― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Monday, 5 April 2004 22:20 (twenty years ago) link
just those 3 thanks
― mullygrubber (gaz), Monday, 5 April 2004 22:28 (twenty years ago) link
― (Jon L), Monday, 5 April 2004 22:33 (twenty years ago) link
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Monday, 5 April 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago) link
― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Monday, 5 April 2004 22:51 (twenty years ago) link
― (Jon L), Monday, 5 April 2004 22:52 (twenty years ago) link
forgot about octet!
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Monday, 5 April 2004 23:08 (twenty years ago) link
― sexyDancer, Monday, 5 April 2004 23:10 (twenty years ago) link
Music for 18 MusiciansElectric CounterpointDifferent TrainsSix MarimbasNew York CounterpointMusic for Mallet Instruments, Voice, and Organ
― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 5 April 2004 23:14 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 5 April 2004 23:43 (twenty years ago) link
His pieces are so long, here's the first V that I can think of:
Four Organs DrummingIt's Gonna RainSix PianosDrumming
― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 5 April 2004 23:55 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 00:01 (twenty years ago) link
At one time I would have definitely said Tehillim but I really didn't like it the last time I listened.
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 03:38 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:18 (twenty years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:26 (twenty years ago) link
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 7 April 2004 04:38 (twenty years ago) link
I was skeptical that the singing-along-with-the-resultant-patterns aspect would work well live; I always assumed it took a bit of studio trickery to make this blend in properly. But it worked like a charm.
Just a student group -- they must have rehearsed a LOT!
― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:14 (twenty years ago) link
― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:36 (twenty years ago) link
Since it's a benefit event, tix are $100-$200, so I don't feel quite so bad about not being in NYC for this. I would just be home cursing my poverty.
― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 11 April 2004 06:07 (twenty years ago) link
However, I still won't be in NYC :-(
― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 11 April 2004 06:12 (twenty years ago) link
It's exciting just to watch them perform it, I agree. I feared for the musicians' ability to play it without screwing up. When I heard it, there was something about the acoustics of the particular hall which was making some sort of added beat pattern or something. It was very effective, though probably unintentional.
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 11 April 2004 16:44 (twenty years ago) link
― (Jon L), Sunday, 11 April 2004 21:17 (twenty years ago) link
After-party at the Dream House, yo!
― hstencil, Sunday, 11 April 2004 21:18 (twenty years ago) link
― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 00:48 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 09:04 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Saturday, 15 October 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:14 (seventeen years ago) link
For decades this composer has been a quintessential voice of downtown New York. And to mark his 70th birthday, on Tuesday, the city’s leading cultural institutions are joining forces in an unprecedented celebratory collaboration, Steve Reich@70, offering a month (more or less) of his music at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center and elsewhere.
But Mr. Reich left Lower Manhattan for Westchester earlier this summer. And he is very, very happy about it.
“It’s really a pleasure,” he said by phone last week. “I used to be a composer, but now I’m into home improvement.”
“Sunny” is hardly an adjective most people would have applied to Mr. Reich for most of his life. Words like “intense,” “driven” and “caffeinated” came more readily to mind. But sunny, it seems, he has become, waxing lyrical about his new house (built by the Modernist architect William N. Breger) and as excited about the coming celebrations as, well, a boy waiting for his birthday.
And this new warmth may be reflected in his music.
Mr. Reich has always been a distinctive voice. His classification as a minimalist, grouped with Philip Glass, has come to seem, with the years, increasingly irrelevant. You could say that Mr. Reich stripped music down to its bare essentials in seminal works like “Clapping Music” (1972), written for two performers and their hands, or “Drumming” (1971), an hour-plus piece written entirely for percussion instruments. But even those pieces, spare in means, have their own eloquence.
Elements have steadily been added over the years: more instruments, human voices (with “Tehillim” in 1981), more visuals, more stories. The last have been a particular feature of Mr. Reich’s collaboration with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, which has produced ambitious music theater works like “The Cave” (1990-3), an exploration of Jewish and Muslim beliefs, or “Three Tales” (2002), which challenged a range of attitudes among scientists.
Meanwhile the music has gotten not only fuller, but freer.
“There’s a different generosity,” said Jennifer Bilfield, who was president of Mr. Reich’s publishers, Boosey & Hawkes, before moving in August to become artistic and executive director of Stanford Lively Arts in California. “His writing is more expansive. ‘Proverb’ ” — from 1995 — “is a piece that struck me as a very decisive shift. There’s a different intimacy, an inner quiet that’s very moving.”
It was Ms. Bilfield who had the idea of getting Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy to collaborate on Mr. Reich’s birthday, an idea nobody else thought would work. The three presenters are, after all, competitors in an increasingly tough market. But Mr. Reich had close relationships with all of them, and Ms. Bilfield was already braced for one of them to call her and ask about doing a festival for his birthday, which would keep the other two out of the picture.
“It was really to pre-empt what would have been a more awkward discussion,” Ms. Bilfield said. “I basically picked up the phone and said, ‘Can you imagine what a great energy it would be, what a great example for the presenting world?’ And each institution had a different relationship with Steve. When the parties came to the table, there was no tug of war, not at all.”
The Brooklyn Academy will focus on dance, including the American premiere of “Variations for Vibes, Piano and Strings,” commissioned for the choreographer Akram Khan, which will open the festival on the actual birthday. Carnegie Hall will concentrate on instrumental music, including a training workshop and the American premiere of Mr. Reich’s latest work, “Daniel Variations,” written in memory of the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. And Lincoln Center presents vocal works, including three performances of “The Cave.”
“Daniel Variations,” co-commissioned by the Daniel Pearl Foundation, interweaves texts from the Old Testament Book of Daniel and Pearl’s own writings. The Book of Daniel, Mr. Reich pointed out, is set in Babylon — present-day Iraq. The piece blends in a string quartet, which at the words “My name is Daniel Pearl” takes off, Mr. Reich said, in a major key. (Mr. Pearl was a violinist.)
“It’s a very un-Steve Reich-like, expressive piece of music,” Mr. Reich said.
As if to warn his fans not to expect too much more of this baroque phase, he added: “The last few works have been very open, very expressive, very free, very different. Now I’ve kind of got a yen to go medieval.”
But his inner romantic may already have been outed.
For his 70th birthday Nonesuch has released a new box set, “Phases” (Nonesuch 79962-2), with a selection of Mr. Reich’s greatest hits, most of them in the recordings made with the ensemble he founded in 1966, Steve Reich and Musicians, which he refers to as “original instruments.” The performances are very fine. But it’s fascinating to listen to recordings made by another group a generation later.
Mr. Reich’s ensemble focuses on presenting the composition; the younger group, Alarm Will Sound, crack performers all, also focuses on interpreting it. On that band’s CD of “Tehillim” and “The Desert Music” (Cantaloupe Music CA21009), Mr. Reich’s music takes on a whole new dimension of ravishing beauty, beauty that was in there all along.
And Mr. Reich embraces the idea that other people are performing his works, and performing them so well.
“What impresses me,” he said, “is the ease that younger musicians have playing my music, not only right, but idiomatically.” On a recent trip to Latvia he heard a performance of “Music for 18 Musicians” (1974-76). “These people were burning,” he said. “I wasn’t sure where Latvia was, but they knew where I was.”
Sitting in Pound Ridge, still surrounded by packing boxes, in his striking new house (Mr. Breger was also the architect of the Civic Center Synagogue, where Mr. Reich and Ms. Korot were married), he sounded, well, downright expansive. And his goals, for once, seemed perfectly simple.
“What do I want?” he said. “I want people to love the music, not to feel, ‘What, him again?’ It seems that the music is holding up over time. That’s the most gratifying thing.”
I don't really get the idea that warmth or expressiveness is something new in his music. I always found the timbres of Tehillim, Drumming, and Music for 18 Musicians, in particular, to be pretty warm. In fact, that's one of the thing I think contribures to their strength.
Can't you be intense and sunny at the same time?
― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― zebedee (zebedee), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 6 October 2006 17:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 6 October 2006 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link
Alas, I'm at the wrong end of the country.
― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link
Disc: 1 1. Music For 18 Musicians
Disc: 2 1. Different Trains 2. Tehillim 3. Eight Lines
Disc: 3 1. You Are 2. New York Counterpoint 3. Cello Counterpoint 4. Electric Counterpoint 5. Triple Quartet
Disc: 4 1. Come Out 2. Proverb 3. Desert Music
Disc: 5 1. Music For Mallet Instruments Voices And Organ 2. Drumming
― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 21:58 (seventeen years ago) link
this set is for us jews.
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:10 (seventeen years ago) link
Anyway, my POX:
1. Eight Lines (Octet)2. Four Organs (Bang on a Can) *3. Four Organs (Reich/Gibson/Murphy/Chambers/Glass)4. Music for 18 Musicians5. Music for a Large Ensemble (12 78)6. The Four Sections (Winds & Brass)7. Phase Patterns8. Piano Phase9. Six Marimbas10. Violin Phase (10 67)
(* Four Organs is my favorite Reich piece, but I haven't gotten around to collecting all the versions yet. Some purists seem to have a grudge against Bang on a Can's performance, so I'm assuming there are better versions that will take its place someday. In the meantime, though...)
― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― pdf (Phil Freeman), Saturday, 7 October 2006 12:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Saturday, 7 October 2006 14:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jeff K (jeff k), Saturday, 7 October 2006 14:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 7 October 2006 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 7 October 2006 15:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Sunday, 8 October 2006 04:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 8 October 2006 05:56 (seventeen years ago) link
i've listened to various other pieces of his music and it's not that i don't find them worthwhile, it's just that i could just as well hear '18' over and over until i die, and can hardly imagine needing to hear anything else in between. which is pretty weird. generally i very much think hearing other work by an artist would be illuminating, more of a good thing, etc., but at best i just suppose that maybe in 30 or 40 years i'll get around to the rest of reich.
― j., Friday, 23 August 2019 23:37 (five years ago) link
Kinda want to do a poll of all his second (slow) movements― MaresNest, Friday, August 23, 2019 11:53 PM (yesterday)
― MaresNest, Friday, August 23, 2019 11:53 PM (yesterday)
Electric Counterpoint would get my vote, TBH, I think the slow movements are often the least successful/interesting parts of Reich's pieces, especially the later ones.
― Bloody Snail, Saturday, 24 August 2019 01:03 (five years ago) link
I think the key with getting into steve reich’s other pieces is the time it takes to get through them. He’s got lots of great works that take like 15-20 minutes to play (octet, music for a large ensemble, tehellim, electric counterpoint, six pianos). he has a few pieces like one of the genesis tracks on the cave that blow me away in like 3 minutes.
― Carisis LaVerted (m bison), Saturday, 24 August 2019 01:52 (five years ago) link
XP - Oh I love most of them, especially those that that start with a big 'event' chord like Double Sextet, the slower and more delicate ones.
― MaresNest, Saturday, 24 August 2019 11:19 (five years ago) link
There’s something about simplicity of vision that makes it easily mocked, when it’s often a virtue.
― Bidh boladh a' mhairbh de 'n láimh fhalaimh (dowd), Saturday, 24 August 2019 12:11 (five years ago) link
otm the man has style
― Carisis LaVerted (m bison), Saturday, 24 August 2019 13:18 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEgrN1QTAqE
― Maresn3st, Tuesday, 24 December 2019 00:46 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqQVSohnLdA
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 8 July 2020 21:47 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShgWc2OlQdc
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 2 December 2020 19:31 (three years ago) link
Really thought that was going to be a parody using an Eminem acapella
― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 December 2020 19:33 (three years ago) link
Nice idea, I made one - https://soundcloud.com/nowherians/reich-eminem_1
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 2 December 2020 20:28 (three years ago) link
Very cool.
― Bidh boladh a' mhairbh de 'n láimh fhalaimh (dowd), Wednesday, 2 December 2020 20:36 (three years ago) link
Haha omg, yes
Please post this on youtube with a serious title.
― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 December 2020 20:40 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b78wdMc3m7U
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 16 October 2021 14:57 (two years ago) link
i love this
― class project pat (m bison), Saturday, 16 October 2021 16:19 (two years ago) link
gets to the emotional core that the slow sections of tehillim do so well
― class project pat (m bison), Saturday, 16 October 2021 16:20 (two years ago) link
also i was playing this and my son goes "this sounds like steve reich" so thats cool
Your son OTM
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 16 October 2021 16:57 (two years ago) link
It's like an extrapolated version of that beautiful second movement of WTC 9-11
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 16 October 2021 17:22 (two years ago) link
By which I mean third movement, duh
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 16 October 2021 17:26 (two years ago) link
Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous
― J. Sam, Saturday, 16 October 2021 18:19 (two years ago) link
Huh, had no idea this was in the works:
https://www.nonesuch.com/journal/steve-reich-release-conversations-book-harpercollins-hanover-square-press-march-8-2022-2021-10-01
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 16 January 2022 01:10 (two years ago) link
it's 'music for 18 musicians' season tbh
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 14 September 2023 22:17 (one year ago) link
always in season imo
― oatly carmichael (m bison), Thursday, 14 September 2023 22:41 (one year ago) link
yay
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Thursday, 14 September 2023 22:42 (one year ago) link
I actually played Double Sextet/2×5 on my way to work this morning bc I have a seasonal association with that album.
― jaymc, Friday, 15 September 2023 00:16 (one year ago) link
https://x.com/jmcunning/status/775692655795634176?s=20
― jaymc, Friday, 15 September 2023 00:17 (one year ago) link
i've been listening to music for 18 musicians for years (the grand valley state university new music ensemble recording), and i have NOT checked out any other steve reich pieces. in mf18m, i love the soft and human quality of the propulsion, the surreal quality of hearing what a computer could play very 'well' instead being played by 'imperfect' but beautifully alive human touch, the slow rise and fall and drift of the motifs, which are gorgeous, and just the very time-stopping, mood-capturing magnetism of the whole thing. what steve reich recordings should i look for next?
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:04 (seven months ago) link
Hmm. There's a lot of good phase work he did (Drumming, Clapping, Four Organs, Phase Patterns, etc.) that are similar or related, though not always as transformative/transportative. I know it's not what you asked for, but if you haven't heard it maybe give Philip Glass's "Music With Changing Parts" a shot, it's pretty similar.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:16 (seven months ago) link
There's a lot of good phase work he did (Drumming, Clapping, Four Organs, Phase Patterns, etc.) that are similar or related, though not always as transformative/transportative.
yeah, those pieces are more lulling or even nullifying, but i actually like that more a lot of the time
― Deflatormouse, Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:22 (seven months ago) link
It's nearly all worth your time imho, but I'm especially fond of - Double Sextet, Three Movements, Music For A Large Ensemble, and Drumming.
Taking Josh's lead, give Glass' Music in Twelve Parts a try too.
― MaresNest, Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:25 (seven months ago) link
i'll give these a try. i was just thinking 'maybe i should check out philip glass' so that's perfect. thanks all.
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:30 (seven months ago) link
Other recordings of the same piece can be illuminating too. The ECM version of mf18m (feels like a reddit thread) is generally considered definitive (the Nonesuch remake not so good). The Colin Currie Ensemble and Ensemble Signal, younger groups mentored by Reich, have done this and the CCE have also done Drumming, another trance like one. I would try mybe the original Deutsche Grammophone Drumming for a similar thing to what you get from m418m.
― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:38 (seven months ago) link
Phase Patterns is the one that was a couple rungs below damn near life changing for me, I like almost everything I’ve heard by him but it all ends up paling in comparison just because that was such a mind shattering event hearing it for the first time. If you’ve heard anything else by him it probably wouldn’t have the same impact though.
― Slim is an Alien, Thursday, 25 January 2024 22:24 (seven months ago) link
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ & Music for a Large Ensemble were written around the same time and share a lot of the same vibe as Music for 18 musicians
― bbq, Friday, 26 January 2024 06:32 (seven months ago) link
"Octet / Music For A Large Ensemble / Violin Phase" on ECM is up there with M418M for me.
― Against The 80s, Friday, 26 January 2024 08:24 (seven months ago) link
another vote for Drumming
― budo jeru, Friday, 26 January 2024 16:07 (seven months ago) link
yeah Drumming is 'the one' for me also
― Deflatormouse, Friday, 26 January 2024 18:59 (seven months ago) link
Besides MF18M, the albums I return to are Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint (the latter is the one that the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds" samples) and Double Sextet/2x5.
― jaymc, Saturday, 27 January 2024 05:35 (seven months ago) link
‘eight lines’ is gorgeous
― donna rouge, Saturday, 27 January 2024 06:01 (seven months ago) link
Some of his pieces have a musical documentary feel about them, most of these feature a clever device in which he transcribes short clips of speech into notes to be tracked alongside with an instrument, cello, or violin usually.
You realise how much music is embedded in our everyday speech patterns, Different Trains and the startling WTC 9/11 are great examples of that method.
― MaresNest, Saturday, 27 January 2024 11:46 (seven months ago) link
I would like to recommend Tehillim, I feel it's where you can hear his 'human' touch the most; it's also available as the full ECM Recordings boxset with Mf18M, Octet, Violin Phase & MfLE.
― ˈʌglɪɪst preɪ, Saturday, 27 January 2024 18:48 (seven months ago) link
Oh Tehillim is one of my favorite pieces of music of all time, it can drive me to tears. But I think Map was looking for the more long-form trancelike world of Reich. Anyhoo, Steve Reich is the guest of honor at this year’s Long Play Festival in Brooklyn, put on by the Bang on a Can organization. Among other works, including M418M, the Mivos Quartet will do his complete works for string quartet, including Different Trains.
― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 27 January 2024 20:03 (seven months ago) link
Oh and Drumming will be performs too. I’ve never seen that one performed live. (I saw a local new music group in DC perform M418M several years ago).
― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 27 January 2024 20:05 (seven months ago) link
A great in-depth interview with @SteveReich in @FT @FinancialTimes today, in which the composer talks about his early life, obsession with Stravinsky, and recent inspirations. Read here: https://t.co/GX2l9XcYTO pic.twitter.com/4zD8Gjc1qg— Steve Reich (@SteveReich) February 2, 2024
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 4 February 2024 05:03 (seven months ago) link
"There is brunch-friendly soft rock music being piped in, and on the previous evening the mall hosted a live performance by an Eagles cover band. But Reich, dressed in dark tones and wearing his signature dark baseball cap, has come for the waffles, not the music."
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 4 February 2024 05:14 (seven months ago) link
It would be funny if he refused to talk about anything but waffles
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 4 February 2024 18:27 (seven months ago) link
Glad the article clarified that point, would have definitely expected him to be the type of guy who goes out to breakfast for the soft rock soundtrack and the lore of yesterday’s Eagles cover band
― Slim is an Alien, Sunday, 4 February 2024 18:39 (seven months ago) link
“What do I want? I want life, I want the music to be played, I want the music to be listened to. I want to know people have felt things,” he says. “I’m very grateful that my music has been listened to and appreciated. It’s a great source of happiness.”
Damn I guess success does bring happiness, get stuffed 'making art should be its own reward' people.
― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Sunday, 4 February 2024 21:53 (seven months ago) link