Stephen Michael Reich Biography - Essay Example

Stephen Michael Reich Stephen Michael Reich was born on the 3rd of October 1936; he is an American composer and he has specialized in the minimalist music style. Innovations by him include creation of phasing patterns using tape loops, for example are compositions which are early like “Come Out” and “It’s Gonna Rain”.” Four Organs” and “Pendulum Music” explore musical concepts using simple audible processes. These composition canons and slow harmonic rhythm marked by their use of repetitive figures which have influenced contemporary music significantly particularly in the United States of America. Grammy Award winning “Different Trains” added a darker character to Reich’s work in 1980s, introducing historical themes and themes from his Jewish heritage as well. Many musical groups and composers were eminently influenced by Reich’s style of composition. The Guardian’s description of Reich has been that of one of “a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history”, Kyle Gann who happens to be a critic has made a comment about Reich as “may be considered by general acclamation, America’s greatest living composer”. Reich was the recipient of the Polar Music Prize along with Sonny Rollins which was awarded on the 25th of January 2007, Reich for his Double Sextet, was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music on 20th of April 2009. Reich has established himself as one of the foremost composers of our time, as an early pioneer in American minimalism and tape music. At the Cornell University in the year 1953 to 1957, he has studied philosophy, at Julliard with Vincent Persichetti he turned to composition in the beginning from 1958 to 1961, later at the Mills College from 1962 to 1963, with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio. Strict diatonic and tonal harmonies and steady strong pulse are generally characteristics of Reich’s music. Recently with John Adams and earlier with other first generation minimalists like La Monte Young and Philip Glass are generally grouped with Reich. With an unrelenting pulse, short and repeating melodic figures his music is deeply American and is usually compared to be-bop and rock and roll. European forms and techniques have immensely influenced Reich’s music, like the other minimalist composers, which can be viewed as a reaction to the elitist and academic climate of music in the years 1950s and 1960s. At the San Francisco Tape Music Center, in early 1960’s Reich’s early works were created. The earliest examples of “phasing”, which is one of the most used and well known techniques of Reich are “It’s Gonna Rain” which was created in 1965 and in 1966 “ Come out” was produced. In this process, two tape loops are set into motion at two slightly different speeds, so that the tapes begin in unison and slowly shift "out of phase," creating a new set of harmonies and rhythms. Later this process was integrated into numerous pieces for instruments and tapes or traditional acoustic instruments like in the Violin Phase and Piano Phase in 1967. Reich also introduced into “Violin Phase”, new melodic figures that are produced by overlapping voices of the original theme, the notion of “found” or “resulting” patterns. In the year 1971, in Drumming that was very popular and influential this technique was further explored. Reich intensively studied Ghanaian drumming in 1970, that indirectly or directly led to many of the procedures throughout his career and drumming. Developed and re-orchestrated through four distinct sections this piece is a massive, hour long amplification of a single rhythmic cell. The piece begins by introducing the initial rhythmic pattern in a slow additive process. New harmonic and melodic patterns are created through phasing procedures and further build up and reduction, by doubling, first by female voice, and then by whistling and finally by piccolo these are brought to the fore. Even though strictly diatonic however by more diverse harmonic language and noticeably faster harmonic rate of change, Reich’s later music is characterized. A series of commissions from ensembles other than his own in mid 1970’s led to numerous non-drumming works, in 1976 Music for 18 musicians, in 1978 Music for a Large Ensemble and Octet came in 1979, until then Reich’s ensemble was the only performing group for his music. For solo instruments and tape Reich returned to the ideas earlier used in “Violin Phase”. Build upon the original methods of early phasing Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar, New York Counterpoint for clarinet and Vermont Counterpoint for flute are developed. Yet, the intricacy is a lot deeper than the early phasing pieces, for example, in Vermont Counterpoint, ten layers in total were prerecorded, and the final layer, the 11th layer which was the flute was played live. In 1980s with the introduction of themes from his Jewish heritage and historical themes, Reich’s music took a darker turn. Reich’s first work to draw explicitly on Jewish background in 1981 was Tehillim, Hebrew for psalms. The work is ensemble of four women’s voices and is in four parts, one alto, one high soprano and two lyric sopranos, flute, English horn, piccolo, oboe, two clarinets, two violins, two electric organs, double bass, cello, viol, with amplified voices, strings and winds and six percussion, playing small tuned tambourines without vibraphone, crotales, clapping, maracas, marimba and jingles. Tehillm is a diversion from the other works of Reich and their formal structure the texts are set in several longer lines rather than bits which were used in his earlier works and this makes a substantive element of melody. The works which were written previously were loosely structured and minimalist in contrast to which , a setting of texts from psalms 19:2-5 (19:1-4 in Christian translations), 34:13-15 (34:12-14), 18:26–27 (18:25–26), and 150:4–6, formal counterpoint and functional harmony have been used. In “Different Trains”, recorded speech has been used for string quartet and tape in his earlier works, but here in 1988, they are used as melodic rather than a rhythmic element. Reich contrasts and compares memories of his childhood train journeys between California and New York in 1939 to 1941, with a variety of trains which were used to transport European children to deaths under Nazi rule. Grammy Award was awarded to the Kronos Quartet recording of Different Trains as the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1990. Richard Taruskin described the composition as “the only adequate musical response- one of the few adequate artistic responses in any medium—to the Holocaust. He gave total credit to the mentioned piece for earning Reich a position amongst the 20th century’s great composers. Reich also returned to vocals some Psalm text in Hebrew, for example in Tehillim in 1981 and Different Trains in 1988 for tape and string quartet, and the extremely successful theatre venture The Cave. All the works by Reich look into the pitch of sequenced voices and taped voices. And then these pitches are used as melodic material in complementing instrumental assembly. In collaboration with his wife Bery Korot in the year 1993, Reich conducted an opera called The Cave, it explored the roots of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as told by Palestinians, Americans, and Israelis. The work is considered a musical documentary for its beats, strings, and voices, named after the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, where the mosque where Abraham was buried is situated. The husband and wife came together once again for the opera Three Tales, which was related to the Hindenburg disaster, which was the testing of nuclear weapons, it also included other concerns like cloning, Dolly the sheep, and technological singularity. Pieces like City Life and Three Tales used sampling techniques. Later, Reich returned to creating purely instrumental pieces for the concert hall, the first of which was Triple Quartet, which was composed in 1998. Triple Quartet was written for the Kronos Quartet which can be performed by a 36 piece orchestra, three string quartets, or even a string qauartet and tape. Reich believed that his piece was influenced by Yo Shakespeare by Michael Gordon, and Alfred Schnittke’ and Bartok’s string quartets. Reich continued creating great compositions like Cello Counterpoint in 2003 and Dance Patterns in 2002. Many of his works also revolved around variations for example, You Are in 2004, this was inspired by and goes back to the vocal written works like The Desert Music and Double Sextet. Later, he released Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings in the year 2005 and Daniel Variation in the year 2006. Reich said that he still continues to follow the same direction with his work Double Sextet released in 2007, which was commissioned by the eight blackbird, in an interview with The Guardian. The eight blackbird was an American collection which consisted of the instrumental quintet, violin, flute, clarinet, piano, and the cello, of the piece Pierrot Lunaire in 1912, by Schoenberg with the addition of beats. Reich said the work will again be with tape, and as a model of writing for his work he was inspired by Agon by Stravinsky. The Premium Imperial Award in Music was awarded to Mr. Reich in Tokyo in the year 2006 in October. This significant international award is one area in the field of arts is not covered by the Nobel Prize. Some other winners in different fields are Lucian Berio, Pierre Boulez, Jasper Johns, Gyorgy Ligeti, Richard Serra, Willem de Kooning, and Stephen Sondheim. The Royal Swedish Academy of Music awarded Reich with The Polar Prize in the year May 2007. This award was given to Reich by the His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. According to the Swedish Academy “Steve Reich has transferred questions of faith, society and philosophy into a hypnotic sounding music that has inspired musicians and composers of all genres” (Steve Reich, n.d., para 4). Some other famous artists who won The Polar Prize are Bob Dylan, Sir Paul McCartney, Pierre Boulez, and Gyorgi Ligeti. In the year 2006, the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest awarded Reich with their membership. The following year in April 2007 the Yale University awarded Reich the Chubb Fellowship. He was then elected, in May 2008, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The famous Pulitzer Prize for Music was awarded to Reich in 2009, specifically on 20 April 2009, for his work Double Sextet. Reich’s technique and style of composition have influenced many artists and musical groups ranging from progressive rock bands like King Crimson, to John Adams, to new age guitarist Michael Hedges, the art and experimental music group The Residents, The pop-art and electronic composer Brian Eno. Many other musicians like indie rock composers and song writer Sufjan Stevens, instrumental collections like The Mercury Program, and Tortoise, Do Make Say Think, So Many Dynamos, and A Silver Mt. Zion. The group Godspeed You! Black Emperor created an unreleased song titled and named after Steve Reich. His music has also inspired many techno and ambient composers. In describing Steve Reich, John Adams said that Reich did not reinvent music so much as he showed other artists a new way to create music. Musicians were not the only ones influenced by Reich, he also inspired visual artists like Bruce Nauman, and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, who choreographed some of Reich’s works. The 1990 production of the British ambient techno act the Orb’s, Little Fluffy Clouds exposed Reich’s composition to a new generation of music lovers, where it featured a sample of Reich’s work Electric Counterpoint. The Reich Remixed which was released in 1999 gained Reich more acceptance and influence on a variety of electronic dance music producers. Riech Remixed was a tribute album and it consisted of recreations by various artists like Kurtis Mantronik, Coldcut, DJ Spooky, and Ken Ishii, along with many others. As a young musician Reich always admired and wanted to become the likes of composers like J.S. Bach, Pérotin, Stravinsky, and Debussy. A major part of Reich’s work and musical style is influenced by Jazz music. Singers Alfred Deller and Ella Fitzgerald were the earliest influences on Reich’s works. These vocalists had artistic capabilities of such high quality that they voice alone with a little alteration was inspirational. Another artist that influenced Reich’s works was John Coltrane’s style of compositions. Reich described his style as one where you play a lot of notes to few harmonies. Coltrane had a specific influence to Reich’s album Africa/Brass. The influence of Jazz music on Reich can be traced back to the West African music that he studied in his visit to Ghana and his readings. Other significantly influential artists in Reich’s works are Miles Davis and Kenny Clarke, along with visual artist who were also Reich’s friends Richard Serra and Sol Lewitt. Reich’s music is a combination of process and repetition which creates music that is full of energy and liveliness. Reich received plenty of critical acclaim for his stern, tonal melodic style. Reich gained popularity even in the common public which is usually cynical to new music. In many ways Reich has led to a change towards setting up the accessible and anti-academic criticism of the latest developments in modern music. The New York Times recently called Steve Reich the greatest living composer, while The Village Voice called him America’s greatest living composer. The New Yorker called him ‘the most original musical thinker of our time’. Reich’s music has not only been inspired by Western Classical music, it has also taken into account the harmonies, structures, and rhythms of American vernacular, non Western music, specifically Jazz music. Steve Reich in considered to be among the handful of composer who have changed the direction of musical history. Reference List Steve Reich. N.d. Steve Reich. Steve Reich Biography. Retrieved 1 December 2009. < http://www.stevereich.com/bio.html > Read More