A Minimal Trip: programme notes

'My journey to the underground has also led to the conclusion (not particularly new) that our existing concert halls may be adequate for the classics, but not so for some types of new music which need a more theatrical setting. [...] I also deduced a recipe for the successful ‘minimal-music’ happening from the entertainment presented by Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik at the ICA. Simple idea, straightforward structure, intellectual control theatrical presence and intensity in presentation.'
– Michael Nyman (The Spectator, 11 October 1968)

In the above review dating from 1968, the British music critic and composer Michael Nyman applied for the first time the term ‘minimal music’ to a musical current that made its appearance in the early 1960S in lofts, art galleries and clubs in New York and San Francisco. The performances were initially frequented by fans of the minimal art movement in the visual arts and contemporary dance – a link that Nyman had rightly observed.

This new musical form saw the light as a counter-movement to the serialism and other systematic currents, described by Philip Glass (1937) as ‘a desert, dominated by these maniacs who were trying to make everyone write this crazy, creepy music.’ Leading figures like Glass, La Monte Young (1935), Terry Riley (1935) and Steve Reich (1936) reduced music to its essence and strove for a direct communication between composer, performer and listener. Although the term ‘minimal music’ covers various forms, techniques and intentions to this day, it points to a few common fundamental elements: simple musical building blocks and patterns spread across a relatively long period of time, the use of repetition and subtle changes and a tonal musical language. Always the same, but always different.

Shifting minds

Reich grew up on the music of Bach, Stravinsky and the bebop of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. As a student, he was initially drawn to the music of the modernist Luciano Berio, but his attempts to write serious music were so difficult that Berio asked him: ‘If you want to write tonal music, then why don’t you?’ In his earlier works, Reich focused mainly on making the musical process audible, so that the listener could clearly follow the gradual unfolding of the composition. One of the techniques he used to this end is what is known as ‘phase-shifting’. Reich discovered the procedure by accident during the transposition of a recording of a speech: from the text ‘It’s Gonna Rain’ he wanted to record ‘It’s Gonna’ on one tape and ‘Rain’ op the other. But he accidentally started the two tape recorders at the same time, and because one loop played a little bit faster, the result was a rhythmic shift that created an unusual effect. By letting the two voices run at minutely different speeds, they slowly but surely moved apart.

“What my generation did wasn’t a revolution, it was a restoration of harmony and rhythm in a whole new way, but it did bring back those essentials that people wanted, that people craved, but in a way they hadn’t heard. Now, we’re living back in a normal situation where the window is open between the street and the concert hall.”

- steve reich (the guardian, 1 march 2013)

After a few compositions for tape, Reich also applied the technique to acoustic instruments, with Clapping Music as one such example. He wrote the work in 1972, with the intention of having a work at hand where you don’t need any instruments. He apparently drew inspiration from the clapping hands of Flamenco musicians during a performance in Brussels. The principle of the composition is as follows: one musician claps a basic pattern is systematically and unvaryingly, while the other performer shifts by one beat after twelve repetitions of the same pattern. The piece ends when both performers are in unison again.

Despite his move to live instrumental music, Reich continued to use the tape as an instrument in its own right in his compositions. Thus, in Triple Quartet, he created the illusion of a three-part quartet by adding previously recorded parts to a live string quartet. Reich composed the work in in 1998 on a commission from the renowned Kronos Quartet, drawing inspiration from the final movement of Bartók’s String Quartet No 4. Reich also provided a version without tape, for twelve (or more) strings.

From underground to mainstream

Philip Glass had also received an extensive musical education, including at the Juilliard School in New York and then in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. But the basis for his own style came only after a job as a scoring assistant to the Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. This came about almost by accident: ‘Ravi and his tabla player, Alla Rakha, kept telling me that I was doing everything all wrong No matter how hard I tried to write down music, they kept shaking their heads. Out of despair, I erased all the bar lines – and suddenly, I realized that Indian music cannot be divided up as western theory prescribes. That understanding was as if the creative light had suddenly come on.’

In the principle of additive structure, in which patterns are lengthened or shortened by one note at a time, Glass found the foundation for his music. Back in New York, he continued working on this and joined Reich’s ensemble, among others (later, Glass would found his own ensemble), with which he performed his works in underground clubs and art galleries. To make ends meet, Glass initially lived off jobs like taxi driver and handyman – he and Reich even ran their own moving company for a while. But things changed when, in 1976, Glass broke through with his opera Einstein on the Beach.

From then on, Glass’ style become more lyrical and less radical, and therefore more accessible to a wider audience. In 1981 he deliberately aimed to achieve this with his Glassworks, a ‘Walkman-suitable’ work for more pop-minded listeners. The six short, simple pieces with arpeggios at various speeds and figures that keep repeating are a typical example of Glass’ direct style. His almost hypnotic music also lent itself perfectly to the big screen, as is evident from his successful scores for films such as Koyaanisqatsi, The Hours and The Truman Show.

“There is a serious connection between contemporary pop music and Baroque music and the new tradition of minimal music. So, a piece of minimalism by me is obviously minimal, but it refers back to the 17th century variation techniques and forward to techniques of writing pop music. There’s a lot of melody. There’s more melody in my music than in any other minimalist.”

- michael nyman (red bull music academy daily, 15 january 2016)

From Baroque to pop

Thanks, in part, to the record industry, minimalism reached a wider public in the mid 1970s. The ensembles of Glass and Reich toured the world as veritable rock bands. Minimalism thus gained a foothold in Europe as well, where composers like Michael Nyman (1944) forged links with the classical, West European musical tradition. Nyman combined the Baroque series of variations and the pulsating rhythm of American minimalism into a more melodic variant, which was particularly well suited to film scores. His popularity was due, in part, to the music for films by Peter Greenaway and the soundtrack for Jane Campion’s The Piano in 1993 – and in particular the catchy theme song The Heart Asks Pleasure First. The Belgian composer Wim Mertens (1953) also broke through thanks to his score for a film by Greenaway. The well-known tune Struggle for Pleasure is part of the soundtrack for Greenaway’s The Belly of an Architect. Like Nyman, Mertens shared a love for lyricism, as appears from the enchanting melodies in Hedgehog Skin.

Elaborating further on the ideas of the minimalists, a new generation went a step further in the course of the 1980s. Composers like David Lang (1957) sought even more rapprochement between contemporary classical music and pop culture, and went in search of new forms of presentation – including with his collective Bang on a Can. Lang’s eclectic style cannot easily be categorised, as he finds inspiration everywhere, from games and opera to liturgical texts. For the song cycle The Writings dating from 2005, he drew on five texts from the Old Testament connected to the Jewish holidays. The sober, repetitive score adds to the emotional impact of the philosophical texts, about what it means to be human and all the associated emotions.

The music of the Swedish composer Thomas Jennefelt (1954) also has a keen expressiveness. By limiting himself to a minimal number of musical resources, his music fits in with the principles of minimalism. He stated that he was influences by Baroque music, American minimalism and the Swedish choral tradition. All these influences come together in his choral cycle Villarosa Sarialdi, written in 1993.