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Composer Portraits: Steve Reich. So Percussion with special guests. Music for Pieces of Wood (1973); Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76). Miller Theatre At Columbia University, New York City.
So Percussion, with myriad guests too numerous to list individually, performed two older works of Steve Reich with considerable commitment and displays of stamina and concentration, which is an aspect of minimalism that is probably its strongest attraction.If at times the performers’ attention and concentration flagged and energies almost floundered, it could be forgiven due to the extreme physical exertion involved, or should I say demanded by the un-mitigating length and pace of this music.
Music for Pieces of Wood, the first piece on the program, was very likable, most probably due to its relative brevity.It has long been a personal belief of this writer that all composers wishing to indulge their own fancy and the general public's patience in the sub genre of minimalism or its kin, should be held, through enacted decree, to a compositional length not to exceed 5:30 or 6:00 minutes in duration.Although Mr. Reich exceeded this by more than a little in the opening work, it wasn't nearly as trying as the Music for 18 Musicians, which goes on and on for almost an hour.Music for Pieces of Wood in fact was quite charming in its evocation of a gamelan sound-world.The rhythms were akin to what you would hear in an expanded gamelan orchestra and the woodblocks being cut and sized to produce distinct notes (A, B, C#, D# and D# an octave up) added to the charming tonal complexity of the piece.There was a sense of engaging textural coloration and *polyrhythmic dexterity on the part of the performers.On the other hand, the sense of ponderous theatricality brought to the piece by their stern seriousness (above and beyond the requisite concentration to pull the work off) and the theatrically lighting fading up and down came off as a bit silly.This is certainly music that should be fun and not taken as if one were about to perform a Liszt Transcendental Etude or a Beethoven symphony.
The most astounding aspect of this musical genre is the sheer stamina and counting ability required on the part of the performers.[Music for 18 Musicians] certainly demands that in spades.Alas, like a marathon it must be trained for and a certain sense of pace is required.By the end of the work two performers on stage were noticeably “sucking wind” and I was concerned for one percussionist who grew paler as the performance continued and looked close to falling over by the end.This work is considered by many to be a modern classic and to many ears retains a sense of freshness and a beauty of proportion. However, it fails to engage my ears or sensibilities.
Music like this with its short cellular motivic devices and hugely repetitive nature is certainly a forerunner of electronica and trance music.I can't imagine those popular idioms existing without the Reich's and Glass's of the world paving the way for them.For better or for worse, this music is just an exalted state of its popular offspring.More complex and rhythmically more daring it is nevertheless a sum that is less than the parts of which it is comprised.Coloristically and rhythmically the piece holds your interest.For 5 or 6 minutes.The variations and shifting tonalities along with the modulations in intensity are all in place and fascinating when first encountered.It is broken up or down into 11 different sections comprised of stringed instruments; clarinets (which easily do that circular thing minimalists do love so well), four pianos (!), lots of percussion and four women's voices or in this case three women and the Miller's ubiquitous ersatz female voice, Caleb Burhans, a quasi-counter-tenor.The phasing of the voices in conjunction with the other musicians was fascinating to watch as they created a doppler effect by singing across the microphones, from right to left and vice versa.
Speaking of microphones the program stated that microphone usage was limited to the four voices and some of the instruments.That was an extreme understatement.Most of the instruments I saw were amplified and heavily so.Clarinetist Ken Thomson seemed to be either in a world of his own or vainly attempting to energize his fellow performers with extravagant swaying and rocking movements that failed to ignite their flames and thus came off as distracting and self indulgent.
This sort of music should be background, not foreground music.It works better when its not rammed down your throat and is allowed to permeate an atmosphere rather than overwhelm it.There is no sweep or grandly engaging emotional journey or architecture to it.Its “all grooves and no funk.”I had a thought at one point as it was driving along its monotonously inexorable way that at a lower volume it would be perfect music to play for human sheep being driven to the Soylent Green factory.
At the concerts end two people sitting to my right had two interesting reactions.As the Miller audience surged to its feet to award a standing ovation not only to the performers but to their own sense of hipness for embracing this musical dross as gold, one man stood up and let out with two singular boos.A lady turned to him and smilingly shouted, “This is the best part of this music: the silence at the end.”