Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass

by Keith Potter

• ISBN13: 9780521015011
• ISBN10: 0521015014
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The American composers la Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass are widely regarded as pioneers of the aesthetic and the techniques of minimalism in musical composition during the 1960s and early 1970s. This book offers the most detailed account so far of their early works, putting extensive discussion of the music into a biographical perspective. The true musical minimalism of these years 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	xi
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(20)
La Monte Young	21	(71)
Early years	23	(5)
Towards serialism, and away from it	28	(13)
Berkeley and Darmstadt: towards Cage, and away from him	41	(8)
New York	49	(7)
From composition to improvisation?	56	(11)
The Theatre of Eternal Music and the expansion of Young's reputation	67	(21)
The Well-Tuned Piano	80	(8)
Conclusion	88	(4)
Terry Riley	92	(59)
Early years	93	(8)
Europe: the search for the mystical experience	101	(7)
Return to San Francisco	108	(7)
Mexico and New York	115	(18)
The expansion of Riley's reputation and his changing aesthetic to 1976	133	(14)
Shri Camel	142	(5)
Conclusion	147	(4)
Steve Reich	151	(100)
Early years	153	(3)
California	156	(14)
Return to New York	170	(6)
Early minimalist compositions	176	(31)
The expansion of Reich's reputation and his changing aesthetic to 1976	207	(4)
Mature minimalist compositions	211	(36)
Music for Eighteen Musicians	231	(16)
Conclusion	247	(4)
Philip Glass	251	(91)
Early American years	252	(2)
Europe and the East	254	(6)
Return to New York	260	(13)
Early minimalist compositions	273	(30)
The expansion of Glass's reputation and his changing aesthetic to 1976	303	(4)
Mature minimalist compositions	307	(32)
Einstein on the Beach	323	(16)
Conclusion	339	(3)
Notes	342	(18)
Discography	360	(5)
Bibliography	365	(10)
Index	375