"Technology is making the record collection increasingly obsolete. Which is sad."
-- Steve Reich [Guardian (2/2/04)]
Over the past year, I watched Shostakovich 100 come and go with respectful indifference, assembled a top ten tunes list for John Coltrane's 80th, and harbored open hostility toward Mozart 250. The occasion of Steve Reich's 70th birthday, however, inspires a more personal appreciation — and not just because we're celebrating someone who is actually still alive for a change.
For some reason, at the impressionable age of 16 or so, I was regularly tuning into the radio show "System Considerations" on the local independent (very independent) radio station WORT on Sunday nights, where I absorbed all manner of new, electronic, experimental, and generally bizarre music (and sometimes just plain noise).
One (very late) night, they played the newly released Nonesuch recording of Steve Reich's The Desert Music — specifically the final movement, which the composer has aptly described as "out on the plain, running like hell." I was fascinated and amazed (and wide awake). Sure, some of the usual minimalist traits were there — repetition, pulsing rhythms, modal harmonies — but there was a sharper edge and a humanity to this music that really pulled me in.
Thanks to the public library, I soon also became obsessed with the Steve Reich ECM LP with a few bars of the very cool-looking Octet score on the album cover. This piece was even more intoxicating and engaging, with its relentless double piano pulse, strident extended string tones, woodwinds fading in and out of the texture, and those almost jazzy flute solos.
Soon enough, I was devouring Reich's entire recorded output — first on LPs, and then again on CDs: Drumming, Music for 18 Musicians, Six Pianos, Vermont Counterpoint, Come Out, It's Gonna Rain, and even the stripped-down, barely listenable, riot-inducing Four Organs.
Friends and family were amused, confused, and/or concerned by this "record stuck in a groove" stuff, calling it "piano tuner music" and other less friendly things. But I was endlessly intrigued by Reich's gradual processes, with repetitions subtly shifting over time and changes in harmony, rhythm, and texture unfolding almost imperceptibly.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
nice! (though i'm not down with Glass being a charlatan...on the other hand, you may be right about LaMonte Young!)
Electric Counterpoint: Metheny said it was one of the most difficult things he's ever recorded.
2 - Steve Glassfan
Glass reigns supreme over Reich anyday. Reich hasn't written anything good in years. Heck, Act III of Glass's "The Photographer" alone blows anything Reich has written out of the water!
3 - Steve Glassfan
If Glass was a charlatan, why do you bother listening to his music and writing useless/stupid reviews of his CD's on amazon.com?
4 - Stephen V Funk
Glass's Photographer certainly kicks ass. Problem is, that was 1983. What has he done for you lately, Mr. Glassfan?
5 - Mark Saleski
What has he done for you lately...
ok, i'll play!
Mishima
Akhnaten
Passages (w/Ravi Shankar)
The Screens
Music With Changing Parts
Koyaanisqatsi
Kundun
Symphony No. 3
those are my favorites.
still, this does not reflect on Reich. i love him as well and this whole "Glass kicks Reich's ass" thing is just rediculous.
6 - Stephen V Funk
I'm only hard on Phil cause I love(d) him so much. Those are good ones, Mark -- mostly 1980s, of course. Koyaanisqatsi was my gateway drug to the whole Glass/Reich/Minimalist thing.
Anyway - "charlatan" maybe a bit harsh, but I do feel a little cheated by the guy over the past 15 years or so, maybe just disappointed. He seems to have played all his cards and is just coasting along these days, watering down his style and cranking out cookie-cutter operas, concertos, symphonies, soundtracks, and cell phone ring tones. I guess the man has a right to get paid.
Steve Reich -- I'm thinking he may still have an ace up his sleeve or two.
7 - Mark Saleski
this is only moderately related but, have you ever heard any Gavin Bryars?
a friend of mine loaned me The Sinking Of The Titanic and it pretty much blew me away.
8 - Stephen V Funk
Yeah, that's great stuff (have you heard the Aphex Twin "remix" too?) Also "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" by Bryars is a mind-blower...
9 - Mark Saleski
yes, i have "Jesus' Blood"...very freak when the Tom Waits voice fades in.
"Little Puffy Clouds"? yep, i have that.
10 - Stephen V Funk
Puffy clouds samples Reich's Electric Counterpoint.
I'm talking about the Aphex Twin remix of Bryars's Sinking of the Titanic. It's on his "26 mixes for cash" double CD. Interesting. Also his remix of Phil Glass's Heroes Symphony is on there. Amusing.
There's a recording on Bryars's Jesus with no Waits and much smaller orchestra that's even better -- a long out of print LP I'm sure.
11 - Mark Saleski
mmmmm.....i'll have to get that remix record for sure.
12 - Steve Glassfan
What has Glass done for me lately?
Piano Concerto #2- After Lewis & Clark
Symphony No. 8 (all three movements are great)
Orion (absolutely wonderful)
The Illusionist (wonderful soundtrack)
Monsters of Grace from 1997 (not officially released on CD, but I have a copy)
The Witches of Venice (1995) The next release on Orange Mountain Music- Over the top, crazy Glass!
Naqoyqatsi
Glass could hang it up today, and Reich will never catch him. Reich's music doesn't have the humanity and heart Glass's does. Glass also has a sense of humor.