Sumanth Gopinath
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195336641
- eISBN:
- 9780199868551
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336641.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Popular
This chapter gives a detailed account of the historical circumstances of the creation of Steve Reich's well‐known tape piece Come Out (1966), which takes as its sole source material a declaration by ...
More
This chapter gives a detailed account of the historical circumstances of the creation of Steve Reich's well‐known tape piece Come Out (1966), which takes as its sole source material a declaration by a black youth (Daniel Hamm, a member of the Harlem Six) wrongly accused of murder. The civil rights struggle features as the primary backdrop to this discussion, but the chapter also draws on broader contexts relevant to the 1960s, including contemporary discourses on paranoia and on the violence wrought upon and against language. Attention is given to the problematic aspects of Reich's creation, which arise in no small part from the avant‐garde compositional processes to which Hamm's voice is subjected, but the chapter closes by suggesting that the piece nonetheless contains a powerful contemporary relevance.Less
This chapter gives a detailed account of the historical circumstances of the creation of Steve Reich's well‐known tape piece Come Out (1966), which takes as its sole source material a declaration by a black youth (Daniel Hamm, a member of the Harlem Six) wrongly accused of murder. The civil rights struggle features as the primary backdrop to this discussion, but the chapter also draws on broader contexts relevant to the 1960s, including contemporary discourses on paranoia and on the violence wrought upon and against language. Attention is given to the problematic aspects of Reich's creation, which arise in no small part from the avant‐garde compositional processes to which Hamm's voice is subjected, but the chapter closes by suggesting that the piece nonetheless contains a powerful contemporary relevance.
Steve Reich
Paul Hillier (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195151152
- eISBN:
- 9780199850044
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151152.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static ...
More
In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind. This book documents the creative journey of this thoughtful, groundbreaking composer. These sixty-four short pieces include Reich's 1968 essay “Music as a Gradual Process,” widely considered one of the most influential pieces of music theory in the second half of the 20th century. Subsequent essays, articles, and interviews treat Reich's early work with tape and phase shifting, showing its development into more recent work with speech melody and instrumental music. Other essays recount his exposure to non-western music—African drumming, Balinese gamelan, Hebrew cantillation—and the influence of these musics as structures and not as sounds. The writings include Reich's reactions to and appreciations of the works of his contemporaries (John Cage, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti) and older influences (Kurt Weill, Schoenberg). Each major work of the composer's career is also explored through notes written for performances and recordings.Less
In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind. This book documents the creative journey of this thoughtful, groundbreaking composer. These sixty-four short pieces include Reich's 1968 essay “Music as a Gradual Process,” widely considered one of the most influential pieces of music theory in the second half of the 20th century. Subsequent essays, articles, and interviews treat Reich's early work with tape and phase shifting, showing its development into more recent work with speech melody and instrumental music. Other essays recount his exposure to non-western music—African drumming, Balinese gamelan, Hebrew cantillation—and the influence of these musics as structures and not as sounds. The writings include Reich's reactions to and appreciations of the works of his contemporaries (John Cage, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti) and older influences (Kurt Weill, Schoenberg). Each major work of the composer's career is also explored through notes written for performances and recordings.
Paul Hillier
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195151152
- eISBN:
- 9780199850044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151152.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the music of Steve Reich. In his music we encounter one of the most radical renewals of musical language in recent times. Beginning in the ...
More
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the music of Steve Reich. In his music we encounter one of the most radical renewals of musical language in recent times. Beginning in the mid-1960s with an austerely reductive minimalism, Reich gradually built up a richly nuanced yet instantly recognizable sound, which has influenced a number of contemporary and younger composers without being directly imitated. Although the core of this sound was well established by the mid-1970s, it has continued to evolve and is still in the process of change and development. The chapter then details Reich's early life.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the music of Steve Reich. In his music we encounter one of the most radical renewals of musical language in recent times. Beginning in the mid-1960s with an austerely reductive minimalism, Reich gradually built up a richly nuanced yet instantly recognizable sound, which has influenced a number of contemporary and younger composers without being directly imitated. Although the core of this sound was well established by the mid-1970s, it has continued to evolve and is still in the process of change and development. The chapter then details Reich's early life.
Kerry O’Brien
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
For most of 1968 and early 1969, Steve Reich devised and constructed his Phase Shifting Pulse Gate, a machine he designed along with an engineer. However, after only two performances Reich abandoned ...
More
For most of 1968 and early 1969, Steve Reich devised and constructed his Phase Shifting Pulse Gate, a machine he designed along with an engineer. However, after only two performances Reich abandoned the machine and renounced the future use of electronic technology in his music, save amplification. Despite this compositional move, various critics of the early 1970s continued to describe Reich’s works in technological or mechanical terms, calling his music “controlling” or akin to the German word “Fließband” (assembly line). Rather than mechanical control, Reich claimed to seek bodily control and often compared his musical practice to yoga, a practice he had maintained for nearly a decade, which markedly informed his notions of musical time, compositional control, and performer freedoms. Drawing from unpublished essays and unreleased recordings, this chapter situates Reich’s music of the 1970s—from Drumming to Music for 18 Musicians—within a broader history of technologies of the body and mind.Less
For most of 1968 and early 1969, Steve Reich devised and constructed his Phase Shifting Pulse Gate, a machine he designed along with an engineer. However, after only two performances Reich abandoned the machine and renounced the future use of electronic technology in his music, save amplification. Despite this compositional move, various critics of the early 1970s continued to describe Reich’s works in technological or mechanical terms, calling his music “controlling” or akin to the German word “Fließband” (assembly line). Rather than mechanical control, Reich claimed to seek bodily control and often compared his musical practice to yoga, a practice he had maintained for nearly a decade, which markedly informed his notions of musical time, compositional control, and performer freedoms. Drawing from unpublished essays and unreleased recordings, this chapter situates Reich’s music of the 1970s—from Drumming to Music for 18 Musicians—within a broader history of technologies of the body and mind.
Robert Fink
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Steve Reich’s “Jewish” works are logocentric to the core and thus, for all their sonic exuberance, culturally conservative. Beginning with experimental tape works like It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and My ...
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Steve Reich’s “Jewish” works are logocentric to the core and thus, for all their sonic exuberance, culturally conservative. Beginning with experimental tape works like It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and My Name Is (1967), and blossoming into extended speech-driven multimedia “operas,” Reich doggedly explored his sense that the human voice transmitted something like prophetic Truth, tracing out his own path from the patriarchal tradition of Hebrew cantillation to the “self-presence” that philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau found at the origin of human language. As a composer, Reich put his musical ear (and his digital sampler) at the service of the logos, deriving both the visuals and the music of The Cave from distinctive speech patterns of its various “talking heads.” And yet, as Jacques Derrida famously noted, speech, music, and writing are not so easily separated—and the composer’s intent is exceeded by the complexity of his word-saturated operatic language.Less
Steve Reich’s “Jewish” works are logocentric to the core and thus, for all their sonic exuberance, culturally conservative. Beginning with experimental tape works like It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and My Name Is (1967), and blossoming into extended speech-driven multimedia “operas,” Reich doggedly explored his sense that the human voice transmitted something like prophetic Truth, tracing out his own path from the patriarchal tradition of Hebrew cantillation to the “self-presence” that philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau found at the origin of human language. As a composer, Reich put his musical ear (and his digital sampler) at the service of the logos, deriving both the visuals and the music of The Cave from distinctive speech patterns of its various “talking heads.” And yet, as Jacques Derrida famously noted, speech, music, and writing are not so easily separated—and the composer’s intent is exceeded by the complexity of his word-saturated operatic language.
Twila Bakker
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0012
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter re-evaluates the role of Steve Reich’s 1980s Counterpoint series in the context of his reinvention as a venerated member of New York’s new music establishment. It aims to show how ...
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This chapter re-evaluates the role of Steve Reich’s 1980s Counterpoint series in the context of his reinvention as a venerated member of New York’s new music establishment. It aims to show how Reich's re-engagement with past compositional interests—now expressed in more conventional terminology—formed a significant step in facilitating his gradual transformation from outsider to insider. Running in parallel with Reich’s transition toward tradition was a significant change in the composer’s working methods through the use of computer technology, as found in works such as The Four Sections and Electric Counterpoint. An investigation into this important new development offers insights into how Reich has since then pragmatically incorporated digital compositional habits alongside previous analog ones, all while maintaining a secure foothold in the Western classical canon.Less
This chapter re-evaluates the role of Steve Reich’s 1980s Counterpoint series in the context of his reinvention as a venerated member of New York’s new music establishment. It aims to show how Reich's re-engagement with past compositional interests—now expressed in more conventional terminology—formed a significant step in facilitating his gradual transformation from outsider to insider. Running in parallel with Reich’s transition toward tradition was a significant change in the composer’s working methods through the use of computer technology, as found in works such as The Four Sections and Electric Counterpoint. An investigation into this important new development offers insights into how Reich has since then pragmatically incorporated digital compositional habits alongside previous analog ones, all while maintaining a secure foothold in the Western classical canon.
Ryan Ebright
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s ...
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Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s capacity to effect political or social change. This disavowal belies the explicitly political genesis of The Cave, the development of which throughout the 1980s coincided with rising Arab-Israeli tensions and the First Intifada. Early sketches, outlines, and descriptions of The Cave reveal that the pair initially viewed their quasi-opera as a step toward “reconciling the family of man.” By 1993, however, they instead adopted a seemingly apolitical stance, shying away from answering the fundamental question they had set out to answer: How can Jews and Muslims live together peacefully? This chapter argues that traces of this bid for peace remain in the opera’s music, text, and narrative structure, and that despite its purported neutrality, The Cave espouses an Americanized vision of Arab-Israeli reconciliation.Less
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s capacity to effect political or social change. This disavowal belies the explicitly political genesis of The Cave, the development of which throughout the 1980s coincided with rising Arab-Israeli tensions and the First Intifada. Early sketches, outlines, and descriptions of The Cave reveal that the pair initially viewed their quasi-opera as a step toward “reconciling the family of man.” By 1993, however, they instead adopted a seemingly apolitical stance, shying away from answering the fundamental question they had set out to answer: How can Jews and Muslims live together peacefully? This chapter argues that traces of this bid for peace remain in the opera’s music, text, and narrative structure, and that despite its purported neutrality, The Cave espouses an Americanized vision of Arab-Israeli reconciliation.
Steve Reich
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195151152
- eISBN:
- 9780199850044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151152.003.0018
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about music and performance.
This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about music and performance.
Steve Reich
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195151152
- eISBN:
- 9780199850044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151152.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter presents excerpts from an interview of Steve Reich, where he answers questions regarding his relationship with other artists.
This chapter presents excerpts from an interview of Steve Reich, where he answers questions regarding his relationship with other artists.
David Chapman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967) represents a pivotal moment in the composer’s creative practice. With this keyboard duet, the composer felt that he had successfully translated his phase-shifting ...
More
Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967) represents a pivotal moment in the composer’s creative practice. With this keyboard duet, the composer felt that he had successfully translated his phase-shifting process to live performance and had left behind earlier improvisatory practices. Documents held in the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung complicate this picture: in the months before its composition and premiere, Reich first revived Music for Two or More Pianos or Piano and Tape (1964) as a potential model for live performance, and in Improvisations on a Watermelons (1966) he explored concepts now firmly associated with Piano Phase. An archival audio recording of the Piano Phase premiere also documents a brief improvisation performed by Reich and Arthur Murphy. This chapter argues for a more critical reading of the composer’s autobiographical statements—such as, “we were not improvising”—and offers a newly detailed timeline for the origins of Piano Phase.Less
Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967) represents a pivotal moment in the composer’s creative practice. With this keyboard duet, the composer felt that he had successfully translated his phase-shifting process to live performance and had left behind earlier improvisatory practices. Documents held in the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung complicate this picture: in the months before its composition and premiere, Reich first revived Music for Two or More Pianos or Piano and Tape (1964) as a potential model for live performance, and in Improvisations on a Watermelons (1966) he explored concepts now firmly associated with Piano Phase. An archival audio recording of the Piano Phase premiere also documents a brief improvisation performed by Reich and Arthur Murphy. This chapter argues for a more critical reading of the composer’s autobiographical statements—such as, “we were not improvising”—and offers a newly detailed timeline for the origins of Piano Phase.
Sumanth Gopinath
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Steve Reich’s Four Organs (1970) is a watershed work in the history of musical minimalism, famously causing an uproar at Carnegie Hall on January 18, 1973. Scholars have typically discussed the ...
More
Steve Reich’s Four Organs (1970) is a watershed work in the history of musical minimalism, famously causing an uproar at Carnegie Hall on January 18, 1973. Scholars have typically discussed the work’s technical details and have avoided drawing a wider intertextual circle around it to encompass contemporaneous auditory cultures and contexts. Filling this lacuna, this chapter offers a historically plausible reading of the piece, in part by identifying linkages to 1960s US/UK pop/rock and soundtracks for film and television and by attending to the composition’s peculiar instrumentation, its rhythmic-metrical patterns, and its narrative trajectory. What emerges is a fresh interpretation of Four Organs: the work narrates a form of subjective sublimation charged with psychedelic sound imagery, effecting that sublimation through a semblance of bodily and planetary departure—and, as such, suggests racial-political resonances with the US space program during the Cold War, including the previous year’s Apollo lunar landing in 1969.Less
Steve Reich’s Four Organs (1970) is a watershed work in the history of musical minimalism, famously causing an uproar at Carnegie Hall on January 18, 1973. Scholars have typically discussed the work’s technical details and have avoided drawing a wider intertextual circle around it to encompass contemporaneous auditory cultures and contexts. Filling this lacuna, this chapter offers a historically plausible reading of the piece, in part by identifying linkages to 1960s US/UK pop/rock and soundtracks for film and television and by attending to the composition’s peculiar instrumentation, its rhythmic-metrical patterns, and its narrative trajectory. What emerges is a fresh interpretation of Four Organs: the work narrates a form of subjective sublimation charged with psychedelic sound imagery, effecting that sublimation through a semblance of bodily and planetary departure—and, as such, suggests racial-political resonances with the US space program during the Cold War, including the previous year’s Apollo lunar landing in 1969.
Sumanth Gopinath and Pwyll ap Siôn (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Although the composer Steve Reich (b. 1936) has been described as “the most original musical thinker of our time,” who has received innumerable accolades in a career spanning more than fifty years, ...
More
Although the composer Steve Reich (b. 1936) has been described as “the most original musical thinker of our time,” who has received innumerable accolades in a career spanning more than fifty years, his music remains nevertheless underresearched. However, during the past ten years, renewed interest has been shown in the music of this seminal figure, partly generated through the acquisition of the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland. Rethinking Reich is the first edited volume on a musical figure considered by many to be America’s greatest living composer. With contributions by academics known for their expert knowledge on various aspects of Reich’s work—ranging from analytical, aesthetic, and archival studies to sociocultural, philosophical, and ethnomusicological reflections—the book provides a much-needed intellectual platform for new understandings relating to this important composer, including those enabled by access to the Paul Sacher archive. Given the hegemony of Reich’s own very articulate and convincing discourses on his music, as found in his Writings on Music, perhaps “rethinking Reich” is precisely the task that now needs to be undertaken. While recognizing the achievements of a composer who, in critic Andrew Clements’s words, belongs to “a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history,” the present volume provides a series of timely, serious, thought-provoking, and critically minded contributions and reappraisals, where the notion of rethinking this important composer’s contribution to the music of the twentieth century remains an abiding concern throughout.Less
Although the composer Steve Reich (b. 1936) has been described as “the most original musical thinker of our time,” who has received innumerable accolades in a career spanning more than fifty years, his music remains nevertheless underresearched. However, during the past ten years, renewed interest has been shown in the music of this seminal figure, partly generated through the acquisition of the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland. Rethinking Reich is the first edited volume on a musical figure considered by many to be America’s greatest living composer. With contributions by academics known for their expert knowledge on various aspects of Reich’s work—ranging from analytical, aesthetic, and archival studies to sociocultural, philosophical, and ethnomusicological reflections—the book provides a much-needed intellectual platform for new understandings relating to this important composer, including those enabled by access to the Paul Sacher archive. Given the hegemony of Reich’s own very articulate and convincing discourses on his music, as found in his Writings on Music, perhaps “rethinking Reich” is precisely the task that now needs to be undertaken. While recognizing the achievements of a composer who, in critic Andrew Clements’s words, belongs to “a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history,” the present volume provides a series of timely, serious, thought-provoking, and critically minded contributions and reappraisals, where the notion of rethinking this important composer’s contribution to the music of the twentieth century remains an abiding concern throughout.
Pwyll ap Siôn
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter traces the influence of the Western classical tradition on Steve Reich’s musical language with reference to his important work Octet, composed in 1979 then subsequently reorchestrated ...
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This chapter traces the influence of the Western classical tradition on Steve Reich’s musical language with reference to his important work Octet, composed in 1979 then subsequently reorchestrated and renamed Eight Lines. Previous scholarly accounts of this work have focused on Reich’s use of extended melodic lines, drawing on the composer’s own comments that these were derived from his immersion at the time in Hebrew cantillation. While acknowledging Reich’s debt to Jewish music, this chapter locates Eight Lines within the broader context of the European tours with his ensemble during the early to mid-1970s. The innovative melodic lines in Eight Lines are constructed around largely goal-oriented harmonic (that is to say, “Western”) structures as much as through the composer’s own immersion in cantillation music, suggesting that his style from this point onward can be read more as a synthesis of Western and non-Western influences.Less
This chapter traces the influence of the Western classical tradition on Steve Reich’s musical language with reference to his important work Octet, composed in 1979 then subsequently reorchestrated and renamed Eight Lines. Previous scholarly accounts of this work have focused on Reich’s use of extended melodic lines, drawing on the composer’s own comments that these were derived from his immersion at the time in Hebrew cantillation. While acknowledging Reich’s debt to Jewish music, this chapter locates Eight Lines within the broader context of the European tours with his ensemble during the early to mid-1970s. The innovative melodic lines in Eight Lines are constructed around largely goal-oriented harmonic (that is to say, “Western”) structures as much as through the composer’s own immersion in cantillation music, suggesting that his style from this point onward can be read more as a synthesis of Western and non-Western influences.
Martin Scherzinger
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0013
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Using Electric Counterpoint as a central reference, this chapter outlines the constitutive role played by audible cultures of the non-West in shaping the distinctive sound of Steve Reich’s music. ...
More
Using Electric Counterpoint as a central reference, this chapter outlines the constitutive role played by audible cultures of the non-West in shaping the distinctive sound of Steve Reich’s music. Reich’s involvement with African music, in particular, extends beyond the common historical narrative of “influence” (construed as mostly confirmation and encouragement for an already formed style). Electric Counterpoint draws on a host of African musical strata—ranging from literal quotations and paraphrases to the application of techniques and principles—derived from local expressive cultures, ritual traditions, biospiritual practices, and musical cosmologies from Ghana, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, and Mozambique. The project tracks the way music and sound circulates within different regimes of meaning, mediation, and value, with a particular interest in retrieving the often tributary and ephemeral phenomena found in geographically remote cultures that, for complex reasons, are systematically written out of world history.Less
Using Electric Counterpoint as a central reference, this chapter outlines the constitutive role played by audible cultures of the non-West in shaping the distinctive sound of Steve Reich’s music. Reich’s involvement with African music, in particular, extends beyond the common historical narrative of “influence” (construed as mostly confirmation and encouragement for an already formed style). Electric Counterpoint draws on a host of African musical strata—ranging from literal quotations and paraphrases to the application of techniques and principles—derived from local expressive cultures, ritual traditions, biospiritual practices, and musical cosmologies from Ghana, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, and Mozambique. The project tracks the way music and sound circulates within different regimes of meaning, mediation, and value, with a particular interest in retrieving the often tributary and ephemeral phenomena found in geographically remote cultures that, for complex reasons, are systematically written out of world history.
Keith Potter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines some of the evidence to be found in the composer Steve Reich’s sketchbooks concerning how he conceived the tonal and harmonic organization of Music for 18 Musicians (1976) and ...
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This chapter examines some of the evidence to be found in the composer Steve Reich’s sketchbooks concerning how he conceived the tonal and harmonic organization of Music for 18 Musicians (1976) and discusses how such evidence might affect our understanding of the “diatonicism” behind Reich’s approach of the mid-1970s. By focusing, in particular, on some of the ways in which chord progressions were planned and realized, a more nuanced view is attempted of Reich’s own assertion that “harmonic movement plays a more important role here than in any of my earlier pieces.” This chapter also offers some assessment of the potential value of these sketches to the music analyst seeking a methodology to interrogate what Tom Johnson once called the “new tonality.”Less
This chapter examines some of the evidence to be found in the composer Steve Reich’s sketchbooks concerning how he conceived the tonal and harmonic organization of Music for 18 Musicians (1976) and discusses how such evidence might affect our understanding of the “diatonicism” behind Reich’s approach of the mid-1970s. By focusing, in particular, on some of the ways in which chord progressions were planned and realized, a more nuanced view is attempted of Reich’s own assertion that “harmonic movement plays a more important role here than in any of my earlier pieces.” This chapter also offers some assessment of the potential value of these sketches to the music analyst seeking a methodology to interrogate what Tom Johnson once called the “new tonality.”
Sumanth Gopinath and Pwyll ap Siôn
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This introduction starts off by situating the music of Steve Reich both in relation to popular culture (film, contemporary fiction, and popular music) and as the subject of serious musicological ...
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This introduction starts off by situating the music of Steve Reich both in relation to popular culture (film, contemporary fiction, and popular music) and as the subject of serious musicological study. An overview of the ever-changing landscape of Reich scholarship is then provided—from formal analyses to approaches that seek to view the composer’s music through the prism of the “new musicology.” The introduction concludes by arguing that the gap between discourse and practice is sometimes extensive. Reich’s own reflections can at times obfuscate more complex realities that lie under the surface. In encompassing sketch studies, discourse analysis and reception history, hermeneutic investigations, intertextual studies, historical timelines and contexts, harmonic and formal analysis, philosophical and religious ruminations, and deep archival digging, this volume draws on a wide range of perspectives that contribute a wealth of knowledge and learning that complements Reich’s own writings.Less
This introduction starts off by situating the music of Steve Reich both in relation to popular culture (film, contemporary fiction, and popular music) and as the subject of serious musicological study. An overview of the ever-changing landscape of Reich scholarship is then provided—from formal analyses to approaches that seek to view the composer’s music through the prism of the “new musicology.” The introduction concludes by arguing that the gap between discourse and practice is sometimes extensive. Reich’s own reflections can at times obfuscate more complex realities that lie under the surface. In encompassing sketch studies, discourse analysis and reception history, hermeneutic investigations, intertextual studies, historical timelines and contexts, harmonic and formal analysis, philosophical and religious ruminations, and deep archival digging, this volume draws on a wide range of perspectives that contribute a wealth of knowledge and learning that complements Reich’s own writings.
Celia Casey
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter investigates aspects of the creative process behind Reich’s “docu-music” work, WTC 9/11 (2010), which constitutes the composer’s response to the terrorist attacks in the United States of ...
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This chapter investigates aspects of the creative process behind Reich’s “docu-music” work, WTC 9/11 (2010), which constitutes the composer’s response to the terrorist attacks in the United States of America, specifically those in New York City, on September 11, 2001. Sketch materials, including recorded interviews, computer files, and handwritten sketches, belonging to the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, reveal how both documentary content and musical design have informed the work. Based on an analysis of these materials, three aspects relating to the creative process of WTC 9/11 are examined: the treatment of speech recordings; the direction of interviews; and structural and referential elements of the work. This chapter not only reveals insights into Reich’s compositional process and techniques but also uncovers other significant factors in the composer’s docu-music approach, such as how autobiographical elements inform his work.Less
This chapter investigates aspects of the creative process behind Reich’s “docu-music” work, WTC 9/11 (2010), which constitutes the composer’s response to the terrorist attacks in the United States of America, specifically those in New York City, on September 11, 2001. Sketch materials, including recorded interviews, computer files, and handwritten sketches, belonging to the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, reveal how both documentary content and musical design have informed the work. Based on an analysis of these materials, three aspects relating to the creative process of WTC 9/11 are examined: the treatment of speech recordings; the direction of interviews; and structural and referential elements of the work. This chapter not only reveals insights into Reich’s compositional process and techniques but also uncovers other significant factors in the composer’s docu-music approach, such as how autobiographical elements inform his work.
Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195099362
- eISBN:
- 9780199864737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195099362.003.0019
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter discusses the history of minimalism and the work of Philip Glass in music theater and opera, notably his influential Einstein on the Beach with Robert Wilson. It considers the influence ...
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This chapter discusses the history of minimalism and the work of Philip Glass in music theater and opera, notably his influential Einstein on the Beach with Robert Wilson. It considers the influence of minimalism on opera, particularly in the work of John Adams. Steve Reich's multi-media works with Beryl Korot are discussed along with the spread of minimalism as exemplified by music-theater works of Bang on a Can, Michael Nyman, and other British and European composers influenced by minimalism.Less
This chapter discusses the history of minimalism and the work of Philip Glass in music theater and opera, notably his influential Einstein on the Beach with Robert Wilson. It considers the influence of minimalism on opera, particularly in the work of John Adams. Steve Reich's multi-media works with Beryl Korot are discussed along with the spread of minimalism as exemplified by music-theater works of Bang on a Can, Michael Nyman, and other British and European composers influenced by minimalism.
Michael Tenzer
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0014
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Though integral to his formation as a composer, Steve Reich’s studies of Balinese gamelan have been overlooked. In part this is because of a certain redundancy: features of Balinese overlap ...
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Though integral to his formation as a composer, Steve Reich’s studies of Balinese gamelan have been overlooked. In part this is because of a certain redundancy: features of Balinese overlap significantly with the West African music whose impact on Reich’s formative works of the 1970s has been amply demonstrated. These include predominance of percussion, repetitive cyclic structures, interlocking rhythms, systems of oral transmission, and the nonprofessional ethos of the performing ensemble’s interactive behaviors. But what of the features of the Balinese music Reich studied and did not assimilate? Among these are malleable tempo, extended and minimally repetitive cycles, and tonally hierarchic melodies rooted in Southeast Asian traditions of sung poetry. Their eschewal opens pathways for insight into Reich’s music, as well as his cultural subjectivity, in the process illuminating unsuspected aesthetic affinity between his detractors among “uptown” composition apologists of the time and traditional Balinese musicians.Less
Though integral to his formation as a composer, Steve Reich’s studies of Balinese gamelan have been overlooked. In part this is because of a certain redundancy: features of Balinese overlap significantly with the West African music whose impact on Reich’s formative works of the 1970s has been amply demonstrated. These include predominance of percussion, repetitive cyclic structures, interlocking rhythms, systems of oral transmission, and the nonprofessional ethos of the performing ensemble’s interactive behaviors. But what of the features of the Balinese music Reich studied and did not assimilate? Among these are malleable tempo, extended and minimally repetitive cycles, and tonally hierarchic melodies rooted in Southeast Asian traditions of sung poetry. Their eschewal opens pathways for insight into Reich’s music, as well as his cultural subjectivity, in the process illuminating unsuspected aesthetic affinity between his detractors among “uptown” composition apologists of the time and traditional Balinese musicians.
John Pymm
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190605285
- eISBN:
- 9780190605315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Steve Reich’s Come Out was produced for a benefit concert at Town Hall, New York, in April 1966, aimed at raising funds to pay for independent lawyers for a retrial of the Harlem Six following a ...
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Steve Reich’s Come Out was produced for a benefit concert at Town Hall, New York, in April 1966, aimed at raising funds to pay for independent lawyers for a retrial of the Harlem Six following a miscarriage of justice. Come Out was one of two works by Reich performed on that occasion, the other being a much longer sound collage—Harlem’s Six Condemned—created as part of a dramatization of Truman Nelson’s The Torture of Mothers. The recording of Harlem’s Six Condemned—unheard publicly since 1966—is now available in the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel. This chapter argues that a close reading of Reich’s sound collage offers a perspective on Come Out that has been increasingly lost in the time since the benefit concert. A deeper understanding of Come Out will be gained by tracing its prehistory and setting a broader context for its appreciation.Less
Steve Reich’s Come Out was produced for a benefit concert at Town Hall, New York, in April 1966, aimed at raising funds to pay for independent lawyers for a retrial of the Harlem Six following a miscarriage of justice. Come Out was one of two works by Reich performed on that occasion, the other being a much longer sound collage—Harlem’s Six Condemned—created as part of a dramatization of Truman Nelson’s The Torture of Mothers. The recording of Harlem’s Six Condemned—unheard publicly since 1966—is now available in the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel. This chapter argues that a close reading of Reich’s sound collage offers a perspective on Come Out that has been increasingly lost in the time since the benefit concert. A deeper understanding of Come Out will be gained by tracing its prehistory and setting a broader context for its appreciation.
