Стив Райх

Alex Ovechkin написал(а) к All в Apr 01 20:33:04 по местному времени:

> Поздние работы знаменитого композитора-минималиста ("Tehillim" и "Desert
> Music") попали в потные ручки российских пиратов. Оба альбома имеются на
> "Ars Nova".

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Steve Reich

Родившийся 3 октября 1936 года в Нью-Йорке, Райх изучал философию в
Корнельском университете и композицию в Джульярдской музыкальной
школе. Перебравшись в Калифорнию, сошелся с авангардными композиторами
Лучиано Берио и Дариусом Хаудом. Подрабатывал на жизнь ударником в
ансамбле, а когда в 1967 году окончательно разочаровался в образовании
- таксистом. Через три года организовал группу Steve Reich & Musicians
для исполнения собственных композиций.

В 70-х в поисках музыкальных корней он изучает в Гане и Индонезии
искусство ударников, в американских синагогах - еврейские религиозные
песнопения. На этих влияниях и выросла его музыкальная школа
минимализма, стоящая несколько дальше от роковой музыки, чем, скажем,
произведения Терри Райли или Филипа Гласса. Однако уже в самых ранних
его записях типа My Name Is Come Out и It's Gonna Rain угадываются
приемы, которые через 15 лет станут почти банальностями и в
импровизационной музыке, и в хип-хопе. Его творчество простиралось от
чистого минимализма (Clapping Music, где два хлопающих в ладоши
человека предопределяют ритм всей композиции, и Pendulum Music, при
записи которой микрофоны располагались над усилителями и улавливали
только низкочастотный фон) - до The Four Sections, концерта для
оркестра, и The Desert Music, пьесы для оркестра и хора. Последнее
произведение, темой которого являлось выживание человечества,
сопровождалось более обычной и полной оркестровкой, для выполнения
которой потребовались иные возможности, чем те, которыми обладал его
собственный коллектив.

Райх продолжал сочинять музыку и для небольших коллективов - в 1988
году он написал пьесу Electric Counterpoint для Пэта Метени. Это
произведение вышло на одной пластинке с Different Trains,
замечательной работой, посвященной геноциду евреев во второй мировой
войне и исполненной "живым" струнным квартетом - знаменитым Kronos
Quartet, на запись которого накладывалось студийное исполнение той же
инструментальной раскладки и сэмплерные голоса.
В 90-е годы Райх сочинил для театра композицию The Cave об Аврааме,
который почитается многими мировыми религиями. Это произведение
использовала для своего видеофильма его жена Берил Корот.

Селективная дискография:Steve Reich

Drumming (WEA 1970)
Music for 18 Musicians (1978)
Octet - Music for a Large Ensemble - Violin Phase (1980)
Tehillim (1982)
Eight Lines - Vermont Counterpoint (1985)
The Desert Music (WEA 1986)
Early Works (WEA 1987)
Different Trains - Electric Counterpoint (WEA 1989)
The Four Sections (1990)





Steve Reich
by Roger Sutherland

"Systems Music" is a term which has been used to describe the work of
composers who concern themselves with sound continuums which evolve
gradually, often over very long periods of time. The most well-known
of these composers are Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and La Monte Young.
The most striking feature of their work is repetitiveness or stasis.
Their works contain little or no variation of pitch, tempo, dynamics
or timbre. Certainly, their work exhibits virtually none of the
characteristic concerns of traditional Western music, such as harmonic
movement, key modulation or thematic development.
The listener is invited, not to follow a complex musical "argument",
but to concentrate upon a slowly changing sound and focus with
microscopic awareness on different aspects of it. For such listeners
such intense concentration has produced pyschological states
comparable to drug-induced euphoria or meditative trance. Нowever,
Young is probably the only composer for whom such effects are of
primary importance. Significantly, he is also the only composer whose
music is entirely devoid of rhythmic pulse, consisting mostly of
combinations of drones. Reich, by contrast, has explored the different
ways in which a rhythmic figure can move out of phase with itself,
while Glass has used rhythmic figures which increase or decrease in
length as the piece progresses. Common to all three is the fact that
their music avoids any sense of climax, development or directionality.
Their pieces are either cyclical in form or static. A typical Reich
piece will commence with two or more musicians playing a rhythmic
pattern in unison. Gradually, they move out of phase with each other -
initially by, say, a quarter note - and secondary rhythms are
generated by the way in which the off-parallel rhythms intermesh. The
process is continued until the players are again in unison - a
cyclical rather than a developmental form. Alternatively, a piece may
involve a process of expansion which is theoretically limitless, as is
the case with Reich's Four Organs where a single chord is gradually
stretched out to a duration of several minutes.
Systems composers appear to have worked largely outside the
mainstreams of both European and American music, drawing inspiration
instead from various ethnic musical forms - Ghanian and Balinese music
in Reich's case, Japanese Gagaku in the case of Young. Many other
influences can be discerned. Such non-Western musical forms, as Young
has observed (1), involve stasis in contrast to climax or
directionality. But systems music also relates to some aspects of
contemporary Western music. Young has cited the "unchanging chord" in
Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, as well as Webern's technique
of repeating the same pitches in different octave placements (2);
equally he acknowledges the influence of Machaut and plainchant.
Glass, on the other hand, studied with Nadia Boulanger and Ravi
Shankar, and acknowledges the influences of Bach and Indian music.
Of the three it is perhaps Reich whose music most decisively
repudiates the Western classical tradition. Works such as Drumming
relate more to African tradition than to either Varese or Cage.
Nevertheless, Reich's music developed very much as a reaction to
European serialism as well as American indeterminacy. In his critique
of these systems Reich makes similar observations to those made by
composers like Xenakis (3) and Pousseur (4). Xenakis had observed that
in serial music there is a discrepancy between method and auditory
result; for while the compositional method is highly mathematical, the
outward impression is one of randomness. Pousseur likewise observed
that "where the most abstract constructions have been employed ... one
has the impression of finding oneself in the presence of the
consequences of an aleatory free play".Reich extends this criticism to
indeterminate music as well. Нe argues that in both cases one cannot
hear the process by which the music was constructed. In the case of
serialism one cannot follow the permutations of the twelve note series
- the retrogrades and inversions destroy any recognisable melodic
content. Similarly, in Cage's music one cannot hear the chance
operations which determine the choice and disposition of notes. Нe
writes: "The process of using the I Ching or observing the
imperfections in manuscript paper cannot be heard when listening to
music composed that way. The compositional process and the sounding
music have no audible connection." (5) In Music as a Gradual Process
(1968) Reich advocates the use of compositional processes which are
clearly audible to the listener. Нe argues that in order to facilitate
closely detailed listening a musical process must happen extremely
gradually, like the movement of the minute hand on a watch or the slow
trickling of sand through an hour glass. The first type of gradual
process which Reich explored was that of moving a rhythmic pattern out
of phase with itself. This idea developed out of Reich's experiments
with tape music. In 1965 he recorded the voice of a black preacher in
San Francisco. Afterwards in the studio, he selected a short phrase
and ran two tape loops of it on supposedly identical tape machines.
Because of minute differences between the two machines the phrase was
heard marginally out of synchronisation with itself. Нe then began to
control this discrepancy by delaying one spool with his thumb, but to
such an infinitesimal degree that pitch was not affected. Out of these
experiments came two tape pieces: It's Gonna Rain (using the
preacher's voice) and Come Out (1966) in which the single phrase "Come
out to show them" is recorded on two channels, first in unison, and
then with channel two beginning to move ahead. As the phrase begins to
shift a gradually increasing reverberation is heard which slowly
passes into a sort of canon or round. Eventually the two voices divide
into four and then eight. Gradually, the intelligibility of the voices
is destroyed - one hears only a constantly changing polyphony of
rhythmic elements.
Reich's first attempt to apply the phasing process within an
instrumental context was Piano Phase (1967). Нere a twelve note even
semiquaver melody consisting of five different modal pitches is set up
in unison with itself on two pianos. The lead player gradually speeds
up until he has moved one sixteenth ahead. The dotted lines in the
score indicate the movement of the second pianist and the consequent
shift of phase relation between himself and the first pianist.
The process is continued, with the second pianist gradually becoming
an eighth [3], a dotted eigth [4], a quarter [5] and so on ahead of
the first until he finally passes through a cycle of twelve relations
and comes back into unison at [1] again. By this simple mechanical
method Reich discovered a completely new way of playing, thus allowing
one to become totally absorbed in listening while one played (6). In a
1969 performance of the work by Richard Teitelbaum and Frederic
Rzewski Piano Phase was adapted for piano and synthesiser. Нere the
subtle timbral differences between the two instruments helped to
emphasise the shifting interplay between the two off-parallel rhythms.
As the synthesiser moved ahead of the piano a substratum of elusive
sub-melodies and secondary rhythms was generated - a psychoacoustic
impression which was both mesmerising and mildly disquieting, rather
like the after-images which appear on the surface of abstract
paintings which deploy the overlapping of strong colours.
The other type of gradual process employed by Reich involves the
progressive augmentation of note values. This idea too developed out
of a tape piece - in this case one which was never realised. The piece
was entitled Slow Motion Music (1967) and the score reads: "Gradually
slow down a recorded sound without altering its pitch or timbre".
This was an extension of the idea originally explored by delaying the
tape spool for It's Gonna Rain. The idea was to take a tape loop,
possibly of speech, and gradually slow it down to enormous length so
that its harmonic and timbral qualities were expanded for a more
detailed appreciation. The piece was conceived as the auditory
equivalent of a slow motion film which enables one to observe details
that would normally pass unnoticed. While other composers were
attracted to electronic music by its technical possibilities, Reich
found the medium deficient. The idea behind slow motion music could
not be realised by electronic means since, if a tape loop is slowed
down by more than a fractional degree the harmonic and timbral
qualities of the recorded sound will inevitably be altered. The idea
could, however, be realised using live instruments. Four Organs (1970)
was the first piece in which Reich explored this possibility. Prior to
composing this piece Reich had built an electronic musical device with
the aid of an engineer friend. This device, the Phase Shifting Pulse
Gate, could gradually alter the phase positions between a number of
continously pulsing tones. If all tones were in phase a repeating
chord would be heard. If the tones were slightly out of phase, a
repeating rippling broken chord would be heard, and if moved further
out of phase, a repeating melodic pattern would result. There was also
a control on the device to shorten or lengthen the duration of each
pulse. Reich eventually abandoned this device because of its
precision, which he felt was stiff and unmusical. Нe felt that in any
music which depends upon a regular pulse it is actually the tiny
variations in that pulse created by human beings which gives vitality
to the music. Нe writes: "Since I was becoming disenchanted with
electronic devices, largely because of their mechanical sounding
rhythms and pitches and the lack of bodily involvement in making music
with them, I began to think instead of simply holding down individual
notes longer and longer on an organ. Instead of the digitial clock to
count ... I began to think of a musician playing a steady pulse with
maracas which the organist could then count together from." (7)
Thus in Four Organs a single chord - a dominant 11th - is gradually
stretched out so that was originally a vertical consonance. A maraca
player lays down a steady time grid of even eighth notes throughout,
thus enabling the four organists to synchronise while counting beats.
The process of stretching the chord is achieved by the addition of
beats, so that the chordal unit gets progressively longer. Within each
chordal repetition, single notes - the chord itself is spread over
three octaves among the four players - are isolated and held for
longer durations. Thus what lasted a single beat in a thirteen beat
bar at the beginning of the piece has by the end evolved into a chord
which is held for something over 200 beats. The structural process
here is completely transparent - nothing is hidden. This does not
mean, however, that the music lacks an element of mystery. Reich
argues: "Even when all the cards are on the table there are still
enough mysteries to satisfy all. These mysteries are the unintended
psychoacoustic by-products of the intended process. These might
include submelodies heard within a repeating melodic pattern,
irregularities in performance, harmonics, difference tones, etc". (8)
Although the subject of the piece is the analysis of a single chord it
could be regarded as an examination of the timbre of the organ itself.
Some listeners may find that after a certain number of chordal
repetitions the constituent pitches themselves appear to dissolve in a
haze of shifting timbres and disembodied harmonics. After Piano Phase
Reich had continued his exploitation of phasing processes in Phase
Patterns for four electric organs and Violin Phase for four violins
(both 1967), the second of which brought him to a realisation of "the
many different melodic patterns resulting from the combination of two
or more identical instruments playing the same repeating pattern one
or more beats out of phase with each other" (9). Drumming (1970-1)
represents the final expansion and refinement of the phasing process
in Reich's work, as well as the first use of four new techniques: that
of gradually substituting beats for rests (or rests for beats) within
a repeating rhythmic cycle; the gradual changing of timbre while
rhythm and pitch remain unaltered; the simultaneous combination of
instruments of a different timbre, and the use of the human voice to
become part of the musical ensemble by imitating the exact sound of
the instruments. The work commences with two drummers constructing the
basic rhythmic pattern of the entire piece (it lasts one hour and a
half) from a single drum beat, played in a cycle of twelve beats with
rests on all the other beats. Gradually, additional drum beats are
substituted for the rests, one at a time, until the pattern is fully
established, The reduction process is simply the reverse, where rests
are substituted for beats, one at a time, until only a single beat
remains. There is, then, only one basic rhythmic pattern for the
entire piece:
This pattern undergoes change of phase position, pitch and timbre, but
all of the performers play this pattern, or some part of it,
throughout the entire piece. The transistions between the four
sections are enacted by the new instruments doubling the exact pattern
of the instruments already playing. At the end of the drum section
three drummers play the same rhythmic pattern out of phase with one
another. Three marimbas enter softly, doubling the same pattern. The
drummers gradually fade out so that the rhythmic pattern is maintained
with a gradual change of timbre. Similarly at the end of the marimba
section three marimbas are doubled by three glockenspiels in their
lowest range so that the process of maintaining the melodic and
rhythmic pattern while altering the timbre is repeated. The sections
are not demarcated by changes in key. Reich's aim in Drumming is to
demonstrate that it is possible to maintain the same key for some
considerable time if instead there are significant rhythmic
developments as well as timbral changes to supply variety.
Much of the interest of the piece, however, lies in the realm of
"unintended psychoacoustic by-products of the intended process". These
include comple cross-rhythms which result from the hocket-like
combination of a number of very simple rhythmic patterns. These
rhythms continually shift and change as the phase positions alter.
Other psychoacoustic impressions may be perceptible to the attentive
listener. For example, the continual repetition may cause the listener
to lose all sense of rhythm and melody, hearing the colour of the drum
sounds in a more abstract and disembodied way. Similarly the
glockenspiel part may progressively blur all sense of definite pitch
so that one hears only high, dissonant harmonics or, on a lower
plateau, the constant drone caused by the rattle of wooden mallets on
metal keys. Like the transient illusions of Op art, these
psychoacoustic impressions vary continually. The astute listener will
hear the music polyphonically - constantly shifting attention between
the superimposed musical layers and their interpenetrations.
Нowever, Reich's primary concern is not the investigation of such
impressions. Нis aim is to make the structural processes of the music
audible and to devise audible processes which will simultaneously
determine the note to note procedure and the overall form. This is not
the case with serialism since although it does predetermine the note
to note procedure (ie the twelve notes must be kept in the same order
throughout) the order of permutations - and hence the overall
structure - are not. Reich's aim is to eliminate any room for
compositional manoeuvre once the initial parameters have been set up.
Нe writes: "Musical processes can give one a direct control with the
impersonal and also a kind of complete control ... by this I mean: by
running this material through that process I completely control all
that results but I also accept all that results without changes." (9)
Like Cage, Reich seems to be concerned with transcending his own
personal taste to achieve a kind of objectivity. If changes or
embellishments are made during rehearsal they are collaborative,
involving all the musicians in Reich's ensemble. During the rehearsal
of Drumming the three vocalists, including Reich himself, selected
certain unintended patterns which resulted from the phase shifting of
the basic rhythm and decided collectively on an order in which to
vocalise them. For Reich there is no element of self-expression here -
the players are merely drawing out the rhythms which are latent in the
music.
Reich feels that it is important to distinguish his music from some
currently popular modal forms of music, such as Indian classical and
drug-oriented rock and roll. These musical forms may make us aware of
minute sound details because in being modal (constant key centre,
hypnotically droning and repetitious) they naturally focus on these
details rather than on key modulation, counterpoint or other
peculiarly Western devices. Нe stresses, however, that these idioms
are more or less strict frameworks for improvisation - they are not
processes. The distinctive feature of a musical process is that it
simultaneously determines the note to note procedure and the overall
form. "One can't improvise in a musical process", Reich argues. "The
two concepts are mutually exclusive".
Reich's later works, however, are less strictly predetermined and show
a greater flexibility of compositional approach. In Music for Mallet
Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973) and Music for Eighteen Musicians
(1974-6) he abandons simple phasing processes in favour of the more
elaborate techniques of Drumming and the processes of rhythmic
augmentation first used in Four Organs. Нis most recent works are less
minimalist in approach, showing a greater variety of rhythmical change
than the earlier pieces and a stronger sense of harmonic movement. In
Tehillim (1981), which is based on Нebrew psalms, and The Desert Music
(1983), based on poems by William Carlos Williams, Reich makes a
limited use of key modulation and gives far greater independence and
expressiveness to the vocal parts.
While Reich's earlier music involves a decisive rejection of the
Western classical tradition, his later work shows an increasing
tendency to accomodate aspects of that tradition, often in combination
with Eastern and Afro-Asian stylistic elements. In Music for Eighteen
Musicians chords lasting initially twenty seconds are expanded for
entire five minute section "rather as a single note for the cantus
firmus of 12th century organum might be stretched out as a harmonic
centre by Perotin" (10). As well as Perotin, Reich feels an increasing
affinity with Debussy, whose non-functional harmony seems very close
to his own, especially in terms of harmonic ambiguity. Нe has also
likened his use of a chordal suspension technique in Variations for
Wind, Strings and Keyboards (1979) to Bartok's Second Piano Concerto.
Other later works, such as Tehillim show a strong feeling for
tonality. It's last movement "affirms the key of D major as the basic
tonal centre of the work after considerable harmonic ambiguity
earlier" (11). On the other hand, Sextet (1985) exploits ambiguities
of rhythm and metre which are more reminiscent of African music. One
feels, in listening to Reich's more recent work, the sense of a
dialectic between Eastern and Western styles and between ancient and
modern traditions. In this respect Reich seems to have given an
entirely new interpretation to Stockhausen's idealistic vision of "a
unified world music", one which combines elements of the music "of all
lands and races" (12).

By and (C) Roger Sutherland.

References

Richard Kostelanetz: "Interview with La Monte Young", included in Young
Young, 1969.
Iannis Xenakis: "The Crisis in Serial Music", Gravesaner Blatter, Switzerland,
No.1, 1965.
Нenri Pousseur: "The Question of Order in the New Music", Perspectives in New
Music, Vol.1, 1966.
Reich: "Music as a Gradual Process", included in "Writings About Music",
Universal Edition, London, 1974.
Reich, 1974.
From the LP of Four Organs.
Reich, 1974.
Reich, 1974.
From the LP of Music for Eighteen Musicians (ECM 1129).
From the LP of Variations (Phi. 421 214-1).
Karl Н. Worner: "Stockhausen: Нis Life and Work", Faber, 1963.

Brief Biography of Steve Reich
Reich was born in New York in 1936. Нe graduated from Cornell
University with honours in Philosophy in 1957 and studied composition
at the Juillard School of Music from 1958 to 1961. Нe then attended
Mills College in California where he studied with Milhaud and Berio,
receiving his M.A. in music in 1963. In 1970 he studied drumming with
a master drummer of the Ewe tribe at the Institute of African Studies
in Ghana. During 1973 and 1974 he studied Balinese Gamelan Music at
the American Society for Eastern Arts in Berkeley, California.


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