But then, I'm probably looking for something different to our academics.
Given that my first exposure to Steve Reich's music came over 30 years before I became an academic...
For me one of the most exciting things about Reich's earlier music (ie. up to and including
18) is the way that material and form were so unified: the kind of material he was using defines a new kind of form which hadn't existed previously in Western music. Or vice versa. Starting with
Tehillim he began to find ways of accommodating the sound-world he'd discovered into a framework much more closely related to traditions of Western composition (three movements, fast & most complex, slow & relatively lyrical, fast again & clearly "winding things up"). Some might see this as a welcome progression but I found it disappointingly compromised, and it sounded to me at the time like a failure to look beyond the point he'd previously reached. I can't really imagine any more than member Fragment
where that might have led of course.
The composers I admire most are those on a journey whose trajectory is individually motivated (even if you can see some familiar landmarks from the pathway taken) and along which the listener is invited to travel and make his/her own discoveries. Too often though the composer will stop at a certain point along the way, like the look of it, and set up shop there. (Of course the way the musical world works makes this a strong temptation.)
I did feel that
Different Trains embodied a promising new direction but I'm not that keen on what's become of it. (I haven't heard the complete
Cave but thought
City Life was dreadful.)
I've "performed"
Pendulum Music. I used electric-guitar distortion pdeals to make the sound more interesting (er, to me, I mean). It has a certain "so what" kind of quality I think. I find Alvin Lucier's exploration of related acoustic phenomena much more engaging (plus Alvin never started writing oratorios!).
