener location, slight irregularities in performance, harmonies, difference tones, etc” (Reich, 9ff).

The most widely recognised of these phenomena – the “sub-melodies” – are audible patterns which are not actually played: “resulting patterns” (Teetz, 194). Such patterns can be created effectively with electronic aids such as pre-recorded “loops” or the use of “delay” (cf. Teetz, 195).

A further typical characteristic of minimalist music is a clearly felt pulse (not always a clearly felt meter) which is a reference for musicians and listeners in an otherwise complex rhythmic tapestry; a technique Reich borrowed from African drumming.

5. Influences

Jazz and Rock as well as non European music were important sources for composers like Reich and Glass who were concerned with achieving a significant contrast to the European and American art music of the time. Glass, Riley and Young studied Indian music intensively and Reich spent some time in Ghana at the University of Accra. All had been involved in jazz to a significant extent which influenced their later music to varying degrees; the music of Young and Riley often contains improvisatory elements, leaving possibility and initiative up to the performer, which is less the case in the music of Reich and Glass.

Minimalist movements from other fields of art were also important for the development of minimalist music. Of particular importance was minimalist painting and the Fluxus Movement in New York during the early 1960s. Painters such as Stella and the sculptors Donald Judd and Robert Morris were chief exponents of minimalism in the visual arts.

6. Subsequent Generations of Minimalism and Minimalist Music in Europe

Aside from the four composers mentioned, the radically new version of modern music which came out of the USA exercised a fascination over composers throughout the world in the coming decades. It is, however, of great difficulty, if not impossible, to compile a list of “second generation” minimalist composers. In his table of contents Götte mentions John Adams, Michael Nyman, Frederic Rzewski, Phill Niblock, Charlemagne Palestine, Karel Goeyvarts and even Peter Michael Hamel (cf. Götte, 5). Composers such as Louis Andriessen and artists existing somewhere between classical and pop/rock, e.g. Brian Eno and Mike Oldfield, are also often mentioned in the context of ‘minimalism’.

The background to this inconsistency is due to that fact that in the early 1970s a large number of composers began to grapple with the new trend and, in vastly different ways, incorporate it into their own existing style. Götte has attempted a classification of this confusing area (Götte, 99):

a) Composers whose origins lie in another musical style and who changed over to minimalism. Götte gives the example of the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. The definition of this category, particularly with reference to Andriessen, needs to be broadened by the word “sporadic”. Andriessen only composed in a minimalist style for five years (1972-1976) thereafter obtaining a more permeable character in the 1980s. Further examples given in this category are the American composer John Adams and successful British composer of film music Michael Nyman.

b) Composers who have experimented more or less intensively and consciously with repetitive structures in a few works. Peter Michael Hamel is a composer who might fall into this category (cf. Götte, 176ff). Györgi Ligeti, who often expressed a fascination for Reich’s music, could fit in here too. However Ligeti’s work is so full of different influences that it would be more than short-sighted to describe him as a ‘minimalist’ (cf. Ligeti, 25).

c) Composers who have incorporated “minimalist concepts” (Götte, 199) into their music the significance of which not extending beyond that of an additional “colour”. Such composers often consciously work further with melodies and harmonies in the manner of the western tradition. One could mention examples of film music composers or Brian Eno’s experiments in which rock coalesces with the principles of minimalist music. In this respect the “ambient” albums are ground-breaking, especially “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”.

7. Problems with the reception of Minimalist Music in German speaking regions

A great misunderstanding becomes apparent when one observes the reception of minimalist music within German speaking regions, demonstrated clearly in Ulrich Dibelius’ article “Repetetives und Minimales” (Dibelius, 558ff). Here minimalist composers are accused of wanting to “savour the sensual pleasure of sounds even more intensely through the extended dwelling thereon and stretching the complete, beautiful moment as if under a fermata… ad infinitum” (ibid.) This emphasises, in contradiction to Reich’s remarks, a character of turning in on oneself. The point about a slow evolution of processes is not only overseen but regarded as something like compositional naiveté: “the most secure method of concealment is without a doubt the feigning of a process through the busy repetition of certain patterns of movement which, in fact, amounts to treading water whereby necessary change is either distributed over long stretches or occurs in such small doses that the impression of remaining stationary within a radius of the same remains paramount” (ibid.). Such talking at cross purposes highlights once again how difficult it is to judge music styles which don’t feel bound to a European avant-garde from the point of view of an Anton Webern influenced musical aesthetic.

References

Andriessen, Louis / Mirjam Zegers: The Art of Stealing Time. Todmorden 2002.

Dibelius, Ulrich: Moderne Musik nach 1945. München 1998.

Götte, Ulli: Minimal Music: Geschichte – Ästhetik – Umfeld. Wilhelmshaven 2000.

Grünzweig, Werner: Minimal Music. In: Ludwig Finscher u.a. (Hrsg.): Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Bd. 6, Kassel 1997.

Potter, Keith: Minimalism. In: Stanley Sadie (Hrsg.): The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians. Bd. 16, London 2001.

Reich, Steve. Writings about Music. Halifax 1974.

Teetz, Martin: Reduktion als ästhetisches Mittel. Didaktische Möglichkeiten minimalistischer Musik. In: Hans Bäßler / Ortwin Nimczik / Peter W. Schatt (Hrsg.): Neue Musik vermitteln. Mainz 2004.

Thum-Gabler, Heidi: Minimal Music. Oldershausen 2002.


This article was translated from German by Simon Barber.