I REVIEWED a concert last weekend by the Scottish Ensemble, which was entitled American Life. It was very broad-based, containing a popular element, less-familiar music, completely unfamiliar and brand new music, and one or two issues worth addressing. The programme and the performances attracted a good-sized crowd and, in both its content and its performance, the event was a huge success.

Before the national orchestras let fly with their autumn season programmes, which begin next week with the BBC SSO, though the RSNO has its annual Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum concert tonight, it’s worth keeping the pause-button held for a moment on launch dates, to consider an aspect of what the Scottish Ensemble achieved last weekend.

One of the most striking features of the SE programme, put together by ensemble artistic director and violinist Jonathan Morton, was the fact that it featured music by two of the gods of American minimalism, Philip Glass and John Adams, along with an offering by a younger member of the species, Nico Muhly. The point is this: the pieces were all short, and they felt it. One tendency in minimalism over the decades, despite the brevity of its basic musical elements, or cells, has been to develop pieces that, through a number of processes, principally immense repetition of those cells, with tiny transformations seeded in, grow into enormous and infinitely repetitive tracts.

I had a double introduction to American minimalism. The first was through Terry Riley’s In C, from 1964, though it was about 1966 when I discovered it. It was already cultish, very west coast of America, very hippy and very drug-associated: it had, by Riley’s own admission, the word “trip” all over it. It was immensely hypnotic in its repetitions, with tiny little changes built into its progress so that you were aware of the gradually-shifting perspective of rhythm and motion. I never did drugs, but listening to In C was like being a bit drunk.

Because of the freedom within it, In C could be done in 20 minutes, or spun out to 90. Once, much later, as a principal teacher of music in Clydebank, I prepared a simplified, infinitely-truncated version for the kids to play. They didn’t quite get it, though gamely had a go at it in their lunchtime. It was only a step on the road towards practical music-making, but I must admit, as a young-ish teacher I felt quite chuffed as I heard them, on leaving the classroom, declaring their music teacher to be “bonkers”.

Steve Reich’s minimalism, a more earnest affair, I met in the mid to late sixties through his tape piece, Come Out, or, to give it its Sunday name, Come Out to Show. Reich took two recordings of a little bit of spoken text, played them simultaneously and, after a minute or two, began moving them slowly out of phase with each other, generating an enthralling, hypnotic perspective of sound. You couldn’t pinpoint the individual changes in tape speed; you just gradually became aware of different perspectives in sound, rhythm and texture, creating new aural dimensions in sound. (All of the pieces mentioned here can be seen or heard on YouTube.)

Reich was then catapulted into global fame and cult status in 1971 when he wrote Drumming, a piece which, for many devotees of American minimalist music, is the equivalent of the bible. Drumming has been played the world over, and often recorded. I was extremely fortunate, while studying music at Aberdeen University in the early 1970s, to have been present when Steve Reich and his Musicians brought Drumming to the city where, kaftan-clad, they performed this still-new musical sensation in the Mitchell Hall at Marischal College. It was an extraordinary experience: I remember sitting in the balcony, watching the heads of the audience in front of and below me, all nodding in time to the music, but all nodding at different times, as each listener tuned into different rhythmic perspectives. I was blown away, but I also remember thinking: why does this take so long? Why does it take 90 minutes?

That, for many, is the charm and the magic of Drumming, and many other minimal pieces: they might be literally minimalist in their essence; but they can be heavenly, or absolutely hellish, in their sheer length and duration.

And that was one of the real plus-points in last weekend’s Scottish tour of minimalist Americana: not just the richness of the repertoire, but the fact that Jonathan Morton and his Scottish Ensemble chose the pieces so carefully. There was a real balance, nothing was overlong and nothing was overstated. I never thought I’d use the words “compact” and “succinct” about minimalism. Well, there you go.