Minimal music, also called minimalist music, began in the 1960s from Minimal Art, an artistic movement then current in New York. That movement stressed objectivity, reduction and the absence of personal emotion, and was first applied in the visual arts; only in 1965 was it taken up in the field of music, by the critic Barbara Rose. Minimalism stands in direct contrast to modernist music, which is composed through complex technique and built from atonality, aperiodicity and fragmented rhythm. As the name suggests, this style stresses reduction: rhythm, harmony, dynamics and pitch are all restricted, and the music is built mainly by repeating short, clear, consistent rhythmic fragments which, as the melody unfolds slowly, are varied, extended or cycled. For this reason it serves mostly as background music or dance accompaniment, and is performed less often in concert halls.
Though minimal music arose in the United States, it owes much to Eastern music. Many of its representative composers were inspired by it: La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass all studied North Indian classical music and were also influenced by Japanese gagaku.
It is true that the repetitive, monotonous character of minimal music has drawn criticism – 'dull', 'hypnotic' – particularly from admirers of modernism and Western classical music. Minimal music, however, works a single material to its limit and returns to the most basic aesthetic ground, and in doing so explores the nature of music's fundamental elements. As it developed, minimalist composers began to use an increasing amount of chromatic material and the sounds of other instruments; the music entered film, theatre and opera, its influence grew considerably, and it spread even into popular music, most visibly in electronic music.
Today minimal music is in fact very close to general audiences; a film score you like may well be minimal music. Below we share a few minimal works, through which the development of this music can be traced.
La Monte Young-The Tortoise, His Dream and Journeys(1964)
John Adams: The Death of Klinghoffer(2001)- Night Chorus
Philip Glass: The HOURS performed live by Anton Batagov, piano
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