PostMinimalism

1
Post-Minimalism

• Minimalism becomes more pejorative than
  descriptive starting about 1973.
• Steve Reich

2
Characteristics of Post-Minimalism

• Post-minimalist composers include Steve Reich,
  Philip Glass, John Adams, and Michael Torke.
• Features a return to diatonic harmony which is
  often functional.
• Shares many of the same rhythmic characteristics
  of Minimalism such as ostinato, additive
  processes, and repetition.

3
Steve ReichThe Desert Music (1984) Play

• Scored for large orchestra and chorus.
• Based on the poem The Desert Music by William
  Carlos Williams.
• Consists of five movements in an arch form
  ABCBA. The middle movement also forms an arch
  form ABA.
• The first movement features harmonic cycles
  presented as a series of pulsing chords.

4
Steve ReichElectric Counterpoint (1987) Play

• Written for guitarist Pat Metheney.
• Similar to other works by Reich where a performer
  records parts of the music and then plays along
  with the tape in a live performance.
• More on Electric Counterpoint to come

5
Steve ReichDifferent Trains (1988)

• The work is scored for amplified string quartet
  and tape. The tape includes train sounds, sirens,
  spoken phrases, and material previously recorded
  by the quartet.
• Organized into thee movements
• I. America-Before the war
• II. Europe-During the war
• III. After the war
• The harmonic material is largely diatonic and
  often derived from the latent pitch patterns
  found in the spoken phrases.
• Features a process of textural/temporal
  juxtaposition with the introduction of each new
  spoken phrase.

6
The Program
7
From Chicago..Speech as compositional element
Play Score
8
John AdamsThe Chairman Dances (1985)Foxtrot for
Orchestra

• Chiang Ching, a.k.a Madame Mao, has gatecrashed
  the Presidential Banquet. She is first seen
  standing where she is most in the way of the
  waiters. After a few minutes, she brings out a
  box of paper lanterns and hangs them around the
  hall, then strips down to a cheongsam, skin-tight
  from neck to ankle and slit up to the hip. She
  signals the orchestra to play and begins dancing
  by herself. Mao is becoming excited. He steps
  down from his portrait on the wall and they begin
  to foxtrot together. They are in Yenan, dancing
  to the gramophone.

9
Chairman DancesPlay

• Foxtrot- a slow gliding walk at two beats per
  step and a fast trot at one beat per step. The
  tempo varies between 30 and 40 bars per minute,
  and the dance could be done to almost any popular
  tune in simple duple meter with regular four-bar
  phrases.
• Comes as an offshoot from Adams opera Nixon in
  China

10
Michael TorkeTelephone Book (1985) The Yellow
Pages Play

• Features a diatonic pattern which undergoes a
  process of signature transformation. This is
  created by progressively adding sharps to the
  same basic pattern.

11
Reich Remixed (1999)

• "It came about in 1996 I was in Japan with my
  ensemble, we had performed Music for 18
  Musicians and Drumming, and the young man who
  works for Nonesuch there, Hero Nakashima said to
  me, You know, you ought to do a remix album
  because theres a lot of the young DJs that are
  interested in your music.  Now, I didnt really
  know much about it but six or seven years before,
  I guess 91 or 92, I had been in London doing an
  interview for a pop keyboard magazine and they
  said to me, What do you think of the Orb?  And
  I said, 'Well, whats the Orb?  And they said,
  You dont know it?  No, I dont know.  So
  they gave me a CD of the Orb that had little
  fluffy clouds on the cover, I took it home and
  theres Electric Counterpoint in the middle of
  a drum machine and the keyboards creeping in. 
  That was my introduction to the whole scene, and
  then in the years that followed that someone
  would say to me, I heard DJ Uncle use the Come
  Out in such and such a thing, or, You ought to
  hear Tortoise, they sound like you.  But I never
  did hear DJ Uncle, and I never did hear Tortoise
  (chuckles). 
• Steve Reich in Beat Magazine

12
MegamixDJ Tranquility Bass Play

• This remix samples a number of Reichs
  compositions including
• Clapping Music
• Three Movements
• Six Marimbas
• Its Gonna Rain
• Electric Counterpoint
• Drumming
• Proverb
• City Life
• Come Out

13
DJ DNotePiano PhasePhased and Konfused Mix
Play

• Where minimalism meets turntablism.

14
The OrbLittle Fluffy Clouds from the album
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991)

• The Orb is a British electronic music group which
  pioneered ambient house music.
• (IDM vs. EDM?)
• The track samples the third movement of Reichs
  Electric Counterpoint.

15
TortoiseTen Day Interval fromTNT(1998)

• Chicago band influenced by Reich, Quincy Jones,
  Stockhausen, Bacharach.
• Sometimes referred to as math rock
• What elements in this music are similar to those
  works weve studied?