Sound Propositions

This episode of Sound Propositions features scholars Kerry O’Brien and Will Robin, editors of the recent anthology On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement. Described as a historical source reader, the book compiles over 100 primary sources retelling the story of minimalist music from the 1950s to the present. Sources include liner notes, interviews, journalism, manifestos, and other material organized chronologically and thematically, with introductory essays from the editors. Not a simple revisionist history seeking to expand the canon, let alone an attempt to dethrone the “Big Four” composers, On Minimalism nonetheless radically reconsiders the scope of minimalist music. In some ways the book is a restorative history, following the offshoots of musical practices that had once been described as “minimalist,” beginning with non-western music and modal jazz in the 1950s up to drone rock and techno of the present. We discuss the influence of Ravi Shankar, why the Coltranes were minimalists, the Julius Eas