# Contemporary Classical music/composers and their roots in music history



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Is it possible in the 21st century to trace back various threads in the lineage of classical music? A kind of composers' family tree regarding influences.

I understand that serialism was viewed as the successor to the german late-romantic tradition (or more precisely german expressionism), and has since enjoyed popularity among a whole host of composers who have taken it in various new directions.

These days it seems to me that Ferneyhough is a composer who considers himself to be continuing the line of german expressionistic/serial music of the likes of Webern. Likewise Messiaen was a kind of heir to the impressionists Ravel and Debussy, as well as taking inspiration from Stravinsky's earlier works, in a contemporary way, pushing it towards modernism. 

Obviously we cannot exclude neo-classicists and neo-romantic composers, who might perhaps consider themselves the true bearers of the baton of the classical music tradition. The dissent among composers as to who really represents contemporary art (if there is such dissent) merely enriches and adds variety to the canon of modern music. 

My question is this: Can we consider music truly 'classical' if it does not in some way expand upon or draw from some strand of the western musical tradition? Can music like minimalism fit into the category of 'classical' if it intends to break way from all tradition and influence of the past?

I would be curious to hear some perspectives on where some contemporary composers might find their roots. No man is an island, and no modern composer is without influences! :devil:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I don't think it matters whether minimalism intended to be "classical" or not. If the society at large deems it "classical," then "classical" it is. I don't think there is any greater validity to the term "classical." It just means whatever people use it to mean, like any other word. 

Just about every composer studied at some point with other composers, and maybe that can give you the kind of tree than you want to construct (according to wikipedia): 

Ferneyhough studied with Lennox Berkeley, Ton de Leeuw, and Klaus Huber. 

Huber is a dead end (although he evidently taught Kaija Saariaho and Rieinhard Febel as well), but Ton de Leeuw studied with Messiaen, who studied with a lot of people, including Dupré and Widor. Berkeley studied with Boulanger and knew a lot of other composers of that time. 

Etc. 

So institutionally there are ties. 

But in terms of ideas, genealogy is much more difficult. One guy thinks of something, then a theorist says he was influenced by X and another theorist says he was influenced by Y and it's all very mysterious even if the guy himself tells us what he thinks he was influenced by.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

I though discussion of contemporary composer's roots in music of the past might help some more tentative listeners to know where various composers are coming from, and thus appreciate various trends of modern music. 

I hear some Messiaen in George Benjamin, his pupil, but I also hear Webern, Stravinsky and obviously older masters like Bach and Mozart. 

Some people ask 'who is the modern day Beethoven' and such like, I'm asking a similar question, but expecting answers to be more diffuse, and somehow therefore more accurate.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Jobis said:


> I though discussion of contemporary composer's roots in music of the past might help some more tentative listeners to know where various composers are coming from, and thus appreciate various trends of modern music.
> 
> I hear some Messiaen in George Benjamin, his pupil, but I also hear Webern, Stravinsky and obviously older masters like Bach and Mozart.
> 
> Some people ask 'who is the modern day Beethoven' and such like, I'm asking a similar question, but expecting answers to be more diffuse, and somehow therefore more accurate.


For each particular work of music there's going to be a different account of its sources. Maybe we can pick a particular contemporary composer or work and discuss the particular influences on that?


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

science said:


> For each particular work of music there's going to be a different account of its sources. Maybe we can pick a particular contemporary composer or work and discuss the particular influences on that?


Sure, if you like;

I noticed a distinct influence of Webern's Symphony Op. 21 on George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin. The vocal style was also quite like Pelleas and Melisande; very recitative-like throughout, and similarly quite indebted to Wozzeck I think. I'd be hard pressed to name names in particular but there was also a rather late medieval/early renaissance quality to the harmonies and polyphonies.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Jobis said:


> My question is this: Can we consider music truly 'classical' if it does not in some way expand upon or draw from some strand of the western musical tradition?


Perhaps not, but I'm not sure how any composer can avoid being influenced by the classical tradition. If you write down your music using conventional notation, or use the traditional system of keys, or avoid them and write atonally, you are part of the classical tradition.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Is it possible in the 21st century to trace back various threads in the lineage of classical music? A kind of composers' family tree regarding influences.
> 
> My question is this: Can we consider music truly 'classical' if it does not in some way expand upon or draw from some strand of the western musical tradition? Can music like minimalism fit into the category of 'classical' if it intends to break way from all tradition and influence of the past?


Don't pick on minimalism.

I see the Western tradition of classical music as being defined by:

(1.) Its power dominance, first by the Church, then by kings & royalty, and

(2.) By its aspirations; originally as sacred music, then as 'art' music which represents the highest aspirations of Man and what he can achieve and be.

Any music which aspires to be 'sacred' or induce a state of transcendent being, beauty, or quietude, I consider to be part of a larger, more encompassing 'sacred' tradition which includes all of Humanity, not just the Western tradition (no culture is an island).

Therefore, even D.J. Shadow's debut album is 'sacred' music in this sense, and is part of the Western classical tradition, because of its spiritual quality and the way it induces a state of calm transcendence and detachment.










Other, more obvious ways that music is part of this tradition are:

The use of instruments and ensembles which correspond to long traditions (violins, string quartets, string orchestras, chamber ensembles, pianos)

The use of musical forms which correspond to long traditions (string quartets, fugues, symphonies, suites, tone poems, piano suites, sonatas, etc.

How odd it is to see this era of historical revisionism in classical music; how these accomplishments of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley are often relegated by people who should know better as being 'not classical' or as 'modernism' (possibly the single most ignorant and damaging term ever invented to describe (discount) an important and vital branch of the classical music tree). The minimalists, at their best, define what the word classical really means. They used their own experiences, filtered through an almost unbelievable originality informed by a musicianship as audacious as it was expansive, to manifest into sound through a musical reality that illuminated their individuality.

So what can we gather from this statement?

(1) I seem to be 'anti-history,' meaning by the word 'history' the way that anything which has lasted long enough seems to accrue a 'history' at the end, which looks back on and tries to define (or in some cases re-define) what has happened. If a car accident happens, and there are ten witnesses, you will get ten different versions of what happened; this is history, not an exact science by any stretch.

(2) I see other terms, such as 'modernism,' as devisive and damaging.

(3) I see classical music as a 'tree' with diverse and diverging branches, yet all connected to the roots of the form.

(4) I see classical music as a personal expression of one's personality and being, using composition and performance (talking about your ideas through your works and instrument) as the vehicle.

So, the 'unstable' and ever-changing factor here, which will always continue to threaten rigid 'historical' notions of what classical music is, or is supposed to be, seems to be the human factor.

As each new generation comes along, living in whatever new reality that has developed, they will express their experiences of the ever-changing 'now' into the reality of the musical forms which they have learned to use, in their lifetimes, in their 'now.'

This seems diametrically opposed to any idea of a 'history' which is rigidly fixed and defined.

So, we can say, classical music is about 'time and changes,' and the time is now; and time is always changing.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I hear influences, both of a harmonic style, a type of musical gesture, and I suppose of styles or traits one might associate with one or another polarized 'tradition,' as you said of Ferneyhough in the OP. But that is more a kind of mild fun which I think is of not much more interest than detecting the slightest tinge of Tennessee in a way of speaking one might have first thought entirely from one of the northern American states -- mild interest, of not much import.

While I understand the mode of trying to define things, there is no "modern Beethoven" because Beethoven has already done the Beethoven schtick. (_It is always Beethoven, isn't it? I suppose because he was great but also because he as subtle as a hammer blow to the head_

Some say the opening minutes of the sustained Eb triad, with the orchestration rolling about within that Eb triad for near to four minutes, is the root of minimalism 
_mind to mute the volume when opening - the Youtube ads are now rampant with high volume and rancid adscore music_




{It was also Wagner who opened up that can of worms which led to atonality, by radically departing from chord function and expected harmonic motion or resolution, all done with the opening few bars of the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde. (1859) _The very tenet of this Prelude -- and pretty much the rest of Wagner thereafter -- is to delay to a prolonged extreme any harmonic resolution_}.





Others point to Pérotin: and those missa parodia he built upon drastically slowed down tunes used as bass-line, i.e. this is effectively musical activity over a long drone. (Philip Glass cited Perotin as one of his influences.)
Pérotin ~ Viderunt omnes (1198 a.c.e.)





Stravinsky is dubbed, in many a tome, the "20th Century Bach." I.e. your 'who is the 21st century Beethoven is not an invalid idea, but the "20th Century Bach" appellation of Stravinsky is not because he wrote in a neoclassical style for about a third of his career, nor that he was more than decent at counterpoint -- it is because _Stravinsky holds a similar place to his century as Bach did to his._

Bach 'summed up' the music of the two hundred years prior his time, assimilating all the techniques and working principles to date and making of them a cohesive whole -- it did not hurt that Bach was at the right juncture in time to pretty much 'cement' the change from modal to tonal practice. (Bach was distinctly conservative.) 
Stravinsky also 'summed up' the past several hundred years in the music he wrote, that not being some academic catalogue, but again, the right composer at the right time is filled with and aware of much of the music of the past, and synthesizes it into something, as did Bach, which many believe sounds like a very final statement on the content of several centuries worth of music. One difference between the two, Bach was a conservative, looking back, Stravinsky was (initially at least) not a conservative who unlike Bach, pushed 'where music would go' further to a point of notoriety / fame.

There are two composers whose 'statements on the state of music' were so monumental that the whole world remains impressed. It is simply a matter of timing and happenstance until someone comes along who may fit 'the Beethoven suit,' i.e. music will have to be pretty much in a set of conventions and forms that 'the next Beethoven' comes along and pushes that envelope so far it is in tatters, and much like Michelangelo took figure-painting to a near grotesque extreme of both pose and musculature, leaving 'nowhere to go' for the following generation of painters, 'the next Beethoven' will have to have a similar import and affect to earn the moniker.

With things as they have already happened, diversity vs. one generally accepted style, formalism still formalism but again having a huge variety, there may not be 'a next Beethoven, mold-breaker' -- the molds were broken again and again by others since Beethoven 

As far as interior or external influences, please, _our scale, in entirety of its seven tones and twelve semitones has its immediate predecessor in ancient India, then via ancient Greece, then to Rome. There is nothing really 'western' about it._ Whatever "non-western" musical principles or practice are introduced into classical music in the 20th century -- rhythms from Classical Carnatic music, African drumming, Gamelon -- the composers who have adopted those imports also adapted them for their own purposes of use. Of those 'importers,' Americans, French, etc. they remain very western, and to me anyway, have kept their national identity, i.e. Steve Reich, John Adams, Terry Riley, Philip Glass sound _very American_. Messiaen, Boulez, Barraqué all sound _very French._

To best define what is 'Western classical music,' let's return to the Pérotin:





Here is a multi-megaton explosion, _The_ leap from the oriental from whence our music was born and how music until then operated / functioned. With the Pérotin, we have what we now recognize as 'how western classical music works.' This is because _it is one of the first pieces of music in multiple parts,_ i.e. it is more than one note at a time, more than a single monophonic line (_ala Gregorian chant,_ with perhaps the addition of a parallel fourth or fifth) which was western music up until ca. 1189. This leap from monophonic to polyphonic is possibly the greatest development and change which has yet occurred in western music.

Other non-western musics are primarily monophonic, i.e. a single line: in Carnatic music, there is an improvised single line over a drone. 




Gamelan music, though highly 'polyphonic' rolls around and moves with a multiplicity of the same / similar line moving at different speeds.




Ancient Japanese Gagaku is monophonic, again with parallelism and some drones (this is a direct descendent of ancient Chinese court music.)





Whatever the western music, whichever borrowed or adapted influences taken from non-western cultures, _the distinguishing characteristic is polyphony in its most basic sense_: the sounding of multiple pitches working to create one or another sort of harmony, that harmony with some sense of 'direction,' our ears expecting an increase or decrease in the tension they create. This trait is almost uniquely distinctive, and whether it is Perotin or Steve Reich, the spectralists, ultra modern avant-garde electronic music, that trait is something all those genres share. There is the thread strung through all western music since ca. the 12th century and through the ages, and that is evidence of the continued tradition you are seeking to find and identify in later works.

With that ID, I have never thought to worry if the minimalists, for example, are a part of and connected to "the western classical music tradition," because they compose orchestral and chamber works, operas, use the western scale, and do not write monophonic music -- to me it is more a question of: 
_How could anyone think they are anything but western classical music composers working within that tradition?_


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Don't pick on minimalism.
> 
> I see the Western tradition of classical music as being defined by:
> 
> So, we can say, classical music is about 'time and changes,' and the time is now; and time is always changing.


Don't see it as an attack on minimalism, I'm just curious about what defines 'classical' music, but perhaps that's for another thread.

Minimalism seems to me to have more to do with more eastern traditions; indonesian gamelan for example, or african folk music. I am not making a value judgement on any of these traditions, but by the term 'classical' in the OP I meant the western tradition.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I hear influences, both of a harmonic style, a type of musical gesture, and I suppose of styles or traits one might associate with one or another polarized 'tradition,' as you said of Ferneyhough in the OP. But that is more a kind of mild fun which I think is of not much more interest than detecting the slightest tinge of Tennessee in a way of speaking one might have first thought entirely from one of the northern Amercan states -- mild interest, of not much import.
> 
> While I understand the mode of trying to define things, there is no "modern Beethoven" because Beethoven has already done the Beethoven schtick. (_It is always Beethoven, because he was great but I think also because he as subtle as a hammer blow to the head_
> 
> _How could anyone think they are anything but western classical music composers working within that tradition?._


My point was that there is no 21st century Beethoven, because he was one of a kind, the purpose of this thread was the look at the bigger picture, of the variety of influences on composers that make up their distinct, individual voices.


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## Guest (Jun 6, 2014)

Dunno if it's worth mentioning this, again.

The term "classical music" has its own history, and it's much more recent than "the Western Tradition" stretching back for centuries.* The term itself dates from 1810. Everything before 1810--everything that was considered "fit"--was retrofitted to this bourgeois idea. The Western Tradition in music was not a thing that everyone knew about and contributed to all along; it was a nineteenth century invention to which certain earlier music was made to fit. And not everything the we think of as belonging to that Tradition was considered "classical music" at first. At first, Mendelssohn's symphonies, yes. Mendelssohn's songs, no. Cantatas and masses, yes. Operas, no.

Seems that any "debate" on whether or not this or that recent thing should be considered part of "the classical tradition" should give at least a nod to what "the classical tradition" is, too. How it came about. And when.

*And only centuries, not millenia like with other art forms.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Every "classical" composer today can trace his ancestry back to Bach. For even to reject Bach is to acknowledge him, and when a composer selects a "direction" he or she does so by accepting or rejecting one aspect of tradition or another. Modern composers' styles are rather eclectic -- they can pick and choose from the entire history, and every once in a while come up with something "new" (chance selection of notes, improvisational sections in a piece, graphic notation which leads to decision making on the player's part, etc.), which explains why there is such variety in modern-day music, and even within the work of a single composer. 

Further, I would suspect it may prove frustrating to attempt a "family tree" for contemporary composers. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Penderecki, Xenakis, Cage -- they all play a part in the modern composer's "bag of tricks".


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> My point was that there is no 21st century Beethoven, because he was one of a kind, the purpose of this thread was the look at the bigger picture, of the variety of influences on composers that make up their distinct, individual voices.


Ives was one of a kind.

Berio was one of a kind.

John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, are each one of a kind.

To realize that _is_ to take in the bigger picture.

What you are doing by making too much out of this (not minimalism,) but the visible / audible thread of historic time-lines and context, is akin to being a 19th century person wondering if Beethoven and Wagner have any real connection to the classical tradition because they and their music are not at all like the music of the composers from the early days of the vocal music and height of glory of modal polyphony from the mid-to-late renaissance -- I.e. Beethoven and Wagner are not Pérotin, Guillaume de Machaut, or Josquin Des Pres. Really, the latter have little or nothing to do with the former, other than their works share that common western musical trait, _harmony via polyphony of one sort or another._

Are we tossing Debussy out with those minimalists you so oddly think are not a part of western classical music because Debussy was so strongly influenced by Indonesian Gamelan music that it very much changed the working principles -- and the sound -- of the music he wrote thereafter?

Is there some worry about 'cultural purity?' Or do I detect a bit of cultural jingoism vaguely floating about in the question you have about the minimalists? Are the Huns just outside the gates of Vienna again?

It seems I am as puzzled why you think the minimalists should be considered as a different case as you seem to be puzzled why they are / can be / should be -- lumped in with Beethoven and Brahms. To me, the minimalists are western classical composers who are from and working within the tradition, so much so to me that the question they are outside that tradition I find actually comic.

Clearly, some have another way to think of it than I do.

But please, if you just recall 
Phillip Glass :: Pérotin 
or 
Gamelan Music :: Debussy

I think your unease about if those composers are western, classical, and of and from that tradition will readily dissolve.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I think your unease about if those composers are western, classical, and of and from that tradition will readily dissolve.


I hope so! I don't think its unease so much as confusion as to what _is_ classical music. Contrary to what you might think, I don't make threads in order to become more and more entrenched in my own views; I'm genuinely interested in answers. If I have to play devil's advocate to make sense of all this, then I will do.

I never said I didn't think modern composers were one of a kind; I'd find it equally interesting to look at the influences that shaped Beethoven or Bach. Is it a pointless exercise? Maybe; if so then this thread will die a natural death.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

It is certainly a futile exercise to go back and forth between "influence" and "sounds kinda like a little bit to me maybe"--without any sort of sense that those are two very different things. Or that "influence" and "historical trends" are two different things as well. Debussy could be influenced by gamelan, for instance, without at all being part of any of Indonesia's history.

All three things are interesting, and all three can make for fruitful discussions. But they are different. And I see the problem with this particular thread being one of jumbling them all together. Well, that and attempting to figure out what classical music is without any sense at all of where the term itself came from or how it acquired whatever content it now has. 

Or that in a context in which "antient" music is only infrequently played (as in the entire 18th century), and has to have special organizations made for it to perpetuate whatever has managed to survive; in a context in which music is written for today and however much one might learn from music treatises from the past, one's goal as a composer is to write today's music--in that kind of context, it's hard to make hard and fast arguments for historical continuity for all those composers writing before 1810.

Michele Bokanowski (an electroacoustic composer) does not think of her music as being "classical," but then neither did Haydn or Mozart think of their music as being classical.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> ...a confusion as to what _is_ classical music.


There is no good or adequate definition for classical music any more than there is for what makes some paintings _fine art_ and others _just pictures of something_ 

That says a lot, since both arts have a long history, and so does literature, with its practitioners. No clear definitions after several thousand years must mean those definitions are really next to impossible to write.

One colleague said that after years of listening to a lot, and a wide array of it, that one day it would become very clear what is and is not classical music. That moment of gestalt after such a period of listening meaning a listener would then be able to, upon but a few moments' listening, know that a suite to a John Williams film score or Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon suite are a genre of light symphonic music but nothing "classical," or readily recognize the difference between a piano piece by Yann Tiersen compared to a piano piece by David Lang -- that difference (this to be taken with a bit of humor) between a Chopin nocturne and a piece by Richard Nanes.)

I tend to agree with that generalization of how one 'learns' to know what is classical and what is not, and think their is no other adequate, neat, and brief, definition of "what defines classical music."



Jobis said:


> I'd find it equally interesting to look at the influences that shaped Beethoven or Bach. Is it a pointless exercise?


 Yes -- and -- No.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Don't see it as an attack on minimalism, I'm just curious about what defines 'classical' music, but perhaps that's for another thread.
> 
> Minimalism seems to me to have more to do with more eastern traditions; indonesian gamelan for example, or african folk music. I am not making a value judgement on any of these traditions, but by the term 'classical' in the OP I meant the western tradition.


Listen to Kevin Volans' Concerto for piano and wind orchestra, which uses rhythmic devices as found in some African music, and then try and convince me the composer, with his study history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Volans is anything but a classical composer whose works are very much in the western classical tradition. \

Your having several times now said similar as in the above quote makes me think you are somewhat stuck on the minimalists because they are no longer sounding directly connected to Beethoven or Brahms -- which is a huge error / red herring if you do want to follow the thread of what constitutes western classical music and its tradition.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Listen to Kevin Volans' Concerto for piano and wind orchestra, which uses rhythmic devices as found in some African music, and then try and convince me the composer, with his study history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Volans is anything but a classical composer whose works are very much in the western classical tradition. \
> 
> Your having several times now said similar as in the above quote makes me think you are somewhat stuck on the minimalists because they are no longer sounding directly connected to Beethoven or Brahms -- which is a huge error / red herring if you do want to follow the thread of what constitutes western classical music and its tradition.


I won't lie I find minimalism a little difficult because I'm not sure if you're meant to actively listen or passively take it in. I can't get past the repetitiveness either, I just don't see the point in spending my time with that when there is so much else to listen to. I would conceive of it being classical but doesn't classical imply that it ages well; it seems impossible to label anything as classical that is contemporary as you said, because pieces become part of the canon over a long time, hence it being a tradition.

Ultimately behind my posts is the arrogant speculation that Minimalism will never be assimilated into the canon. I think that's down to me really struggling to grasp its appeal among music lovers, although strangely it wasn't my intention to take this thread in that direction at all when I made it. I just ramble too much.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> *...doesn't classical imply that it ages well*; it seems impossible to label anything as classical that is contemporary as you said, because pieces become part of the canon over a long time, hence it being a tradition.


*Sorry, dude, that is just whack!* Those now tried and true pieces were new at one time, and their contemporaries were not waiting around for seventy or more years of collective critical and public approval before the music of the time was safely consumed with the assurance it was classical, or great.

Haydn said he thought a composer had a very good run indeed if their music was played and in circulation for as long as seventy years (there is irony there, in that Haydn's music still speaks to many.)

His idea of longevity I think is a very reasonable one, taking into account that what is contemporary is from the contemporary creator and for the contemporary consumer, and may have no interest or resonate -- i.e. not have anything to say at all -- to later generations. This is 'the way it is' with any and all of the music about you which is contemporary, including any and all non-classical genres.

Maybe you have no taste for minimalism, and that is just okeedoh, but to wait for the several generations of collective lauding approval instead of making up your own mind is rather naff, flakey, or demonstrates a sheepish mentality of waiting for others to tell you what is and isn't worthwhile music -- which I consider 'lazy.'

*If it is from your own time, you have to make of it what you will.*

If you do not care for it, a quasi intellectual and (imo) sophomoric approach to writing it off in your own list of 'what I don't like and why,' is overkill, let alone a waste of time.

You have every right to not like a particular work or composer, without further explanation. It is really O.K. and also "approved" to simply say, "I don't care for it; it is not for me." Hell, _that is what I say about Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff _

I would reserve the rationalizing a composer or piece as being within or outside of the historic context of classical music to that handful of musicians who are trained and experienced, the music historians, the musicologists and critics whose job that seems to be


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Can't we just all agree that minimalism sucks? Such an aesthetic is better suited to architecture and home decor.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Dunno if it's worth mentioning this, again.
> 
> The term "classical music" has its own history, and it's much more recent than "the Western Tradition" stretching back for centuries.* The term itself dates from 1810. Everything before 1810--everything that was considered "fit"--was retrofitted to this bourgeois idea. The Western Tradition in music was not a thing that everyone knew about and contributed to all along; it was a nineteenth century invention to which certain earlier music was made to fit. And not everything the we think of as belonging to that Tradition was considered "classical music" at first. At first, Mendelssohn's symphonies, yes. Mendelssohn's songs, no. Cantatas and masses, yes. Operas, no.
> 
> ...


Oh, I see, someguy, so the term 'classical' is just an eighteenth century idea. The way I'm using it, I mean the entire Western tradition of 'classical' or 'high art' music, which includes sacred music going all the way back to monastic chant; not just Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

So, now that you know what I obviously implied, what's your discussion point?


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Jobis, Your interest in writing "minimalism" _out_ of the history of "classical music" is, well ... We all know what that kind of history-writing can lead to. Anyone who knows the history of writing history knows how such exclusions leads not simply to bad history but can be masks for all manner of insidious politics. I don't think you intend that. Why do you want to go there? Personal agenda is a poor way to write history. Writing accurately about the history of 20th century music means taking account of its many-ness -- including the many-ness of its sources.

Richard Taruskin, _Music in the Late Twentieth Century_, vol. 5 of _The Oxford History of Western Music_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 396: "Minimalism has unquestionably been the most influential, worldwide, of any musical movement born since the Second World War. It is the first (and so far the only) literate musical style born in the New World to have exerted a decisive influence on the Old. It is the musical incarnation of 'the American century.' No wonder it has been controversial."

P. 352: "Minimalism can neither be strictly delimited to the 'classical' sphere nor divorced from it... Its existence and success have thus been among the strongest challenges to the demarcation between 'high' and 'popular' culture on which most twentieth-century esthetic theorizing and artistic practice have depended... Reich had a university education and a more formal initiation into the literate tradition of music ... They are the first generation of musicians who grew up taking those technologies [records, TV, radio] and all their implications for granted. They received their formative musical experiences from records and broadcasts, and they founded their idea of the musical world on the full range of experiences to which those technologies gave access. One could fairly say, on these grounds, that the minimalists constitute the first truly and authentically and fundamentally and exclusively _twentieth-century_ generation of musicians."

*Fact: Philip Glass studied under Nadia Boulanger -- as did about 1/2 the American (and other) composers of the 20th century.

*Fact: Terry Riley earned a M.A. in music in 1961 from the University of California in Berkeley by writing a 12-tone composition (a string trio).

*Fact: Steve Reich did 3 years of graduate study at Julliard, studying under pedagogues such as Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987). He later enrolled at Mills College so that he could study under Luciano Berio, and there received a Masters in 1963. Taruskin, p. 386: "It was the sort of training that usually led to a career as an elite modernist rather than an avant-gardist."

*Fact: Reich "has stated that the impressions that led him to his own personal musical predilections, and eventually to his decision to attempt a career as a composer date from his 15th year, when friends introduced him, in close succession, to recordings of *Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and bebop, then the most modern form of jazz.*" (Taruskin, _Late Twentieth Century_, p. 368). Taruskin adds: "The obvious common denominator of what might seem the three unrelated styles that aroused his enthusiasm is, of course, the presence of a strongly articulated subtactile pulse, the very thing that Reich (who participated in the first performances) contributed to [Riley's] _In C_."

*Fact: "The force behind [Terry] Riley's perhaps unexpected access to a major commercial 'classical' label [Columbia] was David Behrman, *a Harvard-trained composer* and sound engineer who had been converted to experimental music, and who worked from 1965 to 1970 as a producer for Columbia Masterworks. There he was given the go-ahead by the label's president Goddard Lieberson (1911-1977), *an Eastman-trained composer*, to sample the counterculture..." (Taruskin, p. 366).

Can we put this one to rest?


----------



## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Can't we just all agree that minimalism sucks? Such an aesthetic is better suited to architecture and home decor.


Ask yourself how you would respond if someone said that about the music that you enjoy and respect. I'm sorry that your ears do not permit you to hear the innovations and originality of "minimalism" -- which is, of course, not a particularly accurate or enlightening term. ("Atonalism" is similarly and just as inaccurately invoked as an epithet to denounce certain brands of music.) Can we do a little better in the way we discuss things that don't appeal to us?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Alypius said:


> Jobis, Your interest in writing "minimalism" _out_ of the history of "classical music" is, well ... We all know what that kind of history-writing can lead to. Anyone who knows the history of writing history knows how such exclusions leads not simply to bad history but can be masks for all manner of insidious politics. I don't think you intend that. Why do you want to go there? Personal agenda is a poor way to write history. Writing accurately about the history of 20th century music means taking account of its many-ness. And writing accurately means acknowledging that the history of music (as any art) means acknowledging the many-ness of the sources.
> 
> Richard Taruskin, _Music in the Late Twentieth Century_, vol. 5 of _The Oxford History of Western Music_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 396: "Minimalism has unquestionably been the most influential, worldwide, of any musical movement born since the Second World War. It is the first (and so far the only) literate musical style born in the New World to have exerted a decisive influence on the Old. It is the musical incarnation of 'the American century.' No wonder it has been controversial."
> 
> ...


That's an *excellent *defense of Glass & company, and it exposes the insidious politics behind such exclusions, as well. I don't think I would have been that brave; an aversion to infractions has been deeply imbedded into the scars of my back. You go ahead and fight the good fight; I'll see you in Vallhalla. (heads towards stage left, and collapses)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Can't we just all agree that minimalism sucks?


Just like 'we' can not all 'just agree' that Tchaikovsky sucks... the answer is, "Actually, _no_."



Lope de Aguirre said:


> Such an aesthetic is better suited to architecture and home decor.


Maybe yes, maybe no.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Can't we just all agree that minimalism sucks? Such an aesthetic is better suited to architecture and home decor.


Lope, I'm very, very disappointed in your response. But I must admit, the home décor jab was clever.

But the question remains: _why _do you think minimalism sucks? I know that you _do_ like serial music, so my guess is that you like 'intellectual' music, in which the 'meaning' or system is 'hidden' within the fabric. 
With minimalism, the process is all on the surface, and nothing is hidden. Is that it?


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Alypius said:


> Ask yourself how you would respond if someone said that about the music that you enjoy and respect. I'm sorry that your ears do not permit you to hear the innovations and originality of "minimalism" -- which is, of course, not a particularly accurate or enlightening term. ("Atonalism" is similarly and just as inaccurately invoked as an epithet to denounce certain brands of music.) Can we do a little better in the way we discuss things that don't appeal to us?


You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius.

'Repetitivism' might be better term. Tee-hee!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Lope, I'm very, very disappointed in your response. But I must admit, the home décor jab was clever.
> 
> But the question remains: _why _do you think minimalism sucks? I know that you _do_ like serial music, so my guess is that you like 'intellectual' music, in which the 'meaning' or system is 'hidden' within the fabric.
> With minimalism, the process is all on the surface, and nothing is hidden. Is that it?


For me personally, a good serial piece just sounds better than a minimalist piece of similar calibre. I can't understand why exactly I prefer serialism, but I think a lot of minimalist harmony is too predictable and banal, and I don't like a pulse-like rhythm when placed in the forefront of one's listening experience.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Ultimately behind my posts is the speculation that Minimalism will never be assimilated into the canon.


As you've said, that is speculation and there is no real telling what will be regularly played and considered part of the future canon of classical music, (while that includes a real possibility of now popular antique music falling out of favor, of course, and would then make of that music fallen out of favor, by your argument as having then failed that test of time, no longer part of the classical canon 

But maybe you think all minimalism sounds the same, or is like the earlier music of Philip Glass? You've not mentioned any one or another composer in all of this.

I am opposite in the opinion I have of some of this music, so find it hard to not imagine that some of the pieces below -- all 'minimalist' composers -- will not get continual play, and be regularly enough consumed / listened to for at least several generations to come:

(I have not listed below anything by Philip Glass: nothing I have heard by him has held my interest to even make it all the way through. Maybe the music of the various minimalists is all like that to you 

Steve Reich:
_Music for Eighteen Musicians_




_Different Trains_













John Adams:
_Harmonium_ (1/3)




_Violin Concerto_




_Dharma at Big Sur_


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> As you've said, that is speculation and there is no real telling what will be regularly played and considered part of the future canon of classical music, (while that includes a real possibility of now popular antique music falling out of favor, of course, and would then make of that music fallen out of favor, by your argument, no loner a part of the classical canon
> 
> But maybe you think all minimalism sounds the same, or is like the earlier music of Philip Glass? You've not mentioned any one or another composer in all of this.
> 
> ...


John Adams seems like the kind of composer I could learn to appreciate, but I don't know if i'd ever love his music. Its as I said, I find the diatonic harmonies just a bit hackneyed and dull, and the pulse-like quality of it (particularly Reich's work) too monotonous.

Is classical music only a matter of having a formal musical education? Honestly I'd take an amateur who makes interesting music over an expert who writes the kind of stuff that could put me to sleep.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

PetrB's list of links is very helpful. John Adams is an important case in point since while he began his public composing career using a "minimalist" vocabulary (evident in _China Gates_ and _Shaker Loops_), he clearly incorporated all manner of other vocabularies into his palette (Note: Adams had formal training in serialist methods while in grad school). PetrB didn't include _Harmonielehre_ in his fine list -- which, I believe, is one of Adams' finest works precisely because it takes that the so-called "minimalist" idiom in wild unforeseen directions, and interestingly, in self-conscious dialogue with Schoenberg. Also, _Dharma at Big Sur_ is a self-conscious homage to Lou Harrison and Terry Riley and thus deliberately incorporates and alters their languages -- much as his _My Father Knew Charles Ives_ incorporates and alters Ives' languages. And so its minimalist character is a _self-conscious_ nod to what Adams sees as a _past tradition_ that he can be inspired by, honor and at the same time depart from.

One other point: How does one account, historically, for the fact that "minimalism" is inspiring a new generation of classically trained composers both to absorb its vocabulary and to take it new places? What does it say that "minimalism" is so much a part of the classical "canon" that it inspires a movement that both incorporates it and simulataneously moves _away_ from it? Here are two samples of contemporary post-minimalism from young composers, one from 2009 (Judd Greenstein) and another from 2013 (Bryce Dessner). And both are performed by contemporary music ensembles (NOW Ensemble, Kronos Quartet) with elite classical training.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Lope, I'm very, very disappointed in your response. But I must admit, the home décor jab was clever.
> 
> But the question remains: _why _do you think minimalism sucks? I know that you _do_ like serial music, so my guess is that you like 'intellectual' music, in which the 'meaning' or system is 'hidden' within the fabric.
> With minimalism, the process is all on the surface, and nothing is hidden. Is that it?


Yes, partly. There's no development. I don't appreciate repetitive, static music. I love Feldman but with him the music is always shifting and morphing, it isn't merely repeating itself ad nauseum. Are you familiar with Pran Nath? His music could be reasonably referred to as minimalist and yet it's never dull, never blandly repetitive and/or lifeless.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, I see, someguy, so the term 'classical' is just an eighteenth century idea. The way I'm using it, I mean the entire Western tradition of 'classical' or 'high art' music, which includes sacred music going all the way back to monastic chant; not just Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
> 
> So, now that you know what I obviously implied, what's your discussion point?


Um Bill, if you have followed any of my other posts at all, if you had read the post you're referring to at all, you would know already that what I have said, over and over again, is that the term classical music dates from 1810 (in Germany--it didn't catch on in English-speaking countries until the mid-1820s). That is, it is a *nineteenth* century idea. The eighteenth century did not have this term at all. Haydn and Mozart, if they thought of this kind of thing at all, thought of themselves as romantics.

The entire Western tradition of "high art" or "classical" music is itself a nineteenth (nineteen) century idea as well, embodied in the term "classical music." Music written before 1810 was retrofitted into a more or less coherent picture of a long-running tradition. A picture, needless to say, that would have likely surprised the heck outta the people who were put into this "tradition." We'll never know for sure, of course. We can only know one thing, that no one in the eighteenth century could have thought of themselves as classical composers because "classical music" did not exist in the 18th century.

So my discussion point is that the whole picture given in your post about sacred music morphing into secular music but all being considered "high art," is a picture made possible, in large part, by the nineteenth century idea of "The Western Art Tradition." I'm questioning the idea that things could have developed the way you have presented them. Once things had happened, some of them could easily have been fitted into a coherent picture of a long tradition. Only the things that fit the new (nineteenth century) story are selected, of course. I'm further suggesting (I'm not a historian, and I certainly haven't studied the arts in the centuries before 1810 in any detail) that there is probably plenty of music to be found that was not included in the grand (everything in the nineteenth century was grand, that's for sure!) scheme of "The Western Tradition."


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius.
> 
> 'Repetitivism' might be better term. Tee-hee!


Tee-hee, indeed that brings to mind the profligate and sometimes seemingingly endless sequencing by Tchaikovsky of his lovely melodic bits. Repetitive and really boring.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> Um Bill, if you have followed any of my other posts at all, if you had read the post you're referring to at all, you would know already that what I have said, over and over again, is that the term classical music dates from 1810 (in Germany--it didn't catch on in English-speaking countries until the mid-1820s). That is, it is a *nineteenth* century idea. The eighteenth century did not have this term at all. Haydn and Mozart, if they thought of this kind of thing at all, thought of themselves as romantics.
> 
> The entire Western tradition of "high art" or "classical" music is itself a nineteenth (nineteen) century idea as well, embodied in the term "classical music." Music written before 1810 was retrofitted into a more or less coherent picture of a long-running tradition. A picture, needless to say, that would have likely surprised the heck outta the people who were put into this "tradition." We'll never know for sure, of course. We can only know one thing, that no one in the eighteenth century could have thought of themselves as classical composers because "classical music" did not exist in the 18th century.
> 
> So my discussion point is that the whole picture given in your post about sacred music morphing into secular music but all being considered "high art," is a picture made possible, in large part, by the nineteenth century idea of "The Western Art Tradition." I'm questioning the idea that things could have developed the way you have presented them. Once things had happened, some of them could easily have been fitted into a coherent picture of a long tradition. Only the things that fit the new (nineteenth century) story are selected, of course. I'm further suggesting (I'm not a historian, and I certainly haven't studied the arts in the centuries before 1810 in any detail) that there is probably plenty of music to be found that was not included in the grand (everything in the nineteenth century was grand, that's for sure!) scheme of "The Western Tradition."


This is definitely a nice thing to think about, but it doesn't actually render the term "classical music" invalid. All words have a history, and in spite of their histories we need to use them to communicate, maybe even just to think.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Tee-hee, indeed that brings to mind the profligate and sometimes seemingingly endless sequencing by Tchaikovsky of his lovely melodic bits. Repetitive and really boring.


Enjoy: 




 _*sarcasm intended* or not_

But lets not forget there's also that guy Beethoven, Oh but if it's just a motif is OK no? or is it that it has to be German and 'brutal'?


Nah, minimalism and co. makes me tired. I have nothing against it but I'm not a believer either and this opinion matters as much as any other which is is very little if not nothing when you take the limit...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> But lets not forget there's also that guy Beethoven, Oh but if it's just a motif is OK no? or is it that it has to be German and 'brutal'?


Brahms could do it too.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius.
> 
> 'Repetitivism' might be better term. Tee-hee!


No no no, that's not minimalism.

It's more like:

You make a good point, Alypius. 
You make a good point, Alypius. 
You make a good point, Alypius. 
You make a great point, Alypius.
You make a great point, Alypius. 
You make a great point, Alypius. 
You've made a great point, Alypius. 
You've made a great point, Alypius.
You've made a great point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent rep, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent rep, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent rep, Alypius. 
You've written an excellent rep, Alypius. 
You've written an excellent reply, Alypius. 
You've written a brilliant reply , Violadude.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

violadude said:


> No no no, that's not minimalism.
> 
> It's more like:
> 
> ...


Minimalist poetry! That's quite something, congrats Violadude.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

science said:


> Brahms could do it too.


Repetition is an essential part of music. Most of us object to what we perceive to be an excess of repetition; ie minimalism breaking the golden mean that our ears and minds construct for us. Do the benefits of enjoying minimalism really make it worth breaking down one's perceptions of what makes a piece of music good? I need some form of quality control for my ears.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Is classical music only a matter of having a formal musical education? Honestly I'd take an amateur who makes interesting music over an expert who writes the kind of stuff that could put me to sleep.


Maybe the most you are going to be able to take away from all of this is: there are fundamentally two basic groups of musical genres, _Pop and Non-Pop,_ and within each there is a wide variety of sub-genres.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> But lets not forget there's also that guy Beethoven, Oh but if it's just a motif is OK no? or is it that it has to be German and 'brutal'?


Yeah, luigi has overdone it here and there as well (while Mozart never stumbled into that fatal error, or he kept that ball up in enough fresh air that it did not get stale. lol)
It just has to have that repetition used as much as Tchaikovsky or earlier Philip Glass.



Richannes Wrahms said:


> Nah, minimalism and co. makes me tired. I have nothing against it but I'm not a believer either and this opinion matters as much as any other which is is very little if not nothing when you take the limit...


...and I find Tchaikovsky that wearying and boring due to the predominant trait of endless sequencing.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Hey, if you guys think Minimalism is repetitive and boring, I'd hate to know what your reaction to Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room" would be.

I don't say this often at all, but THAT'S one of those pieces that I appreciate the concept of much more than I would want to actually sit through the whole thing.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Maybe the most you are going to be able to take away from all of this is: there are fundamentally two basic groups of musical genres, _Pop and Non-Pop,_ and within each there is a wide variety of sub-genres.


Pop just means popular though, and didn't exist (as we know it) before the 20th century. It would be more accurate to talk about Folk versus Classical. Then again that didn't answer my question about what the difference is.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Pop just means popular though, and didn't exist (as we know it) before the 20th century. *It would be more accurate to talk about Folk versus Classical.* Then again that didn't answer my question about what the difference is.


*"It would be more accurate to talk about Folk versus Classical."* -- Well, at least you understand that much.

I now pass this torch on to anyone who cares to carry it to those who show themselves as intransigent or stone deaf:









I'm off, to return to my arcadian poppy-strewn fields of Elysium.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

violadude said:


> Hey, if you guys think Minimalism is repetitive and boring, I'd hate to know what your reaction to Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room" would be.
> 
> I don't say this often at all, but THAT'S one of those pieces that I appreciate the concept of much more than I would want to actually sit through the whole thing.


Ah, but is it _music_? 

(I think it's definitely worth listening to.)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> Hey, if you guys think Minimalism is repetitive and boring, I'd hate to know what your reaction to Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room" would be.


Hey! I've much enjoyed listening to _I am Sitting in a Room._ and I've listened to it more than once -- granted not as repeatedly as other pieces -- and I know you are both sincere and having a bit of fun with those who just do not / can not / will not accept minimalism or other sorts of modern / contemporary as "classical." LOL.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> No no no, that's not minimalism.
> 
> It's more like:


Actually, a bit more like hearing all five of these lines simultaneously, in vertical fashion:
(line 1: Flute / Line 2: Clarinet / Line 3: Alto Saxophone / Line 4: Viola / Line 5: 'Cello)

You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good point, Alypius. You make a good 
You make a great point, Alypius. You make a great point, Alypius. You make a great point, 
You've made a great point, Alypius. You've made a great point, Alypius. You've made a great point, Alypius. 
You've made an excellent point, Alypius. You
Alypius, you've made an excellent rep. Alypius, You've made an excellent rep, Alyp

and of course, that is just one small aspect of 'minimalist' technique.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Actually, a bit more like:
> 
> 
> violadude said:
> ...


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I wonder if anyone would care to create a verbal analogy for a work in sonata form in which theme A is "You make a good point, Alypius." 

Thanks in advance.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> PetrB said:
> 
> 
> > Actually, a bit more like:
> ...


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

science said:


> I wonder if anyone would care to create a verbal analogy for a work in sonata form in which theme A is "You make a good point, Alypius."
> 
> Thanks in advance.


You make
You make
You make a good point, Alypius.
You make a good point, Alypius.
Make a point
Make a good
I make a good point, science.

I make
I point
Good Alypius
Make good
You science
You

You make a good point Alypius
You make a good point Alypius
Make a point
You make good
You make a good point, science


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> I wonder if anyone would care to create a verbal analogy for a work in sonata form in which theme A is "You make a good point, Alypius."
> 
> Thanks in advance.


You're welcome to it, but I think sonata form has been pretty well made plain and clear often enough.

But hey, if you have the time and want to spend it that way, and deal with a limited breadth of horizontal online space which is very desirable to parallel written scores, and perhaps find the software so the viewer could scroll said graphic score horizontally in a window -- well, it might be a boon to some, who knows


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> *"It would be more accurate to talk about Folk versus Classical."* -- Well, at least you understand that much.
> 
> I now pass this torch on to anyone who cares to carry it to those who show themselves as intransigent or stone deaf:
> 
> ...


Will you at least tell me why minimalism is considered classical and say... Brian Eno isn't?


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Will you at least tell me why minimalism is considered classical and say... Brian Eno isn't?


No. I'm done with it. It is, seriously, not that important. I've decided I will only take up the issue with those for whom it is a matter of an on a need to know basis hinging upon a life or death type of situation.

Someone else will have to pick up that torch I've already mentioned...







,,,






,,,


----------



## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

A long time ago someone asked about the experience of listening to minimalist music. I find that it makes me very aware to small differences in sound. I believe this is called habituation. When my ears get used to something repetitive, slight variations feel very jarring and intense. There's an emotional component that operates very differently from the way Tchaikovsky et al project emotion. Among minimalist composers I am partial to Ann Southam and Steve Reich.

I recently took my 6yo daughter to a concert in which the Glass piece was the one that absolutely riveted her attention, more than the Mozart or Renaissance dances on the program.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

PetrB said:


> No. I'm done with it. It is, seriously, not that important. I've decided I will only take up the issue with those for whom it is a matter of a need to know basis hinging upon a life or death type of situation.
> 
> Someone else will have to pick up that torch I've already mentioned...
> 
> ...


Oke doke, until we meet again... in another thread.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Jobis said:


> Will you at least tell me why minimalism is considered classical and say... Brian Eno isn't?


This will be my last post on this thread. It is because this thread has, for some time, been descending into something that is not about an honest inquiry or an honest discussion.

I think artists have something to say--all artists, whether we like them or not, whether their insights are perennial or passing. In the case of composers, I believe that listening is the first step. I do not believe that certain contributors to this thread are listening -- either to composers that don't appeal to them or for that matter to the world. They hear what they want to hear. So be it. John Cage argued for many things, but one of his central insights was about the meaning of listening. He asked us to hear the world. Can we hear our world? Can we hear the noise for what it is? John Cage grew up in Los Angeles and spent many years in New York. New York has distinctive sounds. A certain industrial, mechanical repetition is part of the sonics of city life, but so too is the endlessly subtle variants in that noise, hidden rhythms and the wonderfully aleatoric. There is a reason why Steve Reich, in speaking of his art, distinguishes 1970s/1980s New York from 1905 Vienna. He's listening to his world. He also brings his own native training as a drummer, specifically a jazz drummer, to his art. Certain classical music listeners define music in terms of harmonic variation. That is not the center of Reich's art (nor the center of many so-called "minimalists"). If you define classical music that way, then you are incapable of hearing what he is doing. Reich has pointed to the music of John Coltrane as one inspiration, specifically, Coltrane's _Africa Sessions_, in which Coltrane and his band play 25-30 minutes on a single E major chord and yet bring enormous creativity to it. If all you're hearing is the harmonic rhythm, then of course you're going to be bored. But can you hear music like a drummer hears it? Steve Reich is what happens when a drummer becomes a classical composer. He was, early in his career, inspired by African drummers, specifically drummers he encountered in Ghana. I lived and worked in West Africa for a time. I studied, as a hobby, the music of the balaphone (the marimba is the Western equivalent). In practice across parts of West Africa, a balaphone band has 4 or 5 players. Westerners might hear the music as "boring", as "repetitive." And that is because they are not attuned to rhythm. When I played classical music to certain African friends, they thought it boring. And that was because they heard it with African ears -- they listened for polyrhythms and heard "boring" mono-rhythm. Their ears weren't attuned to polyphony as our ears are not attuned to polyrhythms. They did like jazz -- and it was because they heard what they were looking for, polyrhythms and improvisation. An African dancer can hear 4 to 5 rhythms being played and capture them in their dance steps. Can you? Can you hear that many rhythms and express them in your body movement? Taruskin, in his epic _Oxford History of Western Music_, has distinguished Western music as "literate." In that way, it can be preserved, recreated, to some extent, centuries later. We can play medieval music because it got written down. What Reich brings to his art is precisely his elite training as a "literate" musician. You don't have to like it. You can disagree with its aesthetic. But one reason that Reich's music communicates to many people, including many beyond the confines of the so-called "classical world," is that he listens to his urban world. And so I come back to John Cage. Are you listening?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Alypius said:


> ...this thread has, for some time, been descending into something that is not about an honest inquiry or an honest discussion.


Amen to _that,_ brother!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Okay you've convinced me! I can't promise I'll enjoy it but I'll listen with more open ears from now on.

Speaking of African music, the music of the Aka Pygmies is incredible, the complex improvised polyphony - pygmy vocal music is among the most advanced in the world. 






I'm glad we segway-ed back into talking about influences on composers.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Nereffid said:


> Ah, but is it _music_?
> 
> (I think it's definitely worth listening to.)


Ya I would call it music AND worth listening to.

I just don't go out of my way to listen to it often.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

With all this talk about Africans and polyrhythm, I think a great mini-documentary about the drumming village of Baro, Guinea is in order.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

science said:


> I wonder if anyone would care to create a verbal analogy for a work in sonata form in which theme A is "You make a good point, Alypius."
> 
> Thanks in advance.


During my stint as an instructor of literature, especially in Creative Writing classes, I often made use of musical forms as patterns for structuring poetry or essays. Such won't work for every situation, but it can prove useful for certain assignments or at minimum a way to think about or approach the structuring of a piece.

Take sonata form. The form utilizes two contrasting themes (in contrasting but related keys), the dynamic A theme and the lyrical B theme. They are generally repeated. Then they undergo a development. Then they return, with the themes shifted to a single key, that of the original A theme. So one has the standard "sonata form" in a nutshell. Of course, variations are possible. One could add an intro and a coda, but the format has a structure worth considering for non-musical applications.

To take up your challenge, if I figure the line "You make a good point, Alypius." as the A theme (your suggestion), I need a second line, a contrasting, more lyrical expression perhaps, for the second theme. How about "I'm won over on the idea." My second line makes use of vowel sounds to contrast against the first line's stronger consonants. This is one way to think of the contrast; there are others. But how to designate the key change? You might adopt a second language. Render the B theme line into French: Je suis gagné sur l'idée. You still have a vowel sense in that tongue which would be weaker in, say, German. So now we have our themes. Let's try the form:

*Listen up!
You make a good point, Alypius.
Je suis gagné sur l'idée.
You make a good point, Alypius.
Je suis gagné sur l'idée.
Alypius, Alypius, your point 
So well made,
A point, an idea, sur l'idée, so winning,
Je suis gagné, Alypius, on the idea.
You make a good point, Alypius.
I'm won over on the idea
Thanks, Alypius, for making that point.*

Now ... that is nothing I would ever write (or even conceive of writing) were I not concentrating on the sonata form as I understand it. Of course, one could utilize paragraphs to serve as themes, and this will produce a work more extended in scope. But above I attempted a catchy introduction, the utilization of two contrasting themes in different keys, a development section, and a recapitulation bringing back my dual thematic material in the same key.

I could go on to develop a second verse (second movement) utilizing a slowly flowing passage in, say, variation form. A scherzo third verse could be supplied written in some form of tri-meter, with a contrasting trio (maybe three words repeated three times!), and then a closing movement -- possibly another sonata form, or maybe a rondo. In the end, one will most likely have a poem or piece that they would not normally have conceived.

If it works for you, fine. If not ... the world remains a vast place. Keep looking.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> You're welcome to it, but I think sonata form has been pretty well made plain and clear often enough.
> 
> But hey, if you have the time and want to spend it that way, and deal with a limited breadth of horizontal online space which is very desirable to parallel written scores, and perhaps find the software so the viewer could scroll said graphic score horizontally in a window -- well, it might be a boon to some, who knows


Yeah.

I wasn't that serious.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

One of the ideas of this thread seems to have been to locate the influences on the minimalists, with an implicit assumption that they could be legitimized by doing so or delegitimized by a failure to find such influences.

One of the main minimalists has been Philip Glass, and among his more famous works are his string quartets. Among the most famous recordings of those works is that by the Kronos Quartet:

View attachment 44023


Interestingly, I believe I heard today two works that show Glass's influence forward:

View attachment 44022


I would bet that anyone who listens to those two recordings sequentially will hear Glass's influence strongly on both Rorem and Meyer (both works were composed in the mid-90s, more than a decade after, for instance, Glass's second string quartet).

Neither Meyer nor Rorem is likely to be much admired here, but they certainly are not far outside the mainest and streamiest mainstream of the classical tradition c. 1945.

So even if perhaps Glass and Reich and company were decisive breaks away from the classical tradition in such a way that they should be considered as being outside that tradition (a point I would not actually concede but here I let it pass just for argument's sake), their influences now seem to be assimilating into the mainstream classical tradition.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> Yeah. I wasn't that serious.


I knew that, but in the age of literalism I wanted to warn off / or deflect, any who might actually think to take up such a project.

It is sort of like the whole world has become a place where 'the big people' have to mind what they say, because the toddlers might be listening and actually understanding what is said.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> I knew that, but in the age of literalism I wanted to warn off / or deflect, any who might actually think to take up such a project.
> 
> It is sort of like the whole world has become a place where 'the big people' have to mind what they say, because the toddlers might be listening and actually understanding what is said.


Well, I'm listening and I usually understand, so if that bothers you, go on minding what you say!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> Well, I'm listening and I usually understand, so if that bothers you, go on minding what you say!


Just playing to that public image of type: being the elitist classical music guy who is massively condescending....


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Just playing to that public image of type: being the elitist classical music guy who is massively condescending....


I don't think I'm allowed to comment on this beyond what I've already said many times, some of which probably wasn't allowed either!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> I don't think I'm allowed to comment on this beyond what I've already said many times, some of which probably wasn't allowed either!


Dude, I just said it, beating all to the punch and saving any from the kiddie supervisor's slap on the hand. Brave and putting myself out to avert the heat going to others. I'm a saint, that's what I am, a saint. I want a medal for it.:lol:


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