Steve Reich: You Are (Variations)

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This new CD of Steve Reich's music pairs two unusually scored pieces. "You Are (Variations)" is set for three sopranos, an alto and two tenors, with flutes, oboe, English horn, two marimbas, clarinets, four pianos, vibraphone and strings. The texts, in Hebrew and English, are philosophical meditations: "You are whoever your thoughts are," "Say little and do much," etc. The resulting work is fascinating, the textures unique and fresh, the experience haunting and captivating, with the voices used as another significant instrumental part. Equally fine is the second work, "Cello Counterpoint," scored for eight cellos (seven pre-recorded and one played "live" by soloist Maya Baiser), which is noteworthy for its complex rhythms, use of counterpoint, and handsome lyrical solo cello line floating above it all. Reich fans will love this; the uninitiated will want to give it a try. --Robert Levine

Tracks:

You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are
Shiviti Hashem L'Negdi (I Place The Eternal Before Me)
Explanations Come To An End Somewhere
Ehmor M'Aht, V'Ahsay Harbay (Say Little And Do Much)
Cello Counterpoint

Amazon.com

This new CD of Steve Reich's music pairs two unusually scored pieces. "You Are (Variations)" is set for three sopranos, an alto and two tenors, with flutes, oboe, English horn, two marimbas, clarinets, four pianos, vibraphone and strings. The texts, in Hebrew and English, are philosophical meditations: "You are whoever your thoughts are," "Say little and do much," etc. The resulting work is fascinating, the textures unique and fresh, the experience haunting and captivating, with the voices used as another significant instrumental part. Equally fine is the second work, "Cello Counterpoint," scored for eight cellos (seven pre-recorded and one played "live" by soloist Maya Baiser), which is noteworthy for its complex rhythms, use of counterpoint, and handsome lyrical solo cello line floating above it all. Reich fans will love this; the uninitiated will want to give it a try. --Robert Levine

Customer Reviews:

A Joyful Noise!.......2007-01-11

Many years ago I saw a performance of Steve Reich's "Drumming". I remember it exciting me. But it's not the kind of music you walk out humming, certainly not if you're a near layperson like I. So I didn't think much more about Steve Reich until hearing a report on NPR about the Steve Reich Festival in New York celebrating his 75th birthday. I got motivated and ordered this CD.

And what a thrill. It's easy to presume composer like Reich - because his music is complex - to be inaccessible. But I put the CD on and was swept away by the pure joyous force of it. The driving, indescribable rhythms for which Reich is famous (just how do these musicians manage to play them?) are overlain with broad, thrilling chording performed by chorus, marimba and a small arsenal of other instruments. The "You Are" variations - settings of short texts from Psalms, Pirkei Avot, Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav and Ludwig Wittgenstein that work together remarkably well - pulse with exultation. Far from inaccessible, this music immediately grabbed me and left me feeling uplifted.

NOT VERY GOOD AT ALL.......2006-11-04

I love Steve Reich's music, but now he's old and doesn't have much to say, but has to keep cranking it out. It's not very good at all! Hang it up Steve...you've done more than enough! (Does it get any funkier than Four Organs?}

arrant garbage.......2006-07-16

Others who have said that piece is poor and boring are correct.
Reich, just like Philip Glass, has lost his original style that we all loved to hear in the first place. He has replaced his original style with something that must be an attempt to make his music more palpable to a commercial audience. Unfortunately,
this "new Reich" is very bovine and greatly insipid. I can only hope Reich returns to his true roots =and makes something for his real fans instead of pandering to yuppies.

Still holding out hope.......2006-05-11

I have to respond to "D. Flynn"'s assessment of current/late Reich. I tend to reluctantly agree with most of it. I've noticed the pattern of several of my favorite composers, notably George Crumb, losing their way and losing the distinct power of their compositional voices late in life. I was hoping Reich was an exception and I still hold out hope. Like you, I've been underwhelmed by most of the post-"Trains" music, though one huge exception is "Proverb" which I find absolutely exquisite, timeless & spell-binding. Likewise, "City Life" excited me, as it represented a major step forward in the style he began with "Trains". I feel that "City Life" works because he finds new aesthetic uses for the "Trains" technique of integrating the sampled voices and sounds compellingly into an instrumental texture, and advances that technique significantly forward, to stunning effect. I find it moving & evocative of its subject. Perhaps not as brutally moving as "Trains" but then again, neither is the subject.

Most of the other late works you mention did leave me unmoved, but I try to sympathize with composers who have carved out immortal, distinct voices for themselves, in their unenviable task to go beyond that, not repeat themselves, and yet live up to the level they've already established. It's a tall order. Someone like Philip Glass doesn't even attempt to alter an already boring/lifeless style and just makes lots of money rewriting the same piece for 30 years on end. I have more faith in Reich than that and can overlook a few duds if they represent a path he needs to work through to get to more jewels like "Proverb" and "City Life". However, I must reluctantly admit that his track record is slipping.

boring, repetitive, unimaginative.......2006-04-05

i too welcomed steve reich and philip glass in the 1970s, modern composers with something new to say. but the minimalist, variations on a theme, has become tiresome, weary. and to me shows a lack of imagination, creativity, and invention. It is a one trick pony. He has nothing (new) to say. Sit down at a keyboard, pick a sequence of notes, and play them for 20 minutes. bring in a cello or other instrument to help you out, add some variety, and keep playing your sequence. it is sophomoric, simplistic, passing for erudition and complexity. it is not. You want to hear how a genius does this, listen to a few bars from Tristan und Isolde, how Wagner takes a single motive (motif) and weaves it with complexity and inventiveness. Steve could use a few lessons and ideas from the master.

From The Kitchen Archives - New Music New York 1979

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From The Kitchen Archives - New Music New York 1979

Manufacturer: Orange Mountain Music
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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From The Kitchen, Archives No. 2: Steve Reich and Musicians, Live 1977
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Steve Reich: You Are (Variations)
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ASIN: B0002251DM
Release Date: 2004-04-13

Tracks:

Dance No. 4 (Philip Glass)
Do You Be (Meredith Monk)
Criss Cross (Jon Gibson)
Where We Are (Garrett List)
Schoolwork (Gordon Mumma)
The Kim and I (George Lewis)
Five Orchestral Pieces for Opus Tree (Michael Nyman)
The Tuning Meditation (Pauline Oliveros)

Tracks:

Secret Songs (Tom Johnson)
Secret Songs (Tom Johnson)
Secret Songs (Tom Johnson)
Dream Song/Vision Chant (Charlie Morrow)
Exchanges (Barbary Benary)
Four Arthurs/Two Octaves and a Fifth (Phill Niblock)
Touch Tones (David Behrman)
Solo (Joel Chadabe)
Untitled Pieces (Tony Conrad)
Untitled for Solo Voice (Charlemagne Palestine)
Drumming, Part One (Steve Reich)

Album Description

Founded in 1971 by video artists Woody and Steina Vasulka, The Kitchen is internationally known as a leading center for video, music, dance, performance, new media and literature. The first institution to focus exclusively on cutting-edge, multidisciplinary works, it has been a powerful force in shaping the cultural landscape of this country. Over the last thirty years The Kitchen has documented every one of its performances with video and/or audiotape. However, in recent years much of this documentation, primarily recorded on what are now obsolete formats, began deteriorating. In 1999, under the leadership of Executive Director Elise Bernhardt, and with the dedication of The Kitchen9s Board of Directors and the help of numerous donors, The Kitchen began an initiative to catalog and re-master its extensive collection of 3600 videotapes. In the fall of 2001, an additional trove of audio recordings from the 1970s was discovered. While these tapes promised rare and exciting music by such artists as John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and David Tudor (in the first box alone!), none of this material could be accessed without proper cleaning and re-formatting and the funds and facilities to do so. A recent collaborative partnership with The Looking Glass Studios and Philip Glass9 label, Orange Mountain Music, has allowed for the restoration of a number of audio reels. This work has been done with the goal of producing a series of CDs, From The Kitchen Archives, with New Music, New York 1979 as the first release. This 2-disc set offers re-mastered recordings from the landmark New Music, New York: A Festival of Composers and their Music, held at the Kitchen9s 484 Broome Street space in SoHo from June 8-16, 1979. The festival, which set a standard for new and contemporary music, paved the way for New Music America, the annual event that emerged the following year in Minneapolis and ran in various cities until 1990. Now 25 years later, these recordings are an invaluable time-capsule, a privileged view/listen into a historic event, initially heard by only a few hundred people. Beyond their historic value they offer brilliant and exciting music by composers now considered masters of the genre, as well as remarkable performances by figures nearly forgotten. While many recordings from the festival could be restored, several gaps remain: concerts that were either not recorded or whose tapes vanished into the ether of the last 25 years. That said, we feel extremely fortunate to be able to release New Music, New York 1979 as our first CD in a series that promises to make available more lost treasures from The Kitchen Archives, uncovering the origins of new music today.

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