Book Description
In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called Minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind.Writings on Music documents the creative journey of this thoughtful, groundbreaking composer. These 64 short pieces include Reich's 1968 essay "Music as a Gradual Process," widely considered one of the most influential pieces of music theory in the second half of the 20th century. Subsequent essays, articles, and interviews treat Reich's early work with tape and phase shifting, showing its development into more recent work with speech melody and instrumental music. Other essays recount his exposure to non-western music -- African drumming, Balinese gamelan, Hebrew cantillation -- and the influence of these musics as structures and not as sounds. The writings include Reich's reactions to and appreciations of the works of his contemporaries (John Cage, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti) and older influences (Kurt Weill, Schoenberg). Each major work of the composer's career is also explored through notes written for performances and recordings.Paul Hillier, himself a respected figure in the early music and new music worlds, has revisited these texts, working with the author to clarify their central narrative: the aesthetic and intellectual development of an influential composer. For long-time listeners and young musicians recently introduced to his work, this book provides an opportunity to get to know Reich's music in greater depth and perspective. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Timeline of Reich's Works
This is a must have for Reich enthusiast and student. It chronicles his works and talks about his compositional style. Very interesting. ... Read more

Book Description
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Steve Reich was considered a fringe experimentalist. His work consisted largely of repeating, slowly changing patterns unlike either the serialism or the aleatory that predominated at that time. Today, however, Reich is one of the most prominent and celebrated contemporary composers, one about whom the scholarly and popular literature offers an assortment of critical, historical, and analytical perspectives. Author D.J. Hoek's bio-bibliography serves as an essential guide to this literature, comprehensively surveying Reich's life and work. Included are details of all of Reich's compositions: dates, instrumentation, premiere performances, and publishers; a discography listing all commercial recordings of the composer's oeuvre; and an annotated bibliography of publications in English, French, German, and Italian. The Reich scholar or aficionado could not find a more thorough encapsulation of his brilliant career. ... Read more

Book Description
This book offers the most detailed account so far of the early works of these four minimalist composers, putting extensive discussion of the music into a biographical perspective. The true musical minimalism of the 1960s and early 1970s is placed in the wider context of their music as a whole, and considered within the cultural conditions of the period, which saw not only the rise of minimalism in the fine arts but also crucial changes in the theory and practice of musical composition in the Western cultivated tradition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

makes you ponder what this was all about
The phenomenon of minimalist music I think is better understood from its initial stages, for after market popularity sets in the theoretical fascinations seem to dissipate, seem to become rationalized away as unimportant and cumbersome. If you take all four praticioners here, to my mind only their early works seem to hold any interest at all,it is only the only works that have a "longevity" factor, where we can still find points of interests. For it was in the early works that carried the weight into what we have now.
Musical minimalism as well is a kind of misnomer in that the term began in the visual arts and if you go there you will find the term and its results and achievments has a much more vigorous base of contemplation and export. There simply is more important things happening there, as Donald Judd,the minimalist shrine of cubes and geometric shapes in an old Army base in Marfa Texas or the flourescent lighting schemes of Dan Flavin, the powerful sculptural plates of Richard Serra,or painters abound as Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella and Bridget Riley. There simply is no comparison with the level of conceptual depth and gestural focus, what art is suppose to do, what it did, and how the concept is engaged,and how it responds to its context and art history,or a temporality (how for instance the spirit, ir-religious of course is engaged in Richard Serra, his plates where the human mind simply stands there engaged in peace with his own existence or sense of space and time). Musical minimalism has no equivalent, and it is a shame for it could have had this. La Monte Young's "Well-Tuned Piano", a 9 hour work with just intonation tunings of the piano comes close to the temporal vigours of Judd's shrine I beleive.
With the introduction of opera in the works of Glass well now we are in another dimension, for Glass resorted to traditional classical structures of opera, duets, trios, quartets, (as in Aknathen) this is no longer innovative means. Potter's book draws light on this paradigm here makes you think of these issues what minimalism did and what it is now. Was it simply a fad?, or did it produce sustainable music?, music we can return to once or twice, or was minimalism simply "grist" for the mill of the market, one time, make the cash, take the money and run. Again the importance of minimalism is found in its early repertoire, Reich fascinating threadbare music for four woodblocks was all he needed to write to proclaim a status, or Glass's early music with Farfisa organs and saxophones,"Music in Fifths" or Riley's "In C", or his "Keyboard Studies" are all relevant pieces we can return to unpretenciously.

The late Morton Feldman is of course not here. He had intense knowledge of the visual arts world and his last works sought to reclaim this paradigm for music (his Second String Quartet, and Triadic Memories, For Chritian Wolff) are works scaling long durational lengths a place where minimalism in music seems to be now a beginning point not an end. Had Feldman lived I think he would have written even longer works. Of course Cage's massive work for organ now being realized in Halberstadt Germany, a work lasting years is also a step in the right direction.

music theory exposition, and history too
Potter's book will be best appreciated by those with a much better understanding of music theory than I.However, I learned something about the personal and musical history of so-called "minimalism."(Potter falls prey to some extent to the problem of reifying an abstraction -- having first grouped some things together into a category, then searching for the true meaning of the category.)Is there a torch passed, so to speak, from Young to Riley to Reich to Glass?Glass is the only one to adamantly deny it, but Potter documents the basis for seeing it just that way (including Reich's influence on Glass).

One aspect I am keen to know more about, but which Potter doesn't stress overly much, is the striking confluence of non-Western influences.Young and Riley are both disciples of the North Indian master singer, Pandit Pran Nath, who died in 1996.Reich studied both African drumming as well as the gamelan music of Bali.Glass studied Indian music, after being immersed in serialism.With the European "classical" tradition at an impasse at the turn of the millennium, it seems only natural that the future would lie in creative fusions and combinationswith other traditions.(Not a very original idea, I realize, as evidenced by the recent emphasis of the Kronos Quartet among others.)Minimalism seems by now to be another style that passed into history and critical assessments -- is there an opening there that is being missed? ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on June 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1489 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. (Musical Men).
Author: Jonathan W. Bernard
Publication: Notes (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 2002
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: 58Issue: 4Page: 834(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description
Word count: 2198. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on December 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1134 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: a Bio-Critical Sourcebook.(Steve Reich: A Bio-Bibliography)(Book Review)
Author: Peter Lake
Publication: Notes (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2003
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: 60Issue: 2Page: 448(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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INFO...
Contains profiles on... Wayne Gretzky,Ken Dryden,Terry Fox,Nancy Greene Raine,Rick Hansen,The Veterans,Elvis Stojko,Sandra Schmirler,George Chuvalo,Paul Henderson,Silken Laumann,Diane Jones Konihowski,Cam Neely,The Olympians,Curtis Joseph,Catriona Le May Doan,Simon Whitfield,Hayley Wickenheiser,Marianne Limpert,Marnie McBean,Jean-Luc Brassard,Myriam Bedard,The All-Stars,Trevor Linden,Lorie Kane,Todd MacCulloch,Dave Rodney,The Imports,Michael "Pinball" Clemons,Vince Carter,Daniel Igali,Chris Reitsma,The Barrier Breakers,Willie O'Ree,Brian MacLeod,Chantal Petitclerc. ... Read more

Product Description
Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)for ensemble 2cl(I,II=bcl)4pftperc(6):3marimbas/2 xyl/vibvln.vlc4female voices(SSSA) All instruments and voices amplified ... Read more

Book Description
If Rhythm Science was about the flow of things, Sound Unbound is about the remix--how music, art, and literature have blurred the lines between what an artist can do and what a composer can create. In Sound Unbound, Rhythm Science author Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid asks artists to describe their work and compositional strategies in their own words. These are reports from the front lines on the role of sound and digital media in an information-based society. The topics are as diverse as the contributors: composer Steve Reich offers a memoir of his life with technology, from tape loops to video opera; Miller himself considers sampling and civilization; novelist Jonathan Lethem writes about appropriation and plagiarism; science fiction writer Bruce Sterling looks at dead media; Ron Eglash examines racial signifiers in electrical engineering; media activist Naeem Mohaiemen explores the influence of Islam on hip hop; rapper Chuck D contributes "Three Pieces"; musician Brian Eno explores the sound and history of bells; Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno interview composer-conductor Pierre Boulez; and much more. "Press 'play,'" Miller writes, "and this anthology says 'here goes.'" The groundbreaking mix CD that accompanies the book features Nam Jun Paik, the Dada Movement, John Cage, Sonic Youth, and many other examples of avant-garde music. Most of the CD's content comes from the archives of Sub Rosa, a legendary record label that has been the benchmark for archival sounds since the beginnings of electronic music.

Contributors:
David Allenby, Pierre Boulez, Catherine Corman, Chuck D, Erik Davis, Scott De Lahunta, Manuel DeLanda, Cory Doctorow, Eveline Domnitch, Frances Dyson, Ron Eglash, Brian Eno, Dmitry Gelfand, Dick Hebdige, Lee Hirsch, Vijay Iyer, Ken Jordan, Douglas Kahn, Daphne Keller, Beryl Korot, Jaron Lanier, Joseph Lanza, Jonathan Lethem, Carlo McCormick, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Moby, Naeem Mohaiemen, Alondra Nelson, Keith and Mendi Obadike, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Pauline Oliveros, Philippe Parreno, Ibrahim Quaraishi, Steve Reich, Simon Reynolds, Scanner aka Robin Rimbaud, Nadine Robinson, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Alex Steinweiss, Bruce Sterling, Lucy Walker, Saul Williams, Jeff E. Winner. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This book rocks.
I cannow quitehonestly say with conviction that others observe us in far different but still similar yet thought provoking, light-shedding manner. Wim Mertens, I believe, has done just that. Man oh man, I love nothing more than digging into a good chapter of this book. Always insightful, Mertens very colorfully relates the cause, themes, and application of "American 'minimalist' music" in a straight foward and entertaining way. A "way" that most American authors I believe have yet to go. ... Read more