Midwest Book Review
Wim Merten's American Minimal Music deals in depth with the school of American repetitive music which is more popularly known as "minimal music". Mertens discusses in detail the work of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass and places them in the tradition of Western music. Minimal music thus emerges as the latest stage in a development leading from Schoenberg, Webern, Stockhausen and Cage. Considering the philosophical thinking of Deleuze and Lyotard, the representatives of the so-called French "libidinal philosophy", and of Adorno, American Minimal Music examines the degree to which the "ecstatic dimension" is present in this music, or is even consciously introduced into it. American Minimal Music is an important and insightful contribution to every music studies library shelf.
