AMERICAN MINIMAL MUSIC: PROBLEMS OF RECEPTION AND INTERPRETATION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of perception and interpretation of American minimal music. The author proposes to consider the direction in the context of the art of crossover, characterized by a symbiotic nature and a free crossing of boundaries between academic and mass genres. The diff use character of the minimalist movement of the 1960s and 1970s predetermined its focus on the youth audience, who attended nightclubs and rock concerts, as well as close ties with the avant-garde Minimal Art artists. The minimalists formed the concept of music as an endlessly developing process, physiologically aff ecting both the sophisticated and the unprepared public through the repetitive technique. Standing at the origins of minimalism, Steve Reich solves the problem of interpreting minimalist works based on the ideas of L. Wittgenstein’s “Logico-philosophical treatise”, which denied the need for a verbal description of emotional processes. Following the Austrian thinker, Reich builds up topical analysis strategies in those years, emphasizing the formal technical aspects of minimalist plays. Thus, the removal of the problem of interpretation turned out to be of fundamental importance for the representatives of minimalism who sought to transcend art in the region of transcendent, consistently creating an atmosphere of ecstatic religious ritual that opened the mind to a new perception.