Encyclopedia
Steve Reich is an
American composer. Reich is known as one of the pioneers of minimalism, although he has increasingly deviated from a purely minimalist style. Reich has developed a number of very influential compositional ideas including using tape loops to create phasing patterns ; and using processes to create and explore musical concepts . These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures and phasing effects, have significantly influenced contemporary American music as well as contemporary music as a whole;
The Guardian is a British [i] newspaper [i] owned by the Guardian Media Group [i]. ...
has described Reich as one of the few composers to have "altered the direction of musical history".
Early life and work
Reich was born in
New York, but his childhood years were split between divorced parents in New York and
California. He was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the "middle-class favorites", having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At the age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the
Baroque period and earlier as well as music of the 20th century, and began studying drums with Roland Kohloff in order to play
jazz. He attended
Cornell, where he took some music courses but graduated with a B.A. in
philosophy.
For a year following graduation he studied composition privately with
Hall Overton; he then enrolled at
Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti . Subsequently he attended
Mills College in
Oakland where he studied with Luciano Berio and
Darius Milhaud and earned a master's degree in composition.
Process music and Minimalism
Reich's early forays into composition involved experimentation with
twelve-tone composition, but he found the rhythmic aspects of the twelve-tone series more interesting than the melodic aspects. Reich had also composed film soundtracks for
The Plastic Haircut and
Oh Dem Watermelons, two films by
Robert Nelson. The soundtrack for
Oh Dem Watermelons, composed in 1965, involving basic tape work, using repeated phrasing together in a large five-part canon.
Later, Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist
Terry Riley. Riley's loosely structured aleatoric work
In C combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a slowly shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work,
It's Gonna Rain. Written in 1965,
It's Gonna Rain is made up of recordings of a
sermon about the end of the world given by the African American Pentecostal preacher Brother Walter. Reich built on his early tape work, transferring the sermon to multiple tape loops played in and out of phase, with segments of the sermon cut and rearranged.
Come Out was constructed along similar lines. A single spoken line given by an injured survivor of a
race riot is manipulated. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually the discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the rhythmic and tonal patterns of speech.
The 11-minute piece is an example of process music. So is 1968's
Pendulum Music, which consists of the sound of seveal microphones swinging over the loudspeakers to which they are attached, producing feedback as they do so.
Reich's first attempt at applying this phasing technique to live performance rather than recorded work was the 1967
Piano Phase, for two pianos. The performers begin by repeating a rapid twelve-note
melodic figure in unison. One player continues, keeping tempo with robotic precision, while the other slowly speeds up until they are lined up, one sixteenth note apart, and then resumes the previous tempo. The cycle of speeding up and locking in continues throughout the piece, with a new figure being introduced once the original figure has come full circle.
Violin Phase, also written in 1967, is built on these same lines. Reich also tried to create the phasing effect in a piece "that would need no instrument beyond the human body". He found that the idea of phasing was inappropriate for the simple ways he was experimenting to make sound. Instead, he composed
Clapping Music , in which the players do not phase in and out with each other, but instead one performer keeps one line of a 12-quaver-long phrase and the other performer shifts by one
quaver beat every 12 bars, until both performers are back in unison 144 bars later.
Piano Phase and
Violin Phase both premiered in a series of concerts given in New York art galleries.
The 1970s
Four Organs deals specifically with augmentation, and was based on a piece written in 1967,
Slow Motion Sound, which was more of a prototype piece. Having never been performed, the idea of slowing down a recorded sound until many times its original length without changing pitch or timbre was applied to
Four Organs. The result was a piece with maracas playing a fast
quaver pulse, while the four organs stress certain quavers using an 11th chord. This work therefore dealt with rhythmic change and repetition. It is unique in the context of Reich's other pieces in being linear as opposed to cyclic like his earlier works—the superficially similar
Phase Patterns, also for four organs but without maracas, is a phase piece similar to others composed during the period.
Four Organs was performed as part of a Boston Symphony Orchestra program, and was Reich's first composition to be performed in a large traditional setting.
Drumming , a 90-minute piece for a 9-piece percussion ensemble plus female voices and piccolo, marked a new stage in Reich's career, and the beginning of his shift in focus toward composition and performance with an ensemble of musicians. Composed shortly after his return from a five-week trip to study music in
Ghana, in which he learned from the master drummer Gideon Alerwoyie.
Drumming draws much of its inspiration from that experience as well as A. M. Jones's
Studies in African Music about the music of the
Ewe people. He also studied Balinese
gamelan in Seattle. Around this time he formed his ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, which was to be the sole ensemble to interpret his works for many years; the group remains together today with many of its original members.
After
Drumming, Reich moved on from the "phase shifting" technique that he had pioneered, and began writing more elaborate pieces. He investigated other musical processes such as augmentation . It was during this period that he wrote works such as
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ and
Six Pianos .
In 1974, Reich began writing what many would call his seminal work,
Music for 18 Musicians is a seminal work of musical minimalism [i] composed by Steve Reich [i] durin...
. This piece involved many new ideas, although it harked back to earlier pieces. The piece is based around a cycle of eleven chords introduced at the beginning, followed by a small piece of music based around each chord, and finally a return to the original cycle. The sections are aptly named "Pulses", Section I-XI, and "Pulses". This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger
ensembles, and the extension of performers resulted in a growth of psycho-acoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". Reich remarked that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes then any other work he had written. It was the first release in ECM Records' "New Series".
Reich did explore these ideas further in his pieces
Music for a Large Ensemble and
Octet . Both these works have been highly praised and have been re-recorded several times. In these two works, Reich experimented with "the human breath as the measure of musical duration... the chords played by the trumpets are written to take one comfortable breath to perform" . Human voices are part of the musical palette in
Music for a Large Ensemble but the voices simply form part of the texture , singing only nonsense syllables. With
Octet and his first orchestral piece
Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards , Reich's music showed influence of Biblical Cantillation, which he had studied in
Israel since summer 1977. After this, the human voice singing words would play an increasingly important role in Reich's music.
In the late 1970s he published a book,
Writings About Music, containing essays on his philosophy, aesthetics, and musical projects written between 1963 and 1974. An updated collection,
Writings On Music , was published in 2002.
The 1980s
Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of political themes as well as themes from his
Jewish heritage.
Tehillim ,
Hebrew for
psalms, is the first of Reich's works to draw on his Jewish background. The work is in four parts, scored for an ensemble of four women's voices ,
piccolo,
flute,
oboe,
english horn, two
clarinets, six percussion , two
electronic organs, two
violins,
viola,
cello and
double bass, with amplified voices, strings, and winds. A setting of text from psalms 19:2–5 , 34:13–15 , 18:26–27 , and 150:4–6,
Tehillim is a departure from Reich's other work in its formal structure; the setting of texts several lines long rather than the fragments used in previous works brings melody in as a substantive element. Use of formal
counterpoint and functional harmony also goes in contrast to the loosely structured minimalist works written previously.
Different Trains , for
string quartet and tape, uses recorded speech, as is his earlier works, but this time as a melodic rather than a rhythmic element, following the earlier example of Scott Johnson's
John Somebody .
Different Trains takes Reich's memories of childhood cross-country train trips and the associated sounds, comparing and contrasting them with the different trains sending other children to death in Europe under
Nazi rule.
New directions
In 1993, Reich collaborated with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, on an
opera,
The Cave, which explores the roots of
Judaism,
Christianity and
Islam through the words of
Israelis,
Palestinians, and
Americans, echoed musically by the ensemble. The work, for percussion, voices, and strings, is a musical
documentary, named for the
Cave of Machpelah in
Hebron, where a
mosque now stands and
Abraham is said to have been buried.
The two collaborated again on the opera
Three Tales, which concerns the
Hindenburg disaster, the testing of
nuclear weapons on
Bikini Atoll, and more modern concerns, specifically
Dolly the sheep,
cloning, and the
technological singularity.
A recent direction for Reich is a return to works for the concert hall without using any sampling techniques, which were employed in
City Life or in
Three Tales. This trend started with
Triple Quartet , a piece for the
Kronos Quartet that can either be performed by string quartet and tape, three string quartets or 36-piece string orchestra. According to Reich, the piece is influenced by
Bartók's and
Alfred Schnittke's string quartets. This series continued with
Dance Patterns ,
Cello Counterpoint , and and series of pieces centered around Variations:
You Are , a work which looks back to the vocal writing of works like
Tehillim or
The Desert Music,
Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings and
Daniel Variations .
In a very recent interview with
The Guardian is a British [i] newspaper [i] owned by the Guardian Media Group [i]. ...
, Reich stated that he continues to follow this direction with a yet unnamed piece commissioned by eighth blackbird, an American ensemble consisting of the instrumental quintet of
Schoenberg's piece Pierrot Lunaire plus percussion. Reich thinks that it will again be with tape, and he also states that he is thinking about Stravinsky's Agon as a model for the instrumental writing.
Influence
Reich's style of composition has influenced many other composers and musical groups, including
Philip Glass , John Adams, the
prog-rock band
King Crimson, the new-age guitarist
Michael Hedges, the art-pop and electronic musician
Brian Eno, the composers associated with the Bang on a Can festival , and indie rock musician
Sufjan Stevens. His music has also been a source of inspiration to ambient and techno musicians. A melodic line from his 1987 work
Electric Counterpoint was used by
The Orb in their 1991 hit Little Fluffy Clouds. This connection has been honored in a 1999 album by DJs and electronic musicians,
Reich Remixed, released on Nonesuch Records.
He has also influenced visual artists such as Bruce Nauman, and has expressed admiration of choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's work set to his pieces.
Reich often cites Pérotin,
J.S. Bach,
Debussy and
Stravinsky as composers he admires, whose tradition he wished as a young composer to become part of. Jazz is a major part of the formation of Reich's musical style, and two of the earliest influences on his work were vocalists
Ella Fitzgerald and Alfred Deller, whose emphasis on the artistic capabilities of the voice alone with little vibrato or other alteration was an inspiration to his earliest works.
John Coltrane's style, which Reich has described as "playing a lot of notes to very few harmonies", also had an impact; of particular interest was the album
Africa/Brass, which "was basically a half-an-hour in F." Reich's influence from jazz includes its roots, also, from the West African music he studied in his readings and visit to Ghana. Other important influences are Kenny Clarke and
Miles Davis, and visual artist friends such as
Sol Lewitt and
Richard Serra.
Reich on himself
Works
- It's Gonna Rain, tape
- Come Out, tape
- Piano Phase for two pianos, or two marimbas
- Slow Motion Sound concept piece
- Violin Phase for violin and tape or four violins
- My Name Is for three tapes recorders and performers
- Pendulum Music for 3 or 4 microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers
- Four Organs for four electric organs and maracas
- Phase Patterns for four electric organs
- Drumming for 4 pairs of tuned bongo drums, 3 marimbas, 3 glockenspiels, 2 female voices, whistling and piccolo
- Clapping Music two musicians clapping
- Music for Pieces of Wood for five pair of tuned claves
- Six Pianos - Transcribed as Six Marimbas
- Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ
- Music for 18 Musicians is a seminal work of musical minimalism [i] composed by Steve Reich [i] durin...
- Music for a Large Ensemble
- Octet - arranged for ensemble as Eight Lines
- Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards for orchestra
- Tehillim for voices and ensemble
- Vermont Counterpoint for amplified flute and tape
- The Desert Music for chorus and orchestra or voices and ensemble
- Sextet for percussion and keyboards
- New York Counterpoint for amplified clarinet and tape, or 11 clarinets
- Three Movements for orchestra
- Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar or amplified acoustic guitar and tape
- The Four Sections for orchestra
- Different Trains for string quartet and tape
- The Cave for four voices, ensemble and video
- Duet for two violins and string ensemble
- Nagoya Marimbas for two marimbas
- City Life for amplified ensemble
- Proverb for voices and ensemble
- Triple Quartet for amplified string quartet , or three string quartets, or string orchestra
- Know What Is Above You for four women’s voices and 2 tamborims
- Three Tales for video projection, five voices and ensemble
- Dance Patterns for 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones and 2 pianos
- Cello Counterpoint for amplified cello and multichannel tape
- You Are for voices and chamber orchestra
- Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings dance piece for three string quartets, four vibraphones, and two pianos
- Daniel Variations for four voices and instruments
Selected discography
- Drumming. Steve Reich and Musicians So Percussion
- Music for 18 Musicians. Steve Reich and Musicians
- Music for a Large Ensemble/Octet/Violin Phase. Steve Reich and Musicians
- Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards/Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ/ Six Pianos. San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart, Steve Reich & Musicians
- Tehillim/The Desert Music. Alarm Will Sound and OSSIA, Alan Pierson
- Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint. Kronos Quartet, Pat Metheny
- You Are /Cello Counterpoint. Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, Maya Beiser
See also
- Minimalist music
- Steve Reich and Musicians
Notes
References
External links
Interviews
Listening
- Drumming Part I
- Streaming audio
Others
- from Duke University, includes sound samples and quotes
- Steve Reich by Roger Sutherland
- by Steve Reich
