Totalism is a style of

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...

that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a response to

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

. It paralleled

postminimalism Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...

but involved a younger generation of creators, born in the 1950s. This term, invented by writer and composer

Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 to 2005) and ...

, has not been adopted by contemporary musicology and generally still refers only to Gann’s use of it in his writings.

Early 1980s

In the early 1980s, many young composers began writing music within the static confines of

, but using greater rhythmic complexity, often with two or more simultaneous tempos (or implied tempos) audible at once. The style acquired a name around 1990, when it became evident to composers working in New York City that a number of them, including

John Luther Adams John Luther Adams (born January 23, 1953) is an American composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska, where he lived from 1978 to 2014. His orchestral work '' Become Ocean'' was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Priz ...

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Rhys Chatham Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalism, minimalist music. He is best known for his "g ...

, Michael Gordon, Arthur Jarvinen, Bernadette Speach,

Ben Neill Ben Neill (b. November 14, 1957) is an American composer, trumpeter, producer, and educator. He is the inventor of the "Mutantrumpet", a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument. Early life, family and education Neill was born in Winston-Salem, North ...

Larry Polansky Larry Polansky (born 1954) is a composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and professor emeritus at Dartmouth College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a founding member and co-director of Frog Peak Music (a composers' collective) He c ...

Mikel Rouse Mikel Rouse (born Michael Rouse; January 26, 1957 in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States) is an American composer. He has been associated with a Downtown New York City movement known as totalism, and is best known for his operas, including '' ...

Evan Ziporyn Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, December 14, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn h ...

, were employing similar types of global tempo structures in their music. Others include

Eve Beglarian Eve Beglarian (born Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S., July 22, 1958) is a contemporary American composer, performer and audio producer of Armenian descent. Her music is often characterized as postminimalist.Woodard, Josef"A Bird’s Eye, a Wonderer’s ...

Allison Cameron Allison Cameron, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama ''House'', portrayed by American actress Jennifer Morrison. An immunologist, Cameron was a member of Dr. Gregory House's team of handpicked specialists at Princeton-Plains ...

Nick Didkovsky Nick Didkovsky (born 22 November 1958) is a composer, guitarist, computer music programmer, and leader of the band Doctor Nerve.Dorsch He is a former student of Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros and Gerald Shapiro. Career Didkovsky formed Docto ...

David First David First (born August 20, 1953) is an American composer. His music most often deals with drones and interference beats, the latter aligning his music with that of Alvin Lucier. He usually plays computer or guitar and has led the World Cas ...

Phil Kline Phil Kline (born 1953) is an American composer, sound artist, and performer most recognized for his '' Unsilent Night'' (1992) and ''Zippo Songs'' (2004). Beginning as a guitarist and singer in the New York City art punk scene, Kline has since ...

, and

Lois V. Vierk Lois V. Vierk (born August 4, 1951 in Hammond, Indiana) is a post-minimalist composer who lives in New York City. She received a B.A. degree in piano and ethnomusicology from UCLA in 1974. She then attended Cal Arts, studying composition with M ...

.Gann, Kyle (2001).
A Discography of Postminimal, Totalist, and Rare Minimalist Music
, ''KyleGann.com''. Accessed: July 6, 2017. The term ''totalist'' refers to the aims of the music, in trying to have enough surface rhythmic energy, but also to contain enough background complexity. There is also an echo in the term of

serialism In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...

's "total organization," here drawn not from the 12-tone row, but from

Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...

's theories about using the same structuring devices for rhythm that have been traditionally used for pitch. For instance, the traditional ratio between frequencies of a major second interval is 9:8, and 9-against-8 is an important tempo contrast in many totalist pieces, achieved by having some instruments play dotted eighth-notes while others play triplet half-notes. In practice, totalist music can either be consonant, dissonant, or both, but generally restricts itself to a small number of sonorities within any given piece.

Examples

Examples of works in the totalist idiom include:Gann, Kyle; American Music in the Twentieth Century, 1997, Schirmer pp.352-386 *

: ''Quick Thrust'', ''Failing Kansas'', ''Dennis Cleveland'' (a talk-show opera), ''The End of Cinematics'' * Michael Gordon: ''Thou Shalt!/Thou Shalt Not!'', ''Acid Rain'', ''Four Kings Fight Five'', ''Van Gogh Video Opera'', ''Trance'' *

: ''An Angel Moves Too Fast to See'' *

: ''Dream in White on White'', ''Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing'', ''In The White Silence'' *

: ''Long Night'', ''Custer and Sitting Bull'', ''Unquiet Night'' *

: ''678 Streams'', ''ITSOFOMO'' * Bernadette Speach: ''Telepathy Suite'' *

: ''Lonesome Road''

Notes

References

* Gann, Kyle, ''American Music in the Twentieth Century'', 1997, Schirmer * Gann, Kyle, ''Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice'', 2006, University of California Press

External links

Minimal Music, Maximal Impact
by