The 20th century was a century of musical revolutions. One of the last and most audacious ignited 50 years ago on the east and west coasts of America. And in a small but significant way The Spectator played a part in fanning the flames. In 1968 a young critic and early-music specialist by the name of Michael Nyman was sent out by the magazine to review a new work by Cornelius Cardew, a little-known British maverick.
What struck Nyman about Cardew’s new piece, The Great Learning, was how different the musical language was from that of the complex and angsty European avant-garde. ‘It was very gentle, it was very modest, it wasn’t trying to make a huge technical statement,’ Nyman once explained. ‘It wasn’t threatening, the musical material was limited, modest, minimal. It certainly was a new land of music that should be given a title.’ That title was minimalism.
A body of music that had been steadily gathering momentum in America (and Britain) through the 1960s found a very sticky new label.
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