EASY MUSIC, TOUGH
THEMES OF STEVE REICH
Going from 12th-Century Perotin to 9/11
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By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of Oct. 10-17, 2011
Vol. 14, No. 15
Berkeley---It
made
sense for the Kronos Quartet to devote a whole evening to music of
Steve Reich, a
propos his 75th birthday. The New York composer (and 2009 Pulitzer
Prize winner) had
been one of the fathers of minimalism in the late 1960s. He continues
his
creativity today in pieces like “WTC 9/11.” Over the years, Reich and
this string
quartet have maintained such a close collaboration that three-quarters
of the
program performed Oct. 9 had been composed for Kronos.
Reich is
for real,
and Kronos is his home-base medium, given the totally wired Kronos
M.O.: the amplification,
the prerecorded superimposed tracks, and the skillful lighting
enhancing the
on-stage environment. Reich’s harmonies for the most part are no more
modern
than what you find in Franz Schubert. But
the hypnotic nature of the minimalist repeats, drawn from
Javanese-gamelan
predecessors, along with the rhythmic drive which has inspired more
than one
choreographer to borrow the music for
dance, are attractive modern elements bearing an unmistakable
Reich-Kronos
stamp.
Processed
prerecorded sound, tightly keyed to the play on stage, multiplies
Kronos
several times over. In “Triple Quartet,” for instance, there are 12
players in
all, with two sets of Kronos prerecorded, in close harmony with the
stage
group. In several works, most notably the 27-minute-long “Different
Trains”
(1988), snippets of speech are processed and produced with rhythmic
exactitude
to match the on-stage play. The players meanwhile will hip-hop back and
forth
between two strings, confined to a single chord, at a lively 110 beats
per
minute tempo---until another chord change, doing much the same thing.
Reich
contrasts luxury passenger trains with the cattle cars of World War Two
hauling
civilians off to concentration camps.
The most
recent
piece was the 16-minute “WTC 9/11,” unveiled earlier this year at Duke University,
commemorating the carnage of the World
Trade CenterNew York City.
Little of the garbled speech recorded was intelligible; the spoken
excerpts
however were printed in the night’s program, leading one to wonder
whether
Reich wanted merely an effect conveying the horror, or a full
understanding of
the goings-on. The piece ends memorably with an alarm sounding, then
complete silence.
In the
Biblical “Selections
from ‘The Cave’” Reich draws together Muslim and Jewish influences at
the
confluence of the two faiths in the Hebron
(Israel)
cave associated
with the life of Abraham. Voices emerge from the crowd, along with
Hebrew
chanting from the Torah.
Reich’s
themes are
unsettling, disturbing. He grapples with the reality of the Holocaust
or the
9/11 tragedy, but with a music that progresses relentlessly,
inexorably,
consonantly, usually in major keys.
The net
effect of
all these works played side by side is more than the sum of its parts.
Reich’s
music took hold of the sold-out Hertz Hall public in its impact,
prompting a
Kronos encore, bringing back a work that had inspired Reich very early
on: “Viderunt
Omnes” by the 12th-century composer Perotin---a surprisingly
advanced vocal work arranged for string quartet.
The
players returned home to San Francisco
after the
event, but not for a prolonged rest: They were due to fly out the very
next day
for Australia, with
sold-out
concerts in Melbourne and Adelaide
awaiting them.
Formed
in 1973,
Kronos has had amazing stability, despite all the new-score repertory
and
arduous touring schedule. Apart from cellist Jeffrey Ziegler, the same
players headed
by violinist David Harrington have been together for more than 30 years.
The
musicians are
backed by an eleven-member staff (!), including sound designer Scott
Fraser and
lighting designs by Laurence Neff---a unique support army in the annals
of American
chamber music.
Kronos Quartet in
all-Reich program at Hertz Hall, University
of California, Berkeley. For info about upcoming events:
(510)
642-9988,
or go online.
©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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Paul Hertelendy has been
covering
the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with
relish
-- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never
weakly)
will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with
forays
into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local
artists as well.
#
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