A Period Piece ?

Another snatch of vintage US minimalism from Steve Reich and Musicians with the Chorus and Members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. This piece is The Desert Music and it sets texts taken from poems by William Carlos Williams concerning both music and the dilemmas facing man and his relationship to technology. It evolves over five movements, although the central third movement is split into three parts. The music also moves from fast to moderate to slow, through moderate and back to fast for the finale. As with most minimalist music, the idea of the pulse is predominant. The final movement in particular has a lot in common with Shaker Loops by John Adams. An interesting comment by Reich in the booklet notes rejects the idea of writing trance or hypnotic music, stating instead that he wants the listener to be wide awake to hear details they have never heard before, rather than spaced out and receiving a lot of ephemeral impressions. I somehow think that a lot of listeners might be in some kind of enhanced state however ! Is it me, or are minimalist works of this era now beginning to sound like period pieces every bit as much as any Edwardian romanticism ? Without implying that either Edwardian romanticism or mimimalism are without merit.