01/17/2022
Avant-garde composer Reich (Writings on Music, 1965–2000) talks shop with friends and colleagues in these intimate discussions. In meandering conversations with 19 peers—among them rocker composers Brian Eno and Jonny Greenwood, Broadway tunesmith Stephen Sondheim, and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker—he explores his musical innovations in such compositions as It’s Gonna Rain, Drumming, and Music for 18 Musicians, all of which feature long, repetitive, rhythmic arrangements and deconstructions of spoken words and instrumental motifs, with tempos that go subtly off kilter. Topics touched on include the influence of Reich’s teachers and collaborators; Manhattan’s minimalist music scene in the 1960s and 1970s; the intricacy and difficulty of rehearsal sessions; and unpredictable public reactions (one Carnegie Hall audience for Four Organs became so “unruly” that the performers couldn’t hear each other). Aimed at professional musicians, the book’s talk of music theory and arcana can be heavy going (“The whole piece keeps moving in a cycle of four different key signatures, always moving up a minor third. Notice I don’t say D to F to A-flat to B, because it may be major, or minor or modal or chromatically altered”). Still, the intriguing lore and insights are sure to quench the thirst of hardcore fans. Agent: Jim Kendrick, Alter Kendrick & Baron. (Mar.)
01/01/2022
It's always a delight to read interviews conducted by those thoroughly familiar with their subject, and this collection is no exception, with its conversations between composer Reich (known for his contributions to minimalist music) and his many collaborators, performance partners, and friends over six decades of music. Most interesting is when Reich reflects on his philosophy, which is to make the creative process audible in his music; the discussion of many of his best-known pieces (such as Come Out, Music for 18 Musicians, and Different Trains) often reaches granular levels of detail that will send fans back to recordings with a greater sense of discernment. The book assumes that readers will be familiar with the individuals featured (though a group of short bios at the end is helpful), but if they're already fans of Reich, it's entirely possible that they'll know his scene. The volume is less useful as an introduction to Reich—but then, it's not intended to be. The playlist of Reich's music is an excellent accompaniment to the reading. VERDICT An enjoyable series of insights into an artist's creative process. For Reich fans and scholars of American musical composition.—Genevieve Williams
2021-11-03
Artists in various disciplines share their thoughts on and with one of the most celebrated contemporary composers.
In this collection of transcripts from chats, most of them conducted via Zoom in 2020 and 2021, figures including sculptor Richard Serra, Kronos Quartet founder David Harrington, and composer Julia Wolfe share insights into minimalist composer Reich’s works, including It’s Gonna Rain, Electric Counterpoint, and Double Sextet, the last of which garnered Reich the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music. While most conversations focus primarily on Reich (b. 1936), the book is strongest when there’s a genuine dialogue between composers, as when Reich and Stephen Sondheim discuss similarities in their work during a 2015 moderated chat (“we share a fondness for the same harmonic structures,” Sondheim says) or when Nico Muhly describes the ways in which Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians and a motet by William Byrd influenced his No Uncertain Terms. Conversations in which little is learned of the other participant’s output lack the depth of other exchanges. Even there, however, the shoptalk is a thrill to read. Reich fans will develop a greater appreciation of his music, with sections on his mastery of the use of tape loops, his innovations in phase music, the rehearsals for Drumming, and the use of strings in parallel with recorded voices in Different Trains. Those new to Reich will discover an eclectic composer who has drawn from sources as disparate as electronic devices made at Bell Labs in the 1960s and the music of 12th-century French composer Pérotin to create the hypnotic Four Organs. Conversations with conductors Michael Tilson Thomas and David Robertson are particularly rich thanks to their enthusiasm and expansiveness and the depth of technical detail—especially when Robertson speaks about conducting Reich’s Tehillim, The Desert Music, and other pieces and Thomas discusses the near-riot Reich’s Four Organscaused at Carnegie Hall in 1973.
A rewarding journey through the career of one of the pioneers of minimalist music.
There are only a handful of living composers who can legitimately say that they have changed the course of music history and Steve Reich is one of them.”—The Guardian “Reich is our best living composer.”—The New York Times “The most original musical thinker of our time.”—The New Yorker “Intriguing lore and insights.”—Publishers Weekly “An enjoyable series of insights into an artist’s creative process… a delight to read.”—Library Journal “A rewarding journey through the career of one of the pioneers of minimalist music.”—Kirkus Reviews “Iconoclastic American composer Steve Reich is singular in his own right, and when he is in conversation with other equally iconoclastic composers, conductors, sculptors, musicians, percussionists, and video artists, sparks not only fly, they sparkle…. Reich and his colleagues conduct lovely give-and-takes during which they share stories, creative approaches, and viewpoints…. Reich's Conversations is the best kind of eavesdropping.”—Booklist “Reich discovery stories pop up everywhere in the book… we learn a lot about Reich the working composer — his methods, his influences, …his perfectionism, some of his experiences in getting certain pieces off the ground…. [a] series of thought-provoking conversations.”—Journal of the Music Critics Association of North America "In Conversations Steve Reich preserves his shared reflections with collaborators past and present....conversation is natural, personal and, because it is a composer talking to fellow artists, elicits interesting analysis.”—BBC Music Magazine “Packed with musical history and creative philosophy, Conversations manages the rare feat of being snackable, yet richly satisfying. For anyone with even a passing interest in the man, his music, or the artistic scene in which he’s played such an important role for almost six decades, this is mandatory reading.”—Musical America “A lively new book from Reich that has the composer romping through his career by way of casual Q. and A.s with various contemporaries, acolytes, friends and colleagues….. The joy of the book is to hear artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds — including the guitarist Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and Richard Serra, the sculptor — rhapsodizing about their relationship to Reich’s music and how it influenced their own creative processes.”—New York Times Book Review “Endlessly illuminating and surprisingly humorous. ... [An] indispensable book."—Limelight “Illuminating and engaging… An honest discussion of the creative process by one of the major composers of our time.”—The Arts Fuse "[A] fascinating account of Reich's music as seen through his own eyes and the eyes and ears of those who have worked closely with him.”—Gramophone (UK)
"[Conversations] articulately and bracingly shows Reich engaging in engrossing dialogues with a variety of interviewers, including conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, Broadway icon Stephen Sondheim, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It’s a kaleidoscopic portrait of Reich from 19 different angles, all illuminating and all very much him.—Los Angeles Times
