Exams, deadlines. Eek. It's all a bit of a mad rush. So what could be more fitting than this week's slice of musical cake? Sometimes, you need just a thin slice, right?
This week, less really is more. We have one instrument, a piano, playing what seems to be a very simple yet very effective single piece by Phillip Glass. Glass employs minimalist techniques here as in a lot of his other work. We have repeated rhythmic, harmonic, melodic and even structural patterns, which create a very simple and beautiful feel.
So why is it called Mad Rush? Well, listen to every single note - it's extremely fast! Even though, somehow, it doesn't feel that way. I think it's a very clever title and therefore a very clever piece. As, almost like in the picture above, Glass has a way of forcing us to listen to the wider picture of music even though its detail might be rather hectic. The rhythms in this piece can actually get quite complex. The message here is, ultimately, that there is simple beauty in complexity. It is complexity that makes simplicity beautiful, and in a mad rush, it's still there even though we might miss it.
Less can definitely be more, as in just a very simple idea, the single piano, the single ideas, are employed in a way that can have a profound emotional effect. Sometimes the smallest things can be, in their own ways, the most rewarding.
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