Willamette Week, February 26, 2003
by Richard Speer
It’s cold in the Liminal Space, but nobody cares. The audience is content to shiver through this music, which was radical 40 years ago and still has the power to grip, if not, anymore, to shock. There’s nary a rustle in the (ware)house as proto-minimalist John Cage’s infamous 4′33″ fills the air with a whole lotta nothin’, but people get up and walk around—or lie on the floor and zone—during Terry Riley’s hypnotic In C, in which a dozen musicians overlap musical lines, guided only by a xylophone pulse and a male vocalist’s drone. For Philip Glass’ 1+1 a percussionist taps a prescribed rhythm on a tabletop, then taps it out again to pre-recorded accompaniment. Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music consists of four microphones swaying back and forth over amps, producing vaguely unnerving feedback. Minimalism has evolved in myriad directions since the ’60s, but Liminal has successfully conjured up the heady, experimental days of its infancy.
Minimal at Liminal
In 2003, Minimal at Liminal was the first in a variety of genre-crossing performances by Liminal that surveyed the ensemble’s roots in avant-garde music, art and theater.
American Minimal Music, or “repetitive music,” frequently refers to the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, who all began their careers in the early 1960s. Minimal music focuses on the audible transformation of small musical phrases through repetition and the execution of processes determined by the composer. All Minimal music lacks narrative structure. The music discards traditional harmonic schemes of tension and relaxation, and formal structures of cause and effect. Thus, the listener must discard regular listening habits if one is to experience the ecstatic effect of the music.
Minimal music is inherently performative. It is about the process of experiencing sounds as they transform in the moment. The task of the Minimal composer and the performers is not to lead the audience to a planned catharsis, but to arrange a system where catharsis may spontaneously occur. It is like listening to falling rain in a quiet house—you can hear the pulse of a million drops of water hitting the roof, or you can isolate the sound of a single drop hitting a window. Minimal music allows us to hear the parts and the whole, separately and together.
Minimal at Liminal was directed by John Berendzen.
Special thanks for this project went to:
Michael Stirling, Michael Walsh, Community Music Center, Creative Music Guild, Third Angle New Music Ensemble, Tim Duroche, Musik Centur, Michael Harberson, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Amanda Dahlquist, Metropolitan Group, Trent Moore, OPB, Laura Winter, Terry Riley
