Steve Reich (b. 1936)

[Karl Henning]

Reich: WTC 9/11 (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

What was your opinion of this, Bruce?

[EigenUser]

Hmm...only two pages on Mr. Reich. What does this say about who?...who does this say about what...

Yes, two pages to the untrained eye. But if you look carefully, at the end of the second page there is a 64x repeat sign  .

[milk]

A 1973 performance of Four Organs at Carnegie Hall in New York City nearly caused a riot, with "yells for the music to stop, mixed with applause to hasten the end of the piece."[5] One of the performers, Michael Tilson Thomas, recalls: "One woman walked down the aisle and repeatedly banged her head on the front of the stage, wailing 'Stop, stop, I confess.'" - Wikipedia.

Sounds like a fun time!

I saw this film years ago at university. Oh Dem Watermelons - experimental film by Robert Nelson with soundtrack by Reich:

https://www.youtube.com/v/FVTmsvTnuIg

[amw]

This is a little off topic.... but... Does anyone know why Steve always wears sports hat?

He's using it as a kippah (orthodox jewish hat thing). I think one of the other downtowners (Michael Gordon?) does the same thing.

[petrarch]

Visualizing Piano Phase:

http://www.pianophase.com/

[torut]

Visualizing Piano Phase:

http://www.pianophase.com/

It is a nice visualization. I was wrongly thinking that the phase shifting of Piano Phase is just that one of the pianists drops a sixteenth note periodically, but in fact the tempo needs to be slightly increased for a certain period of time. If the original tempo is dotted quarter note = 72 and the drifting period is 4 measures, one pianist needs to play with dotted quarter note = 73.125 for 4 measures, then return to 72. I have no idea how difficult it is for trained pianists.

[EigenUser]

Yeah, as I understand it the tempo is increased. An example of adding a note would be Ligeti's first piano etude Disordre (though to a different aesthetic effect).

Speaking of these phase works, does anyone else hear a quote from Reich's Violin Phase played repeatedly by one of the pianos roughly halfway through Music for 18 Musicians?

[Dax]

Music for 18 does indeed include a speeded up reference to Violin Phase in one of the later sections. Nice to hear it too, but he always does get some mileage out of previous works!

[torut]

Nonesuch Records Releases Steve Reich's "Radio Rewrite" on September 30
http://www.nonesuch.com/journal/nonesuch-records-releases-steve-reich-radio-rewrite-september-30-2014-08-21

https://www.youtube.com/v/siUQp11u8tE

I have not been checking Reich's recent works but found this new release. It sounds nice.

[lescamil]

Radio Rewrite is not one of the stronger recent Reich pieces I have heard. It's in his typical 5 movement arch form (see Sextet, Desert Music, etc), and it gets rather predictable compared to those two masterworks. The first movement to me seems to carry all of the weight and generate the most interest, but it seems to lose steam and lag for the rest of the work. I am hoping that my opinion in just based on two rather uninspired performances I have heard of the work.

[Karl Henning]

Aye, I do find The Desert Music evergreen.

[lescamil]

Steve Reich's Quartet for two pianos and two vibraphones is his latest work to be premiered, I believe. I just finished listening to a performance by Colin Currie (the dedicatée) and friends, and this is quite an excellent work. I think it is a step-up from Radio Rewrite (which I have come around to), and, true to the program notes, is a more complex, but more engaging, work than many of his later works. The textural and harmonic shifts in the piece are more frequent, but it stays cohesive. As a pianist, it's also great to hear an instrumental combination that is so common in many of his works brought to the fore and given its own musical work. I had always yearned that certain passages for this combination in works like The Four Sections and Sextet were a bit longer, and that is what you get in this piece, basically.

[bhodges]

What was your opinion of this, Bruce?

Hi Karl (I only stumbled across this post by accident, while searching for the Reich thread), I liked it - any of Reich's scores are worth hearing - but that said, and having heard Corigliano's 9/11 piece and others, I am not certain that such a complicated event can be adequately expressed in music. (Or perhaps I am just "too close" to respond clearly.)

Posting now with delight, that the Southbank Centre has commissioned me to write another set of programme notes (after I did notes for two concerts there with Dudamel and the SBSOV in Stravinsky and Messiaen, and a third on Kurtág's Kafka Fragments).

This time the notes are for an all-Steve Reich concert on 24 May, with the Colin Currie Group and Synergy Vocals. The line-up includes his Quartet (2013, for 2 pianos and 2 vibraphones), Mallet Quartet (2009, for 2 marimbas and 2 vibraphones), and Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76).

--Bruce

[Rinaldo]

Happy 80th Birthday!

https://www.youtube.com/v/zY09QP6CqdM

[bhodges]

Hard to believe Steve Reich is 80 today! Seems like yesterday -- but it was over 40 years ago -- when I bought the album below, with Violin Phase and It's Gonna Rain. (I played it endlessly, and should publicly thank my parents for not killing me.  )

Later today will explore one of the versions of Music for 18 Musicians, probably my current favorite of his works.

--Bruce

[Rinaldo]

Seems like yesterday -- but it was over 40 years ago -- when I bought the album below, with Violin Phase and It's Gonna Rain. (I played it endlessly, and should publicly thank my parents for not killing me.  )

Wow, I can only imagine what impact could that kind of music have back then!

I've found Reich in my early twenties, around the year 2000, way before falling in love with classical music in general, and even with all the avantgarde electronic stuff that was out there, Reich was still a revelation, something totally new and ear-opening. Can't say I'm a big fan of his later work but City Life, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians are pieces that played an important part in my life and I revisit them regularly.

[bhodges]

I've found Reich in my early twenties, around the year 2000, way before falling in love with classical music in general, and even with all the avantgarde electronic stuff that was out there, Reich was still a revelation, something totally new and ear-opening. Can't say I'm a big fan of his later work but City Life, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians are pieces that played an important part in my life and I revisit them regularly.

And those 3 pieces are important to me, too. Others I like: Drumming, Tehillim, and Music for Pieces of Wood.

--Bruce

[bhodges]

And those 3 pieces are important to me, too. Others I like: Drumming, Tehillim, and Music for Pieces of Wood.

--Bruce

Just got the go-ahead yesterday: will be writing programme notes for a May concert of Drumming and Tehillim, performed by Colin Currie Percussion and Synergy Vocals at the Southbank Centre in London. This is my fifth set of notes for the Centre, so I guess it's a romance. 



--Bruce

[TheGSMoeller]

"Our [Nashville Symphony Orchestra] principal clarinetist, James Zimmermann, performed a completely re-imagined rendition of Steve Reich's "New York Counterpoint" using a computer and MIDI controller. It was recorded June 10, 2017 at Studio 615 in Nashville, TN. Give it a watch!"


https://www.youtube.com/v/MWMdU9p7bTY&feature=youtu.be

[fkye2009]

Fantastic composer. I fell in love with his music when around the age of twenty I listened to Music for 18 musicians. I thought, this is like the Ninth Symphony of the 20th century! Different Trains is also a fantastic composition.