About Time

When I talk about music, I talk about time: an excerpt from my book on minimalism.

Ear cleanser to start; saw JACK Quartet play this in a concert Wednesday, and it was the kind of thing I’ve been longing to hear for months, music that thrilled me in every moment, that I wanted to follow wherever it went, and that I was excited to write about when I woke the following morning. I only know a little of Heinz Holliger’s composing and what I do has always been excellent, his String Quartet No. 2 is a true masterpiece of the literature.

Linkages

Last month I filed a flurry of things for Bandcamp, they are now all published. The remaining three went up this week:

• The Sound of Silence: A Wandelweiser Group Primer

• Thirty Years of New York Reggae Label Easy Star Records

• Exploring the Genius of Ronald Shannon Jackson

I’m bad at getting work because I guess I’m bad at promoting what I do, but if you or anyone else needs a critic with that kind of range, well, there’s not too many and you got one right in front of you.

New in Minimalism

Friday, Nonesuch released Steve Reich Collected Works, a 27-CD box that has all of his recordings on Nonesuch and a few that come from other labels, like Ensemble Signal’s recording of Music for 18 Musicians on Harmonia Mundi. It replaces the previous Works: 1965-1995 and has all the music Reich has produced since then, including Jacob’s Ladder (I covered the world premiere) and which was released digitally today:

(Reich has a new piano piece that has not yet been heard and was scheduled for a premiere at Town Hall last year, but that concert was postponed and there’s no makeup date announced yet.)

Which brings me to …

Minimalist Music Excerpt

I’m in the home stretch on the Minimalist Music book I’m writing for Bloomsbury’s Genres series, and as promised paying subscribers will get sneak-peaks into it. With the caveat that there is rewriting to come, here is an excerpt from what will probably be the introductory chapter: