La Monte Young’s Trio for Strings

La Monte Young - Trio for Strings

As monumental and historically important as albums come, we've managed to get our hands on a limited number of copies (up for pre-order) of Dia Art Foundation's incredible first-time release of La Monte Young's “Trio for Strings”. Composed in 1958 and realized under the composer's close supervision during 2015 by Charles Curtis, Reynard Rott, Erik Carlson, and Christopher Otto, this astounding box set sprawls to three hours in length over four LPs, and captures the most recent iteration of what is widely recognized to be the first work of minimalism ever composed.

By Bradford Bailey, 03 February 2022

 

There are few bodies of experimental music that have captured as broad or enduring an audience as musical minimalism. Since the movement’s inception during the late 1950s, it has sprung numerous arms and evolutions, illuminating a near endless number of proofs that less can be more. While artists like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley have long dominated the public consciousness of minimalism’s first wave, it is the elusive figure of La Monte Young that laid much of its initial groundwork. Yet, despite his monumental importance, Young’s work is infamously difficult to obtain in recorded form. Very little is in print, and since the issue of his debut LP, 1969’s 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta (The Black Record), there’s only been a small handful of sanctioned releases. Remarkably, we’ve been able to get our hands on a few copies of the first album issued by Young in more than two decades, the towering 4LP box set, Trio for Strings, recorded by The Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble, and released by Dia Art Foundation. Widely credited as ground-zero composition of minimalism, complete with a 32-page set of liner notes with essays by Young, Marian Zazeela, and Jung Hee Choi, we know it’s not cheap, but we’ve done everything possible to bring our beloved customers one of the most important releases of the decade, as inexpensively as we can.