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A reader asks if the Danzón No. 2 by Márquez, which I linked to recently, is "minimalist" on the grounds that it repeats the same theme over and over.
What?
For one thing, it doesn't repeat the same theme over and over. As a glance at the structural analysis I provided shows, it has 8 melodic segments, only one of which is played as many as four times (in three different instrumentations) and two of which are played only once. This is perfectly normal for a non-developmental piece of classical music at this length. Some of the segments consist of repeated motifs, but this is also exceedingly normal, and they only proceed this way for a few bars and are built up over that brief period as is also usual. It's true that they are all in a similar style, but that it more than normal, it's virtually universal, and the moods are quite different: some are gentle and lyrical, some fast and energetic. The instrumentation is highly varied, also untypically of minimalism.
Is your YouTube player stuttering, perhaps?
Furthermore, "minimalism" is not the same thing as "repeating themes". One well-known piece of classical music that does consist of the same theme over and over is Ravel's Bolero, which consists of the same long, elaborate theme, consisting of exactly repeated AABB sections, played four and a half times over a steady rhythm. Furthermore, there's lot of phrase repetition within the theme, and at one point in the B section the same note is repeated ten consecutive times. What's more, the work is built as one giant crescendo, a common minimalist mood structure. The similarities to minimalism have been often remarked, but nothing else about the piece uses minimalist techniques. There's no cellular repetition at all, and no phase shifting in the rhythm; the rhythm is entirely subsidiary and thematic material doesn't break off from it: these, more than repetition per se, are among the things that make minimalist music sound as it does.
If you want a characteristically minimalist cell technique, try the famous first movement of Beethoven's Fifth, which is constructed like a huge castle built out of Lego blocks. The "da-da-da-dum" motif is perfectly suited to cellular repetition, and it reappears in that rhythmic form some 270 times in a movement typically 7 1/2 minutes long: that's more than once every two seconds, and two seconds is almost how long the motif takes to play. By the kindergarten definition of minimalism being used here, it's completely minimalist; almost all music is minimalist.
Needless to say, it's nothing of the sort. All this really proves is that minimalism is not entirely unprecedented, and used techniques found in earlier music as well. Despite its date, the Danzón is entirely pre-minimalist in musical language, and while as a dance piece it can be expected to have a certain amount of repetition, it has less than many, and there's nothing else remotely minimalist about it at all. Bah.
What?
For one thing, it doesn't repeat the same theme over and over. As a glance at the structural analysis I provided shows, it has 8 melodic segments, only one of which is played as many as four times (in three different instrumentations) and two of which are played only once. This is perfectly normal for a non-developmental piece of classical music at this length. Some of the segments consist of repeated motifs, but this is also exceedingly normal, and they only proceed this way for a few bars and are built up over that brief period as is also usual. It's true that they are all in a similar style, but that it more than normal, it's virtually universal, and the moods are quite different: some are gentle and lyrical, some fast and energetic. The instrumentation is highly varied, also untypically of minimalism.
Is your YouTube player stuttering, perhaps?
Furthermore, "minimalism" is not the same thing as "repeating themes". One well-known piece of classical music that does consist of the same theme over and over is Ravel's Bolero, which consists of the same long, elaborate theme, consisting of exactly repeated AABB sections, played four and a half times over a steady rhythm. Furthermore, there's lot of phrase repetition within the theme, and at one point in the B section the same note is repeated ten consecutive times. What's more, the work is built as one giant crescendo, a common minimalist mood structure. The similarities to minimalism have been often remarked, but nothing else about the piece uses minimalist techniques. There's no cellular repetition at all, and no phase shifting in the rhythm; the rhythm is entirely subsidiary and thematic material doesn't break off from it: these, more than repetition per se, are among the things that make minimalist music sound as it does.
If you want a characteristically minimalist cell technique, try the famous first movement of Beethoven's Fifth, which is constructed like a huge castle built out of Lego blocks. The "da-da-da-dum" motif is perfectly suited to cellular repetition, and it reappears in that rhythmic form some 270 times in a movement typically 7 1/2 minutes long: that's more than once every two seconds, and two seconds is almost how long the motif takes to play. By the kindergarten definition of minimalism being used here, it's completely minimalist; almost all music is minimalist.
Needless to say, it's nothing of the sort. All this really proves is that minimalism is not entirely unprecedented, and used techniques found in earlier music as well. Despite its date, the Danzón is entirely pre-minimalist in musical language, and while as a dance piece it can be expected to have a certain amount of repetition, it has less than many, and there's nothing else remotely minimalist about it at all. Bah.
