Steve Reich (b. 1936)

Started by bhodges, April 29, 2009, 08:45:38 AM

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Lethevich

#20
Thanks. I think that Four Sections is included in the Nonesuch 10CD retrospective so I'll give it a try sometime.

As an aside, can anybody recommend some Reich for piano? I like Piano Phase, but haven't run into much else along these lines (Glass for eg has composed a few pieces with similar spans - Two Pages, Mad Rush, for eg).

Edit: actually, make that any keyboard music. I already know Four Organs which I dislike, as I find it pedantic, maybe there are other pieces?
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

jowcol

Quote from: Lethe on March 16, 2010, 09:19:44 AM
Thanks. I think that Four Sections is included in the Nonesuch 10CD retrospective so I'll give it a try sometime.

As an aside, can anybody recommend some Reich for piano? I like Piano Phase, but haven't run into much else along these lines (Glass for eg has composed a few pieces with similar spans - Two Pages, Mad Rush, for eg).

Edit: actually, make that any keyboard music. I already know Four Organs which I dislike, as I find it pedantic, maybe there are other pieces?

I share your opinion on Four Organs.  It's process, and very little else..   Beyond what's in the retrospective, I don't know any more. 
"If it sounds good, it is good."
Duke Ellington

karlhenning

Four Organs will live on in lore as the occasion when a wag left Symphony Hall in the middle of a performance, shouting, "I CONFESS!"

bhodges

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on March 17, 2010, 05:20:01 AM
Four Organs will live on in lore as the occasion when a wag left Symphony Hall in the middle of a performance, shouting, "I CONFESS!"

Love that... :D

--Bruce

Mirror Image

#24
I think Steve Reich's influence, as Terry Riley's, is massive. Most people are probably bored of Minimalism now or whatever, but I think the movement was very successful. Did all the music grab me? Absolutely not, but I think there were several masterpieces that came out of this movement and Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is most definitely one of them. I can't think of another piece of Minimalism that sounds as transcendent as this work. There's something about it that just elevates my mind someplace else entirely. I always find something completely new when I listen to this work. There's always a new texture revealed or a counter rhythm that didn't catch the last time.

Other works I enjoyed by Reich besides Music for 18 Musicians:

Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards
City Life
Nagoya Marimbas (I heard an arrangement of this for two guitars that was very impressive a few years ago)
Double Sextet
Different Trains
Electric Counterpoint
Music for a Large Ensemble
The Four Sections
The Desert Music

petrarch

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 18, 2011, 08:42:55 PM
Other works I enjoyed by Reich besides Music for 18 Musicians:

Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards
City Life
Nagoya Marimbas (I heard an arrangement of this for two guitars that was very impressive a few years ago)
Double Sextet
Different Trains
Electric Counterpoint
Music for a Large Ensemble
The Four Sections
The Desert Music

Interestingly, though I like Music for 18 musicians and Nagoya marimbas, the rest doesn't grab me that much--don't care much for The four sections and much less for City life (as a matter of fact,  on the CD with The four sections is one of my favourites, Music for mallet instruments, voices and organ). I usually like what the minimalists have done during the 70s, as opposed to the heavier, "plastic" stuff of later decades. But it must be added that the biggest factor in turning me to Reich was to see him and his ensemble live in a couple of concerts playing Drumming, Six pianos, Music for mallet instruments, Music for 18 musicians and Nagoya marimbas. Drumming live is absolutely breathtaking!
//p
The music collection.
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A view of the whole

Mirror Image

Quote from: petrarch on April 18, 2011, 10:12:17 PM
Interestingly, though I like Music for 18 musicians and Nagoya marimbas, the rest doesn't grab me that much--don't care much for The four sections and much less for City life (as a matter of fact,  on the CD with The four sections is one of my favourites, Music for mallet instruments, voices and organ). I usually like what the minimalists have done during the 70s, as opposed to the heavier, "plastic" stuff of later decades. But it must be added that the biggest factor in turning me to Reich was to see him and his ensemble live in a couple of concerts playing Drumming, Six pianos, Music for mallet instruments, Music for 18 musicians and Nagoya marimbas. Drumming live is absolutely breathtaking!

Thanks for your feedback. I'll have to listen to Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ. I don't remember it making much an impression on me the first time around, but it has been several years since I've heard it.

jowcol

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 18, 2011, 08:42:55 PM
I think Steve Reich's influence, as Terry Riley's, is massive. Most people are probably bored of Minimalism now or whatever, but I think the movement was very successful. Did all the music grab me? Absolutely not, but I think there were several masterpieces that came out of this movement and Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is most definitely one of them. I can't think of another piece of Minimalism that sounds as transcendent as this work. There's something about it that just elevates my mind someplace else entirely. I always find something completely new when I listen to this work. There's always a new texture revealed or a counter rhythm that didn't catch the last time.

Other works I enjoyed by Reich besides Music for 18 Musicians:

Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards
City Life
Nagoya Marimbas (I heard an arrangement of this for two guitars that was very impressive a few years ago)
Double Sextet
Different Trains
Electric Counterpoint
Music for a Large Ensemble
The Four Sections
The Desert Music

I'm a big fan of the Octet as well.   

I'm not sure if Colin McPhee was a direct influence on Reich, but you may wish to check him out.  He was heavily influence by Balinese music.  The Espirit Orchestra's collection of McPhee works is a pretty strong album, and still available in MP3.

http://www.amazon.com/Colin-McPhee-Tabuh-Tabuhan/dp/B0000067U3

Although the 2nd Symphony and Transitions are also very strong works, this version of Tabuh-Tabuhan blows away the one conducted by Hanson, and if you hear it, you will wonder if Reich was influenced by McPhee, or of the Espirit Orchestra was influenced by Reich in their interpretation of McPhee.  Either way, you may enjoy it.

"If it sounds good, it is good."
Duke Ellington

bhodges

Very much looking forward to this all-Reich concert at Carnegie Hall, one week from tomorrow:

Bang on a Can All-Stars and Friends
Robert Black, Electric Bass
David Cossin, Percussion
Vicky Chow, Piano
Evan Ziporyn, Clarinet and Piano
Bryce Dessner, Guitar
Taylor Levine, Guitar
Derek Johnson, Guitar
Mark Stewart, Guitar
Glenn Kotche, Drums
Kelli Kathman, Flute
Todd Reynolds, Violin
Ashley Bathgate, Cello
Gregg August, Bass
Andrew Cotton, Sound Engineer

eighth blackbird
Tim Munro, Flute
Michael J. Maccaferri, Clarinet
Matt Albert, Violin and Viola
Nicholas Photinos, Cello
Matthew Duvall, Percussion
Lisa Kaplan, Piano

Kronos Quartet
David Harrington, Violin
John Sherba, Violin
Hank Dutt, Viola
Jeffrey Zeigler, Cello

So Percussion
Eric Beach
Josh Quillen
Adam Sliwinski
Jason Treuting

Reich: Mallet Quartet (NY Premiere)
Reich: WTC 9/11 (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
Reich: 2 x 5 (NY Premiere)
Reich: Double Sextet

--Bruce


bhodges

Steve Reich is 75 today!

--Bruce

lescamil

Last week, I saw Reich's Sextet for piano and percussion (not the mediocre Double Sextet [which I've also seen]), and I had a blast. If there is a piece that a recording cannot do justice to, this is it. You really can't get a sense of the counterpoint of the work without seeing it live. It was the work that got the loudest ovation on the program (Crumb's Vox Balaenae and Thierry de Mey's Musique de Table were also performed, and were great). I'm hoping this work gets performed more, instead of that boring Double Sextet, which seems to be the flavor of the month at the moment with Reich performers.
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Sandra

This is a little off topic.... but... Does anyone know why Steve always wears sports hat? I read a lot about him and somehow this question never comes up in interviews. I'm pretty curious what compels him (and some other musicians that I've known) to wear a hat as part of his public persona. What payback could be so impressive that a person willfully commits to such a faithful observation of self-imposed dress-code?
"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" - J. Sibelius

snyprrr

Quote from: Sandra on October 04, 2011, 10:56:46 PM
This is a little off topic.... but... Does anyone know why Steve always wears sports hat? I read a lot about him and somehow this question never comes up in interviews. I'm pretty curious what compels him (and some other musicians that I've known) to wear a hat as part of his public persona. What payback could be so impressive that a person willfully commits to such a faithful observation of self-imposed dress-code?

He's a Knee Yakka? ;D

7/4

It's mysterious. People wonder why John Zorn always seems to be wearing camo.

Karl Henning

Quote from: lescamil on October 03, 2011, 03:23:01 PM
. . . instead of that boring Double Sextet, which seems to be the flavor of the month at the moment with Reich performers.

Didn't this garner some prize or other?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: Sandra on October 04, 2011, 10:56:46 PM
This is a little off topic.... but... Does anyone know why Steve always wears sports hat?...

Quote from: 7/4 on January 02, 2014, 02:16:19 PM
It's mysterious. People wonder why John Zorn always seems to be wearing camo.

I'm guessing it's a sort of "counter-cultural fashion statement."
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

lescamil

Quote from: karlhenning on January 02, 2014, 02:29:03 PM
Didn't this garner some prize or other?

It won the Pulitzer recently. Shows what a joke the prize has become, especially after Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto won recently, also.
Want to chat about classical music on IRC? Go to:

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http://www.youtube.com/user/jre58591

snyprrr

Quote from: lescamil on January 02, 2014, 02:48:35 PM
It won the Pulitzer recently. Shows what a joke the prize has become, especially after Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto won recently, also.

Yo-Yo Ma and Flava Flav walk into a bar...


The Closing of the American Mind has come to Composer-ville!! Surely we'll never recover the heights that were achieved in the 20th century. The StaliNazification has been going on since, say, 1993.

Karl Henning

Quote from: snyprrr on January 02, 2014, 05:26:19 PM
Surely we'll never recover the heights that were achieved in the 20th century.

I don't take that personally :)

Where my own work fits in The Grand Scheme of Things, I leave to others (and not to the Stockhouseketeers) to determine.  But it would be a recipie for mediocrity if any composer approaches his work with nonsense like, "oh, music will never be as good as it was then" poisoning his well.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

milk

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