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The Problem of the Political in Steve Reich's Come Out

Sumanth Gopinath

in Sound Commitments: Avant-Garde Music and the Sixties

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

Introduction

Paul Hillier

in Writings on Music 1965–2000: 1965-2000

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

“Machine Fantasies into Human Events”: Reich and Technology in the 1970s

Kerry O’Brien

in Rethinking Reich

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

“We Are Not Trying to Make a Political Piece”: The Reconciliatory Aesthetic of Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s The Cave

Ryan Ebright

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

Repetition, Speech, and Authority in Steve Reich’s “Jewish” Music

Robert Fink

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

Music and Performance (1969–74; 1993)

Steve Reich

in Writings on Music 1965–2000: 1965-2000

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about music and performance.

Excerpts From an Interview in Art Forum

Steve Reich

in Writings on Music 1965–2000: 1965-2000

This chapter presents excerpts from an interview of Steve Reich, where he answers questions regarding his relationship with other artists.

Improvisation, Two Variations on a Watermelon, and a New Timeline for Piano Phase

David Chapman

in Rethinking Reich

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 Counterpoints and Computers: Rethinking the 1980s

Twila Bakker

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

“Departing to Other Spheres”: Psychedelic Science Fiction, Perspectival Embodiment, and the Hermeneutics of Steve Reich’s Four Organs

Sumanth Gopinath

in Rethinking Reich

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

Afro-Electric Counterpoint

Martin Scherzinger

in Rethinking Reich

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

“Moving Forward, Looking Back”: Resulting Patterns, Extended Melodies, Eight Lines, and the Influence of the West on Steve Reich

Pwyll ap Siôn

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

Minimalism and Music Theater

Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi

in The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body

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 ... More

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

Sketching a New Tonality: A Preliminary Assessment of Steve Reich’s Sketches for Music for 18 Musicians in Telling the Story of This Work’s Approach to Tonality

Keith Potter

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

Introduction: Reich in Context

Sumanth Gopinath and Pwyll ap Siôn

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

From World War II to the “War on Terror”: An Examination of Steve Reich’s “Docu-Music” Approach in WTC 9/11

Celia Casey

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

That’s All It Does: Steve Reich and Balinese Gamelan

Michael Tenzer

in Rethinking Reich

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 ... More

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

Different Tracks: Narrative Sequence, Harmonic (Dis)continuity, and Structural Organization in Steve Reich’s Different Trains and The Cave

Maarten Beirens

in Rethinking Reich

This chapter examines various ways in which Steve Reich set out to shape overall structure in his first two sample-based compositions, Different Trains (1988) and The Cave (1993). Drawing from ... More

This chapter examines various ways in which Steve Reich set out to shape overall structure in his first two sample-based compositions, Different Trains (1988) and The Cave (1993). Drawing from Reich’s composition sketches held at the Paul Sacher Stiftung (Steve Reich Collection) as well as from analytical observations, the chapter offers an account of several of the decisions involved in shaping the dramaturgical and harmonic structures of these works. The chapter devotes particular attention to a discussion of harmonic devices Reich uses to articulate structure, navigating between the restrictions imposed by the samples used on the one hand, and the unifying logic of a harmonic framework on the other—on both micro and macro levels.Less