Victoria Theatre, Dayton, Ohio, 1990
“‘When the audience looks at us when we’re first on stage, nothing ‘happens,’ says the pioneer synthesizer musician and founder of the New Mother Mallard Band...’They’ll see racks of synthesizers and electrical boxes, two keyboard players facing each other, and in the middle, a singer, a wind player and a guitarist. We’re just standing amid all the equipment looking like a rock ‘n’ roll band populated with refugees from the ‘60s.
Most of us look kind of pathetic, really,’ he says with a hearty laugh. ‘But as soon as we start to play, they ask, ‘Why haven’t we been listening to this music all our lives?’’...Borden, along with contemporaries Philip Glass and Steve Reich, is one of the founders of minimalism, one of the most significant new music forms of the past 25 years.” Dayton Daily News, Art Snyder, 1/18/90 (USA)
Town Hall, New York City, 1990
“Borden’s brand of counterpoint, as performed by his own ensemble, Mother Mallard, is a fast-paced repetitive collection of as many as four melodies at a time. Closer in affinity to Terry Riley’s “In C” than Philip Glass’ extravaganzas, “The Continuing Story” is divided into 12 section which break from the established tradition of minimalism as a rigid, electronic music to include jazz elements such as improvisation and frequent chord and key changes.
Think mathematically for a moment. With four melodies going on at once, six relationships need coordinating every step of the way. Remember, Mozart wasn’t very good at counterpoint. Now throw in an improvising woodwind virtuoso. This Borden guy must be crazy.
‘I don’t hear functional harmony,’ says Borden. ‘I do hear separate notes.’ Enter Buckminster Fuller’s principle of synergy -- a working system which cannot be predicted from the behavior of any of its parts. ‘I do have a good sense of time,’ Borden adds. Indeed he does.” Columbia Daily Spectator, Jordan Davis, 4/12/90 (USA)
Lincoln Center, New York City, 1990
“David Borden’s Angels is, in a word, heavenly. The work -- conceived as a choreographed opera, but offered here (in Loncoln Center’s open-air, free summer concert series) as a simple oratorio -- unveils first-generation minimalist Borden’s premiere operatic venture. In the wake of his estimable magnum opus, The Contnuing Story of Counterpoint (1976-1988, heard in full at Town Hall last spring), Borden’s Angels seems like a happy focus for the composer’s gifts. And like the 12-part Continuing Story, the 12-part Angels (created with librettist Daniel Beekman) points out Borden’s encyclopedic tendency. A keyword for Borden is fullness: his music is full of life, foliage, oxygen...
Musically, the piece calls to mind much of Philip Glass and something of Michael Nyman -- composers whose best vocal work, like Borden’s, carries the sweet irony of a tonal, harmonious, and jubilant utterance that’s indeed savvy about 20th century reality... Angels was thought-provoking, charged with a sense of meditation and fruitful inquiry, and bore a blast of celebration that Handel could have gotten behind.”
Ear Magazine, David Raphael Israel, Nov. 1990 (USA)
Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, 2000
On the Cage piece played:
“The original Cage music is spare, soft, unmelodic, and only occasionally rhythmic, not something that would appeal to a wide audience. The Borden ‘companion’ added needed continuity and musical accessibility to the piece, and also enhanced the idea of a ‘perilous night’ with spooky synthesizer effects. I would even go as far as to call this piece ‘dark ambient.’”
On Borden’s minimalism:
“The music I heard tonight, though its style is not new and has been going for more than 30 years, felt new to me, it felt like a music appropriate for our 21st century age of Internet and virtual reality and sizzling circuits of information bytes. It didn’t weep European tragedy, and it didn’t pant with American lust. It was, in its cool pan-cultural kaleidoscopic fiberoptic richness, a glimpse of what our cultural life might be like in the next few decades. And it was also, by the way, wonderful fun to listen to as well. Welcome to the 21st century listeners!”