BiblioGlassy

Wim Mertens

American Minimal Music

1980

© GlassPages, 1997

Cover Picture

References

• Title: American Minimal Music.
• Author: Wim Mertens.
• First Published in Belgium in 1980.
• Translated to English by J. Hautekiet.
• First English Edition Published by Kahn & Averill in 1983, London, UK.
• Published in USA by Pro/Am Music Resources Inc., New York.
• © 1983 by Wim Mertens.
• ISBN: 1-871082-00-5 (UK Edition).
• ISBN: 0-912483-15-6 (USA Edition).

Contents

007 Preface by Michael Nyman.
009 Part 1: American Minimal Music.
019 La Monte Young.
035 Terry Riley.
047 Steve Reich.
067 Philip Glass.
087 Basic Concepts of Minimal Music.
093 Part 2: The Historical Development of Basic Concepts.
096 Arnold Schoemberg.
099 Webern and Post-serialism.
101 Stockhausen.
104 John Cage.
111 Part 3: Ideology.
114 T W Adorno.
118 Libidinal Philosophy.
126 Bibliography.
128 Acknowledgments.

Total Pages 128.

Notes

The first book which deals in depth with the school of American repetitive music, better known as minimal music. The author discusses in detail the work of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass and places them in the tradition of Western music. Minimal music thus emerges as the latest stage in a development leading from Schoenberg, Webem, Stockhausen and Cage.

Considering the philosophical thinking of Deleuze and Lyotard, the representatives of the so-called French 'libidinal philosophy', and of Adorno, the author examines the degree to which the 'ecstatic dimension' is present in this music or is even consciously introduced into it.

As Michael Nyman writes in the preface: ... Merten's book ... is both analytical and polemical, distant and personal, limited to the music itself and yet positioning that music in a wider aesthetic/ideological context than is customary.

Wim Mertens, born in Belgium in 1953, studied Social & Political Science and Musicology at the Universities of Leuven and Gent.
For the B.R.T. (Belgian Radio and Television) he has produced concerts by Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk and others.
He has participated at the New Music American festivals in New York, San Francisco and Chicago.
In 1981 Mertens founded his ensemble, Soft Verdict, and Les Disques du Crepuscule have released many of their recordings. Recently he wrote the music for the Peter Greenaway film, The Belly of an Architect.

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