Minimalism, the last great scandal-making revolution in twentieth-century music, has become venerable. This season, Steve Reich and Philip Glass are being celebrated worldwide on the occasion of their eightieth birthdays. (Reich’s was in October; Glass’s is on January 31st.) Arvo Pärt, the auratic “mystic minimalist” from Estonia, received similar genuflections when he turned eighty, in 2015. Boxed sets have been issued, academic conferences organized, books published. Kyle Gann, Keith Potter, and Pwyll ap Siôn’s “Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music,” the most comprehensive treatment to date, covers everything from John Adams’s “Harmonielehre” to the electronic drone pieces of Éliane Radigue.
Read more of this article by Alex Ross in The New Yorker at www.newyorker.com