This program, first broadcast on January 13, 2013, examines different forms of minimalist music and focuses on four essential figures in its development: Morton Feldman, who sought to avoid the rhetoric of composition and wrote graphic as well as fully notated scores; Robert Ashley, whose electro-acoustic music transformed opera and redefined conceptions of music; Pauline Oliveros, an improviser and composer who devised methods for real-time improvised electronic music, and who also incorporated meditation techniques into her music; and La Monte Young, who brought together improvisation and composition for his landmark minimalist scores. I read passages from my own interviews with all four composers, and play these works:
MORTON FELDMAN
Piece For Four Pianos (1957)
Rothko Chapel, Part 1 (1971)
ROBERT ASHLEY
Atalanta (Acts of God), Episode 1: “Max” (1985) [excerpt]
Automatic Writing (1979) [excerpt]
PAULINE OLIVEROS
Crone Music, Part 3 (1989)
The Tuning Meditation (1971)
LA MONTE YOUNG
The Melodic Version (1984) of The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer from The Four Dreams of China [excerpt]
Link to:
Music: SFCR Radio Shows 2012–2018
For more on these composers, see:
Music Book: Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, Second Edition
More Cool Sites To Visit! – Music
For more on Robert Ashley, see:
Music Book: SONIC TRANSPORTS: “Blue” Gene Tyranny Essay, part 6
Music Essay: Anne LeBaron, Hyperopera, and Crescent City: Some Historical Perspectives
Music Essay: You Can Always Go Downtown
Music Lecture: My Experiences of Surrealism in 20th-Century American Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #12, A Tribute to Robert Ashley
Music: SFCR Radio Show #35, Electro-Acoustic Music, part 3: Musicians and Synthesized Sound
For more on Robert Ashley and Morton Feldman, see:
Music Book: Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers
For more on Robert Ashley and Pauline Oliveros, see:
For more on Morton Feldman, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #33, Electro-Acoustic Music, part 2: Musicians and Tape
For more on Morton Feldman and La Monte Young, see:
Music Lecture: “Intense Purity of Feeling”: Béla Bartók and American Music
For more on Pauline Oliveros, see:
Music: KALW Radio Show #4, Women’s History Month
Music: KALW Radio Show #6, Gender Variance in Western Music, part 2: Female-to-Male Representations
Music: KALW Radio Show #7, In Tribute
Music: SFCR Radio Show #17, A Tribute to Pauline Oliveros
For more on Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, see:
Film Review: Prism’s Colors, The Mechanics of Time
Music Book: Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers
Music Lecture: The Secret of 20th-Century American Music
For more on La Monte Young, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #31, A Tribute to La Monte Young
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 