steve reich phases · steve reich, marimba, piano thad wheeler, marimba, maracas nurit tilles,...

STEVE REICH PHaSES

a N o N E S u C H R E T R o S P E C T I V E

D I S C o N E

Music for 18 Musicians (1976) 67:42

1. Pulses 5:26

2. Section I 3:58

3. Section II 5:13

4. Section IIIA 3:55

5. Section IIIB 3:46

6. Section IV 6:37

7. Section V 6:49

8. Section VI 4:54

9. Section VII 4:19

10. Section VIII 3:35

11. Section IX 5:24

12. Section X 1:51

13. Section XI 5:44

14. Pulses 6:11

Steve Reich and Musicians

Rebecca Armstrong, Marion Beckenstein,

Cheryl Bensman Rowe, sopranos

Jay Clayton, alto, piano

Russell Hartenberger, Bob Becker, Tim Ferchen,

marimbas, xylophones

James Preiss, vibraphone, piano

Garry Kvistad, marimba, xylophone, piano

Steve Reich, marimba, piano

Thad Wheeler, marimba, maracas

Nurit Tilles, Edmund Niemann, pianos

Philip Bush, piano, maracas

Elizabeth Lim, violin

Jeanne LeBlanc, cello

Leslie Scott, Evan Ziporyn, clarinets, bass clarinets

D I S C T w o

Different trains (1988) 26:51

1. America—Before the war 8:59

2. Europe—During the war 7:31

3. After the war 10:21

Kronos Quartet

David Harrington, violin

John Sherba, violin

Hank Dutt, viola

Joan Jeanrenaud, cello

tehilliM (1981) 30:29

4. Part I: Fast 11:45

5. Part II: Fast 5:54

6. Part III: Slow 6:19

7. Part IV: Fast 6:24

Schönberg Ensemble with Percussion Group The Hague

Reinbert de Leeuw, conductor

Barbara Borden, Tannie Willemstijn, sopranos

Yvonne Benschop, Ananda Goud, mezzo-sopranos

8. eight lines (1979) 17:29

Bang on a Can

Bradley Lubman, conductor

Todd Reynolds, Gregor Kitzis, Jaqueline Carrasco,

Elizabeth Knowles, violins

Martha Mook, Ron Lawrence, violas

Mark Stewart, Greg Passelink, cellos

Patti Monson, David Fedele, flutes, piccolos

Michael Lowenstern, Evan Ziporyn, clarinets, bass clarinets

Edmund Niemann, Nurit Tilles, pianos

D I S C T H R E E

You are (Variations) (2004) 27:00

1. You are wherever your thoughts are 13:14

2. Shiviti Hashem L’negdi (I place the Eternal before me) 4:15

3. Explanations come to an end somewhere 5:24

4. Ehmor m’aht, v’ahsay harbay (Say little and do much) 4:04

Los Angeles Master Chorale

Grant Gershon, conductor

Phoebe Alexander, Tania Batson, Claire Fedoruk, Rachelle Fox,

Marie Hodgson, Emily Lin, sopranos

Sarona Farrell, Amy Fogerson, Alice Murray, Nancy Sulahian,

Kim Switzer, Tracy Van Fleet, altos

Pablo Corá, Shawn Kirchner, Joseph Golightly, Sean McDermott,

Fletcher Sheridan, Kevin St. Clair, tenors

Geri Ratella, Sara Weisz, flutes

Joan Elardo, Joel Timm, oboes

James Faschia, Helen Goode-Castro, Larry Hughes, clarinets

Gloria Cheng, Lisa Edwards, Brian Pezzone, Vicki Ray, pianos

Wade Culbreath, Mike Englander, John Magnussen,

Tom Raney, marimbas, vibes

Tamara Hatwan, Ralph Morrison, Susan Reddish, violin 1

Samuel Fischer, Julie Rogers, Steve Scharf, violin 2

Darren McCann, Victoria Miskolcsky, Catherine Reddish, violas

Delores Bing, Maurice Grants, Roger LeBow, cellos

Oscar Hidalgo, bass

new York counterpoint (1985) 11:19

5. Fast 5:03

6. Slow 2:44

7. Fast 3:32

Evan Ziporyn, clarinets

8. cello counterpoint (2003) 11:36

Maya Beiser, cello

electric counterpoint (1987) 14:43

9. Fast 6:51

10. Slow 3:22

11. Fast 4:30

Pat Metheny, guitar

triple Quartet (1999) 14:43

12. First Movement 7:10

13. Second Movement 4:05

14. Third Movement 3:28

Kronos Quartet

David Harrington, violin

John Sherba, violin

Hank Dutt, viola

Jennifer Culp, cello

D I S C F o u R

1. coMe out (1966) 12:48

2. proVerb (1995) 14:04

Theatre of Voices

Andrea Fullington, Sonja Rasmussen, Allison Zelles, sopranos

Alan Bennett, Paul Elliott, tenors

with members of The Steve Reich Ensemble

Russell Hartenberger, Bob Becker, vibraphones

Nurit Tilles, Edmund Niemann, electric organs

Paul Hillier, conductor

the Desert Music (1984) 48:04

Text by William Carlos Williams

3. First Movement (Fast) 7:54

4. Second Movement (Moderate) 6:59

5. Third Movement, Part One (Slow) 7:00

6. Third Movement, Part Two (Moderate) 5:54

7. Third Movement, Part Three (Slow) 5:55

8. Fourth Movement (Moderate) 3:35

9. Fifth Movement (Fast) 10:48


with Members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Chorus

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Principal Percussion:

Russell Hartenberger, Bob Becker, Glen Velez, Garry Kvistad

Principal Strings:

Julie Rosenfeld, concertmistress

Deborah Redding, second violin

Francesca Martin, viola

Sharon Prater, cello

Donald Palma, bass

Choral Contractor:

Cheryl Bensman, soprano

D I S C F I V E

1. Music for Mallet instruMents, Voices,

anD organ (1973) 16:50


Bob Becker, Tim Ferchen, Russell Hartenberger,

Steve Reich, marimbas

Garry Kvistad, Thad Wheeler, glockenspiels

James Preiss, vibraphone

Nurit Tilles, electric organ

Pamela Wood Ambush, Rebecca Armstrong, voices (long tones)

Jay Clayton, voice (melodic patterns)

DruMMing (1971) 56:43

2. Part I 17:30

3. Part II 18:11

4. Part III 11:13

5. Part IV 9:50


Bob Becker, Ben Harms, Russell Hartenberger, Garry Kvistad,

James Preiss, Steve Reich, Gary Schall, Glen Velez,

Thad Wheeler, tuned drums, marimbas, glockenspiels

Pamela Wood Ambush, Jay Clayton, voices

Steve Reich, whistling

Mort Silver, piccolo

The greatness of Steve Reich is a given. His reputation as a prime

originator in contemporary music is more or less etched in stone.

In the 1960s and ’70s, he found a rigorous solution to a pressing

challenge: how to restore, after a long period of experimentation,

the primal pleasures of stable harmony and a steady pulse. Reich

did this in a way that was unblinkingly modern, not at all nostalgic

or neo-Romantic. Works such as Drumming, Music for 18 Musi-

cians, New York Counterpoint, and You Are (Variations) resonate cleanly

through the caverns of the mind, leaving the listener in a state of

wide-awake delight. Reich’s influence is vast, reaching far outside

classical composition to encompass jazz, rock, pop, electronic mu-

sic, and hip-hop. On some days, as familiar shimmering patterns

echo on the soundtracks of commercials and from the loudspeakers

of dance clubs, it seems as though we are living in a world scored

by Reich.

In light of the grandeur of his reputation, it is almost

disconcerting that the man himself is still so present, writing at full

force as he reaches the age of seventy. You can ride the subway

to the lower end of Manhattan, emerge onto a street within sight

of the Brooklyn Bridge, walk for a minute or two, press a buzzer

marked REICH, and, if you are fortunate, hear a crisp voice

say “Come on up.” He does not look the part of the musical

revolutionist, whatever that might be. With his black button-down

shirts and signature baseball cap, he fits the image of an inde-

pendent film director, a cultural-studies professor, or some other

out-in-the-world intellectual. Once he starts speaking, you feel the

peculiar velocity of his mind. He is, notably, as much a listener as

a talker, although he talks at blistering speed. He reacts swiftly to

slight sounds in his midst—the soft buzz of a cell phone, a siren on

the street outside, the whistle of a teakettle. Each sound has some

information to give him. The windows have thick double panes;

even for a listener as omnivorous as Reich, the city gives out too

much information.

Steve Reich was born in New York, on October 3, 1936. His

parents separated when he was still a baby, and he spent much of

his childhood riding trains back and forth to Los Angeles, where

his mother, a successful singer and lyricist, had moved. He later

said that the clickety-clack of wheels on tracks helped to shape his

rhythmic sense. Otherwise, he had a fairly ordinary middle-class

upbringing; he absorbed all the humming waves of information

that were being given out by America’s culture of postwar prosper-

ity. His formative musical experiences were with recordings, rather

than with live performances. In particular, he found himself listen-

ing nonstop to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, Stravinsky’s

Rite of Spring, and various bebop records featuring the likes of

Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Kenny Clarke.

Inclined at first toward philosophy, he studied the thought of

Ludwig Wittgenstein at Cornell. Then he went to Juilliard for

music. Seeking an escape from the East Coast establishment, he

moved to San Francisco and enrolled in the music school at Mills

College, where the Italian avant-gardist Luciano Berio was a

visiting professor in 1961 and 1962. Most of Reich’s early works

employed Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method, but there was

something grudging about his use of the then-canonical

compositional system. He began to hear alternatives in the modal

improvisations of John Coltrane, whom he went to hear some fifty

times, and also in archival recordings of polyrhythmic African

drumming. He also dabbled in San Francisco’s nascent psychedelic

culture; he collaborated with one of his fellow students, Phil Lesh,

later the bass player of The Grateful Dead, on far-out happenings

and prankster spectacles.

In the fall of 1964, Reich participated in the first performance

of Terry Riley’s In C, a hypnotic haze of multiple, looping patterns

derived from the C-major scale. Phenomena of repetition intrigued

him to no end. One day in January, 1965, he was fooling around

with tapes of a Pentecostal preacher shouting “It ain’t gonna rain!”

when he noticed an interesting effect. Two identical tapes of the

preacher’s voice were running in unison, but one machine was

playing slightly faster than the other, so that the tapes began to go

out of phase: “It’s-s gonna-a rain-n! It’s-‘s gonn-nna rai-in! It’s-t’s

gonna-onna rai-ain! It’s-it’s gonna-gonna rain-rain!” Listening on

stereo headphones, with one ear tuned to the left machine and the

other to the right, Reich had a physical reaction; the sound went

down one side of his body and up the other. He generated an

electronic composition from this happy accident, entitled It’s

Gonna Rain. He then made another, Come Out, based on the voice of

Daniel Hamm, one of six African-American boys who were beaten

up in a Harlem police precinct house in 1964.

Reich now had a stroke of genius: he translated the going-out-of-

phase effect into instrumental music. Piano Phase, for two pianos,

uses a repeating pattern made up of the first six notes of the major

scale. As the pianists move in and out of sync, a surprisingly

eventful and colorful narrative unfolds, replete with modulations,

transitions, and climaxes. In this and other pioneering process-

driven works, a distinctive personality emerges — lean in form,

detached in mood, logical in movement, yet marked by some

indefinable mixture of beauty and sadness. The music has a soul

of its own, which may fascinate and mystify the composer as much

as it does the rest of us.

What came to be called minimalism was unleashed full force

in Four Organs, first conceived in August 1969, the month of the

Manson murders and the killing of a spectator at a Rolling Stones

show in Altamont, California. Explosions of violence had been

filling the news: the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin

Luther King, Jr., the massacre at My Lai in Vietnam, riots on uni-

versity campuses and in inner cities. Four Organs is, in its own way,

an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world piece: heard at full volume, its

electric-organ sound becomes an all-out assault. The entire piece

is based on a six-note chord that consists of a D-major triad super-

imposed on top of an E-major one. As maracas provide a steady

pulse, the notes of the chord are prolonged by degrees,

so that the harmony rotates this way and that. After many

permutations, it finally resolves on a simple open fifth. In a dark

time, Reich was finding his way back to a solid center.

In the 1976 masterwork Music for 18 Musicians, pulsating rhythm

is balanced by a comparably sophisticated drama of harmony.

The piece is almost symphonic in its narrative arc, proceeding

from light to dark and back to light again. It is built on a cycle of

eleven chords, each of which governs a section from two or seven

minutes in length. Early on, bass instruments emphasize a low D,

giving the feeling that this is the work’s tonal center and basement

level. But in Section V, bass clarinets and clarinets lower the floor

from D to C sharp — a crucial alteration in the physical space

of the music. The harmony plunges toward C-sharp minor, and

rugged six-note figures come burrowing in. A similar change in the

weather darkens Section IX, which is almost expressionistic in its

stabbing intensity. Only at the end do D- and A-major-ish chords

brighten the air.

Reich wrote several more examples of what might be called

“grand minimalism,” letting his discoveries resonate within a large

frame. In Drumming, he applied lessons that he had learned from

studying West African drumming at the University of Ghana. The

Desert Music and Tehillim are spacious, dramatic settings of William

Carlos Williams and the Hebrew Psalms, respectively. Then, a new

project seized Reich’s attention: he worked to erase the boundary

between speech and music, by teasing melodies out of the rise

and fall of recorded voices. In the 1990s, he produced a pair of

video operas with live accompaniment. First came The Cave, which

explored the history of the Cave at Hebron and the Biblical stories

related to it. Then came Three Tales, which tells three parables of

technology run amok: the crash of the German airship Hindenburg,

the testing of atomic bombs on Bikini Atoll, and, in a preview of a

catastrophe to come, the birth of artificial intelligence and cloning.

In recent years, Reich has once again emphasized instrumental

writing; in the Triple Quartet and You Are (Variations), classic minimal-

ism is enriched with new harmonic adventures and diversions.

Perhaps the most haunting Reich work to date is Different Trains,

which was given its premiere in 1988, by the Kronos Quartet. This

was the first piece in which the composer used recorded speech to

create melodic lines. It stemmed from the memory of those long

railroad journeys of childhood, and also from the adult reflection

that if Reich had been a child in Europe in the 1940s his fate might

have been different: “As a Jew, I would have had to ride on very

different trains.” The electronic component mingles voices of Afri-

can-American Pullman porters with those of Holocaust survivors

and the neutral noise of train whistles. As the string instruments

sing along to these memory-shrouded sounds, they don’t tell us

what to feel; they set forth a glistening grid, on which we can plot

our own emotions. The result is a music of precision and tears.

–Alex Ross, 2006

At the opening of any Steve Reich work, an idea sounds and

begins to resonate outward. The reflections created by this idea are

of such an exquisite nature that you feel the composer is dealing

with the purest form that music can have. In the same way that

physicists are searching for the meaning of the universe in the

smallest particles that make it up, Steve’s music deals with the most

profound secrets of how music comes into being. Steve not only

sees the world in a grain of sand, he sets it vibrating.

This purity of concept and approach makes Steve Reich’s out-

put a natural entry point for understanding how music comes into

being and how it works its magic on us. Beginning in the 1960s,

his early tape and phasing pieces cause us to explore our own

perceptions of speech and sound. With the rhythmic cannons of

the 1970s, he uses the elemental pulses of life to reveal an almost

sculptural quality in music, where a small change in our aural

viewpoint reveals an entirely new perspective. Independent

harmonic rhythm arrives as well in this decade, grounding his

large-scale structures while expanding the expressive horizon in all

directions. Within these larger harmonic forms Steve discovers a

melodic voice that is eloquently his own, adding an extra dimen-

sion to his unique musical language.

Because this musical trajectory parallels that of human mental

development, I have taken great joy in introducing children and

young people to his musical world. Steve’s works teach them

immediately in a singular way that music is a participatory event.

It doesn’t matter whether you are playing, singing, or listening;

you are part of the music.

If you are lucky enough to work with him as a performer, your

excitement will be doubled by realizing not only that he wants

you to perform a piece perfectly, but also that he loves it when

you perform it creatively. It is hard to describe the rush when he

approaches you after your group has just nailed some very virtuosic

passage and says, with that half smile of his, “Now that’s just what

the doctor ordered!”

Unlike any other music that I have come across, Steve Reich’s

creations make us actively aware of our own listening experience.

His is a musical mirror held up to remind us of what it means to be

alive and united by sound.

–David Robertson, 2006

t e h i l l i M

part 1: fast / psalm 19:2–5

Ha-sha-mý-im meh-sa-peh-rím ka-vóhd Káil,

U-mah-ah-sáy ye díve mah-gíd ha-ra-ki-ah.

Yóm-le-yóm ya-bée-ah óh-mer,

Va-l-la Ie-li-la ya-chah-Ay dá-aht.

Ain-óh-mer va-áin deh-va-rim,

Beh-lí nish-máh ko-láhm.

Beh-kawl-ha-áh-retz ya-tzáh ka-váhm,

U-vik-tzáy tay-váil me-lay-hém.

part ii: fast / psalm 34:13–15

Mi-ha-ísh hey-chah-fáytz chah-yím,

Oh-háyv yah-mím li-róte tov?

Neh-tzór le-shon-cháh may-ráh,

Uus-fah-táy-chah mi-dah-báyr mir-máh.

Súr may-ráh va-ah-say-tóv,

Ba-káysh sha-lóm va-rad-fáy-hu.

part iii: slow / psalm 18:26–27

Im-chah-sid, tit-chah-sáhd,

lm-ga-vár ta-mím, ti-ta-máhm.

Im-na-vár, tit-bah-rár,

Va-im-ee-káysh, tit-pah-tál.

part iV: fast / psalm 150:4–6

Hal-le-1ú-hu ba-tóf u-ma-chól,

Hal-le-lú-hu ba-mi-ním va-u-gáv.

Hal-le-1ú-hu ba-tzil-tz-láy, sha-máh,

Hal-le-1ú-hu ba-tzil-tz-lay ta-ru-áh.

Kol han-sha-má ta-ha-láil Yah,

Hal-le-yu-yáh.

The heavens declare the glory of G-d,

the sky tells of His handiwork.

Day to day pours forth speech,

night to night reveals knowledge.

Without speech and without words,

nevertheless their voice is heard.

Their sound goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the ends of the world.

Who is the man that desires life,

and loves days to see good?

Guard your tongue from evil,

and your lips from speaking deceit.

Turn from evil, and do good,

seek peace and pursue it.

With the merciful You are merciful,

with the upright You are upright.

With the pure You are pure,

and with the perverse You are subtle.

Praise Him with drum and dance,

praise Him with strings and winds.

Praise Him with sounding cymbals,

praise Him with clanging cymbals.

Let all that breathes praise the Eternal,

Hallelujah.

the Desert Music

Text by William Carlos Williams

first Movement (fast)

Begin, my friend

for you cannot,

you may be sure,

take your song,

which drives all things out of mind,

with you to the other world.

from “theocritus: idyll, a version from the greek”

second Movement (Moderate)

Well, shall we

think or listen? Is there a sound addressed

not wholly to the ear?

We half close

our eyes. We do not

hear it through our eyes.

It is not

a flute note either, it is the relation

of a flute note

to a drum. I am wide

awake. The mind

is listening.

from “the orchestra”

third Movement, part one (slow)

Say to them:

“Man has survived hitherto because he

was too ignorant to know how to realize

his wishes. Now that he can realize them,

he must either change them or perish.”


third Movement, part two (Moderate)

it is a principle of music

to repeat the theme. Repeat

and repeat again,

as the pace mounts. The

theme is difficult

but no more difficult

than the fact to be

resolved.


third Movement, part three (slow)

Say to them:

“Man has survived hitherto because he

was too ignorant to know how to realize

his wishes. Now that he can realize them,

he must either change them or perish.”


fourth Movement (Moderate)

Well, shall we

think or listen? Is there a sound addressed

not wholly to the ear?

We half close

our eyes. We do not

hear it through our eyes.

It is not

a flute note either, it is the relation

of a flute note

to a drum. I am wide

awake. The mind

is listening.


fifth Movement (fast)

Inseparable from the fire

its light

takes precedence over it...

Who most shall advance the light -

call it what you may!

from “asphodel, that greeny flower”

Different trains

america - before the war

“from Chicago to New York” (Virginia)

“one of the fastest trains”

“the crack* train from New York” (Mr. Davis)

“from New York to Los Angeles”

“different trains every time” (Virginia)

“from Chicago to New York”

“in 1939”

“1939” (Mr. Davis)

“1940”

“1941”

“1941 I guess it must’ve been” (Virginia)

europe - During the war

“1940” (Rachella)

“on my birthday”

“The Germans walked in”

“walked into Holland”

“Germans invaded Hungary” (Paul)

“I was in second grade”

“I had a teacher”

“a very tall man, his hair was concretely plastered smooth”

“He said, ‘Black Crows invaded our country many years ago’”

“and he pointed right at me”

“No more school” (Rachel)

“You must go away”

“and she said ‘Quick, go!” (Rachella)

“and he said, ‘Don’t breathe!”’

“into those cattle wagons” (Rachella)

“for four days and four nights”

“and then we went through these strange-sounding names”

“Polish names”

“Lots of cattle wagons there”

“They were loaded with people”

“They shaved us”

“They tattooed a number on our arm”

“Flames going up to the sky—it was smoking”

after the war

“and the war was over” (Paul)

“Are you sure?” (Rachella)

“The war is over”

“going to America”

“to Los Angeles”

“to New York”

“from New York to Los Angeles” (Mr. Davis)

“one of the fastest trains” (Virginia)

“but today, they’re all gone” (Mr. Davis)

“There was one girl, who had a beautiful voice” (Rachella)

“and they loved to listen to the singing, the Germans”

“and when she stopped singing they said,

‘More, more’ and they applauded”

* “crack” in the older sense of “best”

coMMissions

Different Trains was commissioned by Betty Freeman for the

Kronos Quartet.

Tehillim was co-commissioned by the West German Radio,

Cologne; South German Radio, Stuttgart; and the Rothko

Chapel, Houston.

Eight Lines was commissioned by the Hessischer Rundfunk

(Radio Frankfurt).

You Are (Variations) was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles

Master Chorale, Lincoln Center, and the Friends of the

Ensemble Modern.

New York Counterpoint was commissioned by the Fromm Music

Foundation for clarinetist

Richard Stoltzman.

Cello Counterpoint was co-commissioned by the Koussevitzky

Foundation in the Library of Congress, The Royal Conservatory

in The Hague, and Leiden University, for cellist

Maya Beiser.

Electric Counterpoint was commissioned by the Brooklyn

Academy of Music’s Next

Wave Festival for guitarist Pat Metheny.

Triple Quartet was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the

National Endowment for the Arts, David A. and Evelyne T.

Lennette, Tim Savinar and Patricia Unterman, and Meet the

Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, with

support from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund. Additional support

was provided by the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation.

Proverb was co commissioned by the BBC Proms as part of its

100th anniversary season in 1995 and by the Early Music

Festival of Utrecht.

The Desert Music was co-commissioned by the West German

Radio, Cologne, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Generous support for this recording of The Desert Music is gratefully

acknowledged from:

The Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers

The Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation

Lila Acheson Wallace Fund

Mrs. Betty Freeman

National Endowment for the Arts

The Forbes Foundation

Mrs. F. Henry Berlin

New York State Council on the Arts

Paul Fromm

Ruth Cummings

The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation

creDits

D I S C o N E

Music for 18 Musicians

Produced by Judith Sherman

Recorded October 1996 at the Hit Factory, New York

Engineered by John Kilgore

Assistant engineers: Glen Marchese, Chris Hilt

Production assistants: Sidney Chen, Jeanne Velonis

Mixed November 1996 and January 1997 at the

Hit Factory, New York

Mix engineer: John Kilgore

Assistant mix engineers: Tony Black, Greg Thompson

Editing assistance: Jeanne Velonis

Originally released as Nonesuch 79948, Music for 18 Musicians

P 1994 Nonesuch Records

D I S C T w o

Different Trains


Recorded August September 1988 at Russian Hill Recording,

San Francisco, CA

Engineered by Las Brockman

Assistant engineer: Michael Ahearn

Mix engineer: Rob Eaton

Assistant mix engineer: Ban Fowler

Production coordinator: Jennifer Keats

Originally released on Nonesuch 79176,

Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint


Tehillim


Recorded August 1993 at Wisseloord Studios, Hilversum,

the Netherlands

Engineered by Hans Bedecker

Assistant engineer for additional recording at The Hit Factory,

New York: Andy Grassi

Edited and mixed by Judith Sherman and Steve Reich

at SoundByte Productions, New York

Production coordinator: Karina Beznicki


Tehillim/Three Movements


Eight Lines


Recorded June 1996 at the Hit Factory, New York


Assistant engineers: Greg Thompson, Kevin Stone

Production assistant: Sidney Chen

Mixed October 1996 at the Hit Factory, New York

Assistant mix engineer: Tony Black



New York Counterpoint/Eight Lines/Four Organs


D I S C T H R E E

You Are (Variations)


Recorded March 29 & 30, 2005, at Studio A, Capitol Studios,

Hollywood, CA


Mixed by John Kilgore, Judith Sherman, and Steve Reich

Pro Tools Engineer: Jimmy Hoyson

Second Engineer: Bruce Monical

Editing Assistance: Jeanne Velonis

Originally released on Nonesuch 79891, You Are (Variations)


New York Counterpoint


Recorded January 1996 at the Hit Factory, New York


Assistant engineer: Tony Black

Mixed October 1998 at the Hit Factory, New York

Assistant mix engineer: Tony Black



New York Counterpoint/Eight Lines/Four Organs


Cello Counterpoint


Recorded Sept 29 & 30, 2003, at John Kilgore Sound

& Recording, New York, NY

Engineered by Jan Folkson

Mixed by John Kilgore

Editing Assistance: Jeanne Velonis

Originally released on Nonesuch 79891, You Are (Variations)


Electric Counterpoint


Recorded September October 1987 at Power Station, New York

Engineered by: Rob Eaton

Assistant engineer: Gary Solomon

Production assistant: David Oakes

Production coordinator: Jennifer Keats


Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint


Triple Quartet

Produced by Judy Sherman

Recorded March and April 1999 and August 2000

at Skywalker Sound


Assistant Engineers: Bob Levy and Dann Thompson

Mixed by Steve Reich, Judith Sherman, and John Kilgore

at Masque Sound.

Originally released on Nonesuch 79546, Triple Quartet


D I S C F o u R

Come Out

Produced by Judith Sherman and Steve Reich

Originally released on Nonesuch 79169, Early Works:

Come Out/Piano Phase/Clapping Music/It’s Gonna Rain


Proverb


Recorded June 1998 at the Hit Factory, New York


Assistant engineer: Greg Thompson

Assistant mix engineer: Geraldo Lopez

Editing assistants: Jeanne Velonis, Karl Heriem

Production assistant: Sidney Chen


Proverb/Nagoya Marimbas/City Life


The Desert Music

Produced by Rudolph Werner and Steve Reich

Recorded October 1984 at RCA Studio A, New York

Engineered by Paul Goodman

Editing and mixing: Karl-August Naegler, Wolf-Dieter Karwatki,

Rudolph Werner, John Newton, Steve Reich

Originally released as Nonesuch 79101, The Desert Music


D I S C F I V E

Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ


Recorded November 1988 at CTS Studios, London

Engineered by Dick Lemzey

Edited and mixed by Judith Sherman and Steve Reich

at New York Digital Recording, Inc., New York


The Four Sections/Music for Mallet Instruments,

Voices, and Organ


Drumming


Recorded May 1987 at RCA Studio A, New York

Engineered by Paul Goodman

Mixing and editing by Judith Sherman, Steve Reich, Paul Zinman

Originally released as Nonesuch 79170, Drumming


EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: ROBERT HURWITZ

Design by John Gall

Photograph of Steve Reich by Jeffrey Herman

Booklet Photography: Page 17 © Erich Hartmann/Magnum

Photos; Page 18 © Inge

Morath/Magnum Photos; Page 29 © Raymond

Depardon/Magnum Photos; Page 30 ©

Werner Bischof/Magnum Photos; Page 40

© Micha Bar Am/Magnum Photos

For Nonesuch Records:

Production Coordinator: Eli Cane

Editorial Coordinator: Robert Edridge-Waks

Production Supervisor: Karina Beznicki

For Tehillim, English translations of Psalms from

Standard JPS, revised by Steve Reich.

For The Desert Music, excerpts from “Theocritus: Idyl I,”

“The Orchestra,” and “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”

from Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems by

William Carlos Williams

(© 1954, 1955, 1962 by William Carlos Williams);

used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

For The Desert Music, Michael Tilson Thomas appears

courtesy of CBS Masterworks.

For Different Trains, excerpts from testimonies of Holocaust

survivors used by permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive

for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library and the

Holocaust Collection of the American Jewish Committee’s

William E. Wiener Oral History Library. American train sounds

come from recordings produced and engineered by Brad S.

Miller with Colossus™, for Mobile Fidelity of Nevada, all rights

reserved. European train sounds are taken from Sounds of the Steam

Age recordings, “Engines with Accents” ATE 7036 and “Steam

in All Directions” ATE 7012, by permission of ASV Transcord

Records. Siren and warning bell used by permission of Elektra

Records Sound Effects. Casio FZ-1 and FZ-10M digital samplers

used in composing and recording Different Trains courtesy of Jerry

Kovarski, Mike Taylor, and Ed Ahistrom, Casio Professional

Musical Products Division.

Music published by Hendon Music Inc./Boosey & Hawkes (BMI)

Special thanks, over the years, to: All the musicians I have worked

with, and most especially to the members of my own ensemble.

Then, of course, to Bob Hurwitz, Peter Clancy, David Bither,

Karina Beznicki, Melanie Zessos, Melissa Cusick, Sam Lambert,

Eli Cane, Josh Berman, Gina Suarez, Robert Edridge-Waks,

and Drew Thurlow at Nonesuch Records.

My producers, present and past: Judith Sherman, Dr. Rudolph

Werner, and David Behrman, and my engineer John Kilgore.

Jenny Bilfield, Janis Susskind, Tony Fell, David Drew, Holly

Mentzer, Marc Ostrow, Ken Krasner, Helane Anderson,

Steven Swartz, Linda Golding, David Allenby, David Huntley

(in memoriam), and many others at Boosey & Hawkes.

Andrew Rosner and Ralph Blackbourn at Allied Artists.

Elizabeth Sobol at IMG Artists and Howard Stokar at

Howard Stokar Management.

Conductors Michael Tilson Thomas, David Robertson,

Bradley Lubman, Stefan Asbury, Alan Pierson, Peter Eötvös,

George Manahan and Reinbert de Leeuw.

Photographer, patron, and friend Betty Freeman. Concert

presenters etc. Harvey Lichtenstein, Karen Hopkins, Joe Melillo,

Graham Sheffield, Robert van Leer, Angela Dixon, Ara

Guzelimian, Jane Moss, Laurent Bayle, Wolfgang Becker, Klaus

Peter Kehr, Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser, Monika Cordero, Cathy

Graham, Walter Bachauer (in memoriam), Hans Otte, Clytus

Gottwald, Ernst-Albrect Stiebler, Nicholas Snowman, Michael

Nyman, Daniel and Jacqueline Caux, Renzo Pognant, Enzo

Restagno, Shohachiro Haga, and Keizo Maeda.

My teachers: William Austin (in memoriam). Hall Overton

(in memoriam), Vincent Persichetti (in memoriam), and

Luciano Berio (in memoriam).

As well as: Bill Colleran, Annette Morreau, A.M. Jones

(in memoriam), Steven Ehrenberg, Ben Rubin. Renée Levine,

Sydney and Frances Lewis, Ruth Cummings Sorensen, Ellis

Friedman, James Kendrick, Ed Townsend, K. Robert Schwarz

(in memoriam) and Keith Potter.

Very special thanks to Virginia Mitchell (in memoriam), and

most especially to Beryl and Ezra. And to many others I know

I should have remembered.

w w w . N o N E S u C H . C o m 79962-2Nonesuch Records Inc., a Warner Music Group Company, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104.

This Compilation P & C 2006 Nonesuch Records Inc. for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the United States. Warning: Unauthorized reproduction of this recording is prohibited by Federal law and subject to criminal prosecution.

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