Modernism – Postmodernism – Anti-Americanism? The Negative Reception of American Minimal Music in West Germany

Minimalist intersections (2024) [pp. 49-69]

AUTHOR(S) / AUTOR(I):  Christoph Schuller

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DOI: 10.46793/MinInters.049S

ABSTRACT / SAŽETAK:

This chapter aims to shed light on reasons for the highly ambivalent reception of American minimalism in West Germany. Starting with reactions to Michael Fahres’s European Minimal Music Project from 1982 on minimalism’s situation in Europe, this chapter elaborates on two reasons for the negative reception of American minimal music in West Germany: the debate of modernism versus postmodernism on the one hand, and European anti-American narratives on the other. A particularly vivid example of the connection between these two misunderstandings is the controversy between Clytus Gottwald and Steve Reich in 1975, which will be analysed under these premises. Finally, I discuss the scope of the findings for the Western European reception of minimal music as a whole in terms of discourse analysis with examples of the research on minimal music.

KEYWORDS / KLJUČNE REČI:

reception studies, discourse analysis, minimalism in Germany, modernism versus postmodernism, anti-Americanism

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