About The Reich Concert
The concert went quite well on Sunday. The Barbican encourages it's concert goers to bring their drinks into the hall so I was more than pleased to buy a vodka tonic at the bar and take it at the start of the performance.
The concert began with Reich's new Cello Counterpoint. It was interesting to see that he had chosen to add a visaul element to his piece. The visual element was a pre-recording of Maya Beiser on cello as she performed the various cello accompainment to her live part. It was, in typical Reich style, in phases across the screen. I can't remember how many images were used but I would say around 6-8 clips of Beiser were used in the visual portion. In other words, as I realise I am being unclear, the screen was divided up into 6-8 parts and in each part a recording of Beiser playing a different part of the piece was being displayed. So it was very much an obvious take on Reich's ideas of phasing in music and just putting it to video. It was alright. It was easier to watch that than Beiser on stage.
Nonetheless, the piece was good. It is interesting to hear how Reich has changed musically but still kept to his original ideas that made his as famous as he is today. I wish I could give a better description of the music but as it is already Wednesday and I do not have access to the recording, I can't give you specifics.
The second peice was the Daniel Varations. According to the program notes it was also the World Premiere of the piece. Lucky for us living in the London area that we got to be a part of the World Premiere! It was a very sincere and compassionate piece of music. I do not really recall hearing much dissonance in Reich's works but in the Daniel Varations there is quite a lot of it, the piece really begins on a diminished chord (I suppose...from what I could tell). The text setting was nice and clear and certainly in the traditional minimalist style. What I could perhaps make out that was different from old Reich works was that there seemed to be more a prevelant melodic line or melodic idea that floated above the rest of the music or maybe not floated, but interweaved.
After the intermission, or as they say in England, "interval", Music for 18 Musicians was performed. It was quite a site to see and it was just such a good piece of music. It is nice when music came at least seem a bit timeless. Certainly we can hear it and date it just by the style. It reminds me so much of his other counterpoint works of that era, especially New York Counterpoint. it was really a wonderful 65 minutes of music and perhaps the most fun was in being able to see Reich perform with his friends on stage. It makes me smile in a way. I think it is really important that composers are also performers although many composers these days would disagree with me.
Minimalism is dead. Long live miminalism.
The concert began with Reich's new Cello Counterpoint. It was interesting to see that he had chosen to add a visaul element to his piece. The visual element was a pre-recording of Maya Beiser on cello as she performed the various cello accompainment to her live part. It was, in typical Reich style, in phases across the screen. I can't remember how many images were used but I would say around 6-8 clips of Beiser were used in the visual portion. In other words, as I realise I am being unclear, the screen was divided up into 6-8 parts and in each part a recording of Beiser playing a different part of the piece was being displayed. So it was very much an obvious take on Reich's ideas of phasing in music and just putting it to video. It was alright. It was easier to watch that than Beiser on stage.
Nonetheless, the piece was good. It is interesting to hear how Reich has changed musically but still kept to his original ideas that made his as famous as he is today. I wish I could give a better description of the music but as it is already Wednesday and I do not have access to the recording, I can't give you specifics.
The second peice was the Daniel Varations. According to the program notes it was also the World Premiere of the piece. Lucky for us living in the London area that we got to be a part of the World Premiere! It was a very sincere and compassionate piece of music. I do not really recall hearing much dissonance in Reich's works but in the Daniel Varations there is quite a lot of it, the piece really begins on a diminished chord (I suppose...from what I could tell). The text setting was nice and clear and certainly in the traditional minimalist style. What I could perhaps make out that was different from old Reich works was that there seemed to be more a prevelant melodic line or melodic idea that floated above the rest of the music or maybe not floated, but interweaved.
After the intermission, or as they say in England, "interval", Music for 18 Musicians was performed. It was quite a site to see and it was just such a good piece of music. It is nice when music came at least seem a bit timeless. Certainly we can hear it and date it just by the style. It reminds me so much of his other counterpoint works of that era, especially New York Counterpoint. it was really a wonderful 65 minutes of music and perhaps the most fun was in being able to see Reich perform with his friends on stage. It makes me smile in a way. I think it is really important that composers are also performers although many composers these days would disagree with me.
Minimalism is dead. Long live miminalism.
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