American Minimalism is now a fairly diverse genre with lots of
exponents and lots of styles, but if you’re looking for a way in then
this disc is as apt an avenue as any. It gathers some accessible music from
the movement’s three most famous composer - plus Dave Heath - in an
easy-to-digest format in excellent performances at a bargain price.
Shaker Loops was one of the first major works that gained
recognition for John Adams. Since then he has gone on to do great things,
such as
Harmonielehre or
Doctor Atomic. There remains
something special about this work of 1978, inspired by the dancing of the
Shaker religious sect to their rhythmic pieces of music. It begins with an
insistent, almost troubled string sound that is halfway between tremolo and
frenzied repetition. It's brought to life brilliantly by the LCO strings. I
especially liked the moment, a couple of minutes in, when the cellos and
basses first enter and then take over the sound completely. The sly string
glissandi in
Hymning Slews are both beguiling and a little
sinister, as is the endlessly repeated fragment in
Loops and
Verses, finally intensifying into something close to frenzy -
mimicking the dances of the Shakers. The rhythmic gyration that ends this
movement is almost tantric in its intensity and hypnotic mood. The finale
retains its power to surprise through radical change of mood. The final bars
don't so much end as stop, the abruptness of the ending ripping us
dramatically out of the work's sound world with perturbing rapidity. This
work, given here in its orchestral version, is a great way into Adams’
persistent world of rhythmic intensity, and the performance helps it come to
life with excitement and passion.
When Glass first used the music for
Facades in the film
Koyaanisqatsi it accompanied urban shots of Wall Street on a
quiet Sunday morning. Even if you haven't seen the film, the music's quietly
restless vibe still has the power to evoke the constant flow of an urban
scene. The music is inescapably cinematic, and that's probably just as much
of an admission of how influential Glass has been - it reminded me of Hans
Zimmer, among others. The ceaseless undulations of the string sound are
offset by spine-tingling parts for soprano saxophone, enormously evocative
but ever so slightly suggestive of danger.
Company, here heard in its
version for string orchestra, sounds every bit as edgy and restless,
though the sound-world of the outer movements manages to be paradoxically
restful at the same time; this arising, perhaps, in the hypnotic nature of
its rhythmic repetitions.
My favourite thing on the disc is Reich’s
Eight Lines,
a fabulous piece that works through rhythm and colour. You’ll struggle
to find a melody here, but the powerful use of rhythm, energy and drive had
an almost narcotic effect. The first time I heard the piece was while I was
out for a walk. After a while I stopped noticing my surroundings and instead
felt transported by the hypnotic, endlessly energetic vision that Reich
evokes through abstract sound. The constant tintinnabulations of the piano,
the chirrups of the clarinets and piccolo, the enigmatically still string
line - all have the power to take the listener somewhere special. It is a
tremendous, almost hypnotic experience to expose yourself to this music.
Heath’s
Frontier works through more overt use of
contrast, blocking the frenzied writhings of some sections against equally
lyrical passages; the almost electronic sound of the opening string flurry
is extraordinary! It was, by the way, this orchestra and this conductor that
gave the world premiere of this piece in 1990.
The performances by the London Chamber Orchestra, under their
principal conductor, are committed and intelligent, and the recorded sound
is very well captured. In short, this is as good an introduction to the
world of minimalism as I can imagine. The main snag is that there is no
documentation beyond the track-list.
Simon Thompson
