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From Medieval to Live Evil: We're All Minimalists Now
A Brief History of the Minimalist Aesthetic
Minimalism is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity." ?Musically speaking, this translates to a few characteristics common to most pieces:- Slow-moving or static harmony;
- Small number of repetitive and simple rhythmic figures;
- Use of modes rather than the major/minor scales, resulting in a weaker tonality that is less directional;
- Overall effect is reflective (often contemplative or dreamy) rather than discursive.
This sacred music eschews any recognition or valorization of the listener's ego, instead, it disposes the listener to reflection and contemplation of the infinite and the ineffable. The minimalist aesthetic is well- suited to these goals. In particular, this music uses the seven modes identified by the Ancient Greeks, which, because they are used exclusively in this early church music, are now called the "Church Modes." As classical music developed after Gregorian Chant, it abandoned the Church Modes," and, from roughly 1600 until 1900, utilized the major and minor scale as the primary source of melodic and harmonic materials. Why did they avoid the modes? ?The answer is that the major scale (which is one of the Church Modes, named the "Ionian Mode") and the minor scale (which is a hybrid of another of the Church Modes, the "Aeolian Mode" with the Ionian) provide a much more powerful sense of tonality, and with that, an enormous potential for expanded musical narrative and range of emotional expression.
Remarkably, these scales were so rich that they provided many composers (including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms Schubert, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, and countless others from 1600-1900) with enough variation to express themselves in exquisitely unique and highly delineated ways. However, after 300 years, this enormous reservoir had been exhausted, and composers began to seek out other resources. In particular, French composers, like Hector Berlioz, Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, and others, were beginning to explore timbre as a primary feature of their music, taking the first steps away from the music's reliance on the powerful harmonic movements that were its engine for so many centuries. It was Claude Debussy, however, who definitively made the great leap forward by writing music that broke with the major/minor scale system and introduced the world to music in which timbre, tone color, and texture, were the defining features. ?And thus, in many of Debussy's pieces, a minimalist aesthetic reemerges at the close of the 19C in France.?
Not surprisingly, one of the musical materials best suited to this evocative and generally more contemplative pursuit was the old Church Modes, which had been ignored, as mentioned previously, by the classical tradition for 300 years. ?Debussy and others, like Maurice Ravel, and the inimitable Erik Satie, utilized the Church Modes to great effect, giving us some of the most popular and memorable classical music of the early 20C.
Impressionism to Impressions: The Minimalist Aesthetic in Jazz
In the early 1900s, jazz enters the scene and quickly becomes a popular music sensation across the country, and eventually around the world. At the beginning, there are no minimalist tendencies to be found. The first jazz style, Dixieland (1900-1930) features a great deal of group improvisation, in particular, simultaneous improvisation in the same register by the clarinet and cornet/trumpet, which results in a rather dense polyphonic texture. There are a few hints of a more subdued approach is to be found, in some of
Bix Beiderbecke
cornet1903 - 1931
The Swing Era (1930-1945) moves away from the polyphonic group improvisation, preferring instead a homophonic texture where one main melody (or soloist) is featured while the rest of the ensemble is relegated to an accompanying role. This is exactly what happened in the western classical tradition as the polyphonic Baroque Era (1600-1750) faded in favor of the homophonic Classical Era (1750-1825). [It is fascinating to note the similarities in how these styles, separated by time, culture, and disposition, developed in structurally similar ways, which I will highlight as the phenomenon occurs and reoccurs.]? There are, however, hints of minimalism that appear in the Swing Era—
Claude Thornhill
vocals1909 - 1965
While the Swing Era remains dance-oriented, some of its most innovative composers are, almost from the beginning, foreshadowing the next era.
Duke Ellington
piano1899 - 1974
Charlie Parker
saxophone, alto1920 - 1955
Bebop, however, did not last long—its dazzling instrumental pyrotechnics, breakneck tempos, sophisticated harmonies, and its (eventually) formulaic improvisations were, apparently, too limiting for the next generation of musicians.?While short-lived, Bebop's legacy is profound; it provided the musical foundation for many of the styles that followed.
A great flowering of styles emerged from Bebop but two closely related styles emerged that were decidedly different—Cool Jazz and Modal Jazz, the latter of which is exemplified exquisitely by the highest selling jazz album of all time,
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
It is here that we find, for the first time, the harmonies, modalities, and minimalist aesthetic of the French Impressionists appearing in jazz as a defining feature of the music. Davis hired the classically-trained pianist,
Bill Evans
piano1929 - 1980
In this instance, however, the two genres, jazz and classical, intertwine in a remarkable manner, with one genre (Jazz) subsuming the musical materials and aesthetic values of a previous style (Impressionism) from an entirely different genre (Classical) that itself was a movement away from the complexity of its predecessor. It is remarkable to see how artistic temperaments across centuries and disparate cultures nonetheless demonstrate such similar developmental patterns.
Rebirth of the Cool: The Rise of Minimalism
We now finally arrive at the 1960s, the era in which Minimalism emerged as a fully delineated style—but from where did it emerge? It came, in large part, from jazz and other ethnic folk and classical traditions that featured, like jazz, powerful and sophisticated rhythms. The four luminaries who founded the style, La Monte Young (b. 1935), Terry Riley (b. 1935), Steve Reich (b. 1936), and Philip Glass (b. 1937), grew up during the heyday of jazz, and witnessed the flowering of creative activity that took place as the music developed through its style periods from Swing, Bebop, Cool and Modal Jazz, and then to the avant-garde music of the 1960s. Terry Riley, who played piano bars to make a living in his early days, talks openly about the influence of jazz on his composing:The periods of jazz when I was listening the most was the time of the really great chamber music groups of
John Coltrane
saxophone1926 - 1967
Charles Mingus
bass, acoustic1922 - 1979
Gil Evans
composer / conductor1912 - 1988
Likewise, so does Steve Reich, who was a drummer and pianist:
When I was 14, life really changed musically. And the seeds for whoever I've become were sown in that year. I'd never heard any jazz...At the age of 14, through a number of friends, I heard recordings of the "Rite of Spring," the Fifth Brandenburg [Concerto], Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and the drummer
Kenny Clarke
drums1914 - 1985
I became a composer because I loved Bach, because I loved Stravinsky, because I loved jazz...
And at about the same time that was going on I was listening to John Coltrane when he was playing "My Favorite Things" and on what became "modal jazz," but what you could describe, very simply, as "playing a lot of notes to very few harmonies." An [album] like Africa Brass, which really impressed me, was basically a half an hour in [the key of] "F." Jazz musicians say, "Hey man, what's the changes?" "F." "No! F for half an hour!"
These composers, as young artists, absorbed basic elements of the jazz aesthetic—most notably its powerful rhythmic drive, its improvisatory spirit, its unpredictability, and also the harmonic approach found in the Modal and Avant-Garde periods, where harmonic movement was emancipated from its traditional, goal-oriented practices in the Swing and Bebop eras.
We're All Minimalists Now
And now to the present day. Here is a list of the classical music winners* of the Pulitzer Prize in music since 2008:- 2019 p r i s m, by Ellen Reid
- 2017 Angel's Bone, by Du Yun
- 2015 Anthracite Fields, by Julia Wolfe
- 2014 Become Ocean, by John Luther Adams
- 2013 Partita for 8 Voices, by Caroline Shaw
- 2012 Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts, by Kevin Puts
- 2011 Madame White Snake, by Zhou Long
- 2010 Violin Concerto, by Jennifer Higdon
- 2009 Double Sextet, by Steve Reich
- 2008 The Little Match Girl Passion, by David Lang
Kendrick Lamar
vocals
Henry Threadgill
woodwindsb.1944
Only three (2010, 2011, and 2012) are written in a style that closely aligns with earlier composition practices; they are complex, motivically rich, and they are developmental, by which I mean that they develop musical ideas in an organic process of musical growth and musical dialogue, much in the same way that has been done by most classical composers since the Baroque era. In a word, to coin the term used by the British musicologist, Julian Johnson, this music is discursive, creating musical narrative and "conversation," if you will, that must be approached as such by the listener.? It's not easy listening—it's unpredictable, dissonant, and at times jarring.
The other seven are either minimalist or show strong minimalist influences. That is not to say that they are all written in the same style—minimalism is 60 years old, and has been enriched by other styles and influences; at this "mature" stage, there are many variations from its initial iterations. For example, Steve Reich's Double Sextet is written in the more traditional minimalist style that defined the genre in the first place—limited number of motifs, modal tonality, repetitive figures and "loops" that can phase in and out, a groove-oriented approach with a focus on the rhythmic subtleties found in pop music and jazz. This style is easy to listen to— there are (generally) no harsh dissonances, the music is not jarring or unpredictable, and while the music does "grow" texturally and rhythmically, it eschews the teleological approach found in most classical music. The overall effect is contemplative and time-bending, creating a serene stasis, a dimension of suspended reality not unlike the effect created by the Gregorian Chant with which we began this exploration.
It appears then, that the experts have spoken—70% of recent Pulitzer classical winners of the last decade are minimalists (or minimalist leaning). It's hard not to see this as a clear message that Minimalist music and its aesthetic reigns supreme in classical music, with no close second—it is, if the Pulitzers are any measure, the dominant classical music of our time and its reach in our culture is wide and deep. Hardly any musical genre has escaped being, at least, influenced by its profound upheaval of classical music aesthetics in the mid-20C. We find it used in rock and pop of various stripes (The Who,
Pink Floyd
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1964
Genesis
band / ensemble / orchestra
King Crimson
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1969
David Bowie
vocals1947 - 2016
Kenny Wheeler
flugelhorn1930 - 2014
Tomasz Stańko
trumpet1942 - 2018
Peter Erskine
drumsb.1954
Brian Eno
synthesizerb.1948
David Sylvian
vocalsb.1958
Why has this genre become so popular? If I can be allowed to conjecture a bit here, I believe the answer is not difficult to ascertain. We live in an age where contemplative and quiet spaces have largely been eradicated by the communication technologies that increasingly prevent us from being, in a real sense, alone in the same way as people regularly were even 50 years ago. Even traditional (denominational) places of worship** in which we collectively practiced silence and where contemplative music predisposed us to prayer and reflection have been abandoned in favor of non-denominational churches that feature pop music, light shows, and multimedia spectacles that are virtually indistinguishable from rock concerts.
Our public and private spaces, both sacred and secular, have changed drastically in the last 20-30 years, but our physical and emotional need for silence and contemplative practices has not. This brings us back to Gregorian Chant, referenced at the beginning of this article, whose purpose was to assist in creating the proper environment for worship: the ego is subdued, the mind is silenced, time passes differently, and we can enter a contemplative state in which communing with the infinite is possible. In other words, the effects of Gregorian Chant are virtually indistinguishable from those of Minimalism. I do not think this is a coincidence; I believe Minimalist music is sacred music made secular, and therein lies its attraction and its success. It is the ghost of the monastery that haunts the modern world.
**I am speaking here of Christian sects; I am not aware of this phenomenon occurring in mosques, synagogues or Buddhist temples.
Epilogue: Millstatt am See, Austria
Millstatt am See is a picturesque mountain town in south-western Austria, not far from the Italian border. As legend would have it, when Domitian, the ruler of the region, converted to Catholicism in 809, he ordered hundreds and hundreds of pagan statues to be thrown into the lake, hence the name "Mill (thousand)-Statt (statue)." A Benedictine monastery was established there in 1070, which went through several changes of ownership, and was eventually abandoned in the late 18C. The buildings are still there, but the monastery is gone. Ironically, the memory of the monastery is kept alive by statues, statues of monks that haunt the town, faceless figures in prayer, heads bowed in reverence for a monastery that is no longer there.
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