Minimalist Music

[claris!netcom!wasilko@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Jeff Wasilko)]

Here is an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer about Steve Reich and Phillip
Glass:

----------------------

                             PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
 DATE: SUNDAY    April 24, 1988
 PAGE: L10                                         EDITION: FINAL
 SECTION: FEATURES     ENTERTAINMENT               LENGTH: MEDIUM
 SOURCE:  By Daniel Webster, Inquirer Music Critic
 MEMO:  CLASSICAL RECORDS
 
  2 MINIMALISTS GOING DIFFERENT WAYS
    Lumping Steve Reich and Philip Glass into one discussion is like pairing
 Mahler and Bruckner. They are hardly alike, but they are contemporaries and
 they do share ground-floor space in the tower of minimalism. 
    That term, minimalism, has been applied too broadly.  Both Glass and Reich
 have been part of that movement and continue to use elements in their music, 
 but the two have moved in contrasting directions and levels of commercial
 appeal.
    Reich's 25-year life as a composer began with explorations of rhythmic
 patterns performed first in unison, then gradually moving out of phase and
 eventually returning.  His recent record returns to those days of the 1960s
 when he was a musical explorer and less a symbol (Nonesuch 79169). Here are
 Clapping Music from 1972, It's Gonna Rain from 1965, Come Out from 1966 and
 Piano Phase from 1967.
    Two of these now seem prophetic, for in It's Gonna Rain and Come Out, Reich
 used voices taped and processed through tape recorders. The voice is heard in
 unison with itself, over and over, the taped sounds gradually drawing apart
 until only the essence of speech, the words long vanished, remain in a
 rhythmic insistent progress.
    In the first, it is the voice of Brother Walter, a charismatic preacher; in
 the second, the voice of a young murder suspect describing a moment after the
 beating he absorbed in a New York police precinct station. In both, the vivid
 words give way to sound and pulse, enlarging a moment's drama through purely
 sonic means.
    Two decades later, Reich is returning to spoken words as the basis for
 music but now using sophisticated electronic means to ''play'' voices at a
 keyboard.
    In Piano Phase, Reich develops, over 20 minutes, the implications of note
 patterns played on two pianos, the patterns slowly moving apart and back. The
 music stands alone, but it also has a didactic element.  Reich is always
 demanding that listeners hear the possibilities within minimal materials,
 implying that other composers may be wasteful in their use of similar
 material. Nurit Tilles and Edmund Niemann are the pianists.
    The Clapping Music is one of Reich's most appealing works.  Performed by
 Reich and Russ Hartenberger, this is music of the elements. The two stand
 together, clapping a rhythmic pattern and changing its tempo. The result is
 formally arresting and musically revealing as a single idea expands as its
 inner rhythmic possibilities emerge.
    Reich's most extended work, Drumming, distilled in 1970 from his earlier
 visits to West Africa to study drumming, has been newly recorded by Reich and
 his ensemble (Nonesuch CD 79170-2).
    Here, percussionists play for nearly an hour, expanding on a metrical and
 melodic pattern so spare that it hardly makes spots on the score.  Over the
 length of four sections, the players suggest melodic developments, and trace
 emotional landscapes that are comparable to those of symphonies.  This work is
 pivotal in Reich's minimalism.  The means are minimal - repetition of tiny
 elements - but the result validates Reich's role as an artist, for the music 
 is complex, subtle and expressive.
    Philip Glass has been the more visible of the minimalist founders because
 of his application of his music to theatrical works.  His latest recording is
 the sound track for a film to be released later this week, Powaqqatsi,
 (Nonesuch 79192-1).
    For this score, Glass studied South American and African music, and his
 music includes the voices of Indian chanters, a Hispanic children's choir as
 well as his usual synthesizers and percussion ensemble.
    This is commercial Glass, music meant to underline visual elements, to
 attract rock fans through his big beat approach and portent-laden electronic
 booms. With the film, the music will seem vastly more important than it does
 alone. On the record, it sounds like Glass imitating Glass.