The interesting periods of music are those at the turning point from one accepted musical style to the next, such as the break from Baroque music to Classical music. These changes are slow and not recognized during the time itself; in fact, they're often dismissed as fads. With hindsight, it's much easier to tell which composers and what periods of music ended up making the greatest impact on the course of Western music [3].
The beginning of the 20th century was one of those turning points, when composers began rethinking the tonality, structure, rhythm, form, purpose, and even audience of their music.
The beginning of the 20th century was one of those turning points, when composers began rethinking the tonality, structure, rhythm, form, purpose, and even audience of their music.
John CageMinimalist music began because of the investigation work started by John Cage and is a genre concerned with finding the absolute right note or rhythm for a piece of music. On the other hand, Philip Glass' work is built around complex rhythms and early use of the synthesizer. He started a revolution by proposing that composers could jettison the musical language that had evolved over the last seven centuries, and in doing so he opened the door to Minimalism, performance art and virtually every other branch of the musical avant-garde. He composed for every imaginable kind of instrument, from standard orchestral strings to "prepared" pianos, altered by putting nails, paper, wood, rubber bands or other objects between their strings to make them sound percussive and otherworldly. He wrote electronic and tape works, and works that involved only spoken texts. His often impish scoring, in fact, might include radios, toys, the sounds of water being sipped or vegetables being chopped. [4]. One of Cage's most famous and provoking piece, "4'33"," is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, divided into three movements.
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Phillip Glass
Composers such as Phillip Glass found great success developing the Minimalist formula. His Minimalist masterpiece, Einstein On The Beach, turned out to be very popular in the the opera world because Glass found a balance between innocence and boundary-breaking innovation with his exciting new sound world.
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The Minimalism Period
As composers tried to break free from tradition, musical styles got more and more off-beam at the beginning of the 20th Century. But a group of American composers went back to basics and re-adopted the age-old formula: rhythm + pitch = music. These composers rebuilt classical music from its foundations, and Minimalism was born.
The beauty of Minimalism is that it started out as something so simple. In the most elaborate symphonies, it's easy to miss the best bits amongst all the action, but in the first minimalist pieces even the smallest change was of huge significance [2].
The beauty of Minimalism is that it started out as something so simple. In the most elaborate symphonies, it's easy to miss the best bits amongst all the action, but in the first minimalist pieces even the smallest change was of huge significance [2].