thirteen ways

When the parts and score of a new piece by Steve Reich, written for 8bb, arrived in December, I felt a little giddy. Was I a little starstruck? Certainly I was flushed with self-satisfied pride (”Here is the evidence: I have arrived!”). No matter, it was certainly a great honor to receive a new work, hot off the press, from the composer of Music for 18 Musicians, Drumming and Tehillim, three of the 20th century’s greatest classical compositions.

Reich’s three-movement new work is called Double Sextet. 8bb had been in discussions with Steve as early as 2003, but it took until 2007 for us to secure co-commissioning partners who could fund the work’s composition.

The following is from Reich’s own note for the work:

There are two identical sextets in Double Sextet. Each one is comprised of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, vibraphone and piano. Doubling the instrumentation was done so that, as in so many of my earlier works, two identical instruments could interlock to produce one overall pattern. For example, in this piece you will hear the pianos and vibes interlocking in a highly rhythmic way to drive the rest of the ensemble.

Last weekend, while in Richmond, we recorded the six instrumental lines that make up Sextet 2 of Double Sextet. (About which, more tomorrow.) In performance 8bb will play live against this pre-recorded tape. (Ok, I can’t resist: we will be playing with ourselves in concert – bwahahaha.)

The piece is hardly a flute concerto; the most difficult thing that I do is stay awake during many pages of mixed-meter rests (known in 8bb as “virtuoso rest-counting”). Piano and percussion are the driving force behind the work: they play almost non-stop throughout the work, and introduce the rhythmic and harmonic identity of each section. Flute, clarinet, violin and cello put harmonic meat on these bare bones: in the first and third movements, the quartet plays held chords that redefine or reinterpret the harmonies below; in the slow second, we sing long, lyrical melodies.

All three movements carry on Reich’s interest in variation form. This is most obviously the case in the second movement, in which a 3/4 tune – vaguely reminiscent of a slow Piazzolla tango and lasting perhaps for fifty bars – is presented, then subtly altered in three successive variations.

The first and third movements share very similar basic material: fast, driving mixed meter funkiness. Much of Double Sextet is bloody funky.

From Reich’s note:

[W]ithin each movement there are four harmonic sections built around the keys of D, F, Ab and B or their relative minor keys b,d,f and g#. As in almost all my music, modulations from one key to the next are sudden, clearly setting off each new section.

The work concludes with a thrilling 100 bars of fast, overlapping, D major, mixed-meter pounding involving the full ensemble. In typical Reich fashion, the root-position tonic chord is never reached, but we remain somehow sated by a pounding 6/4 suspension, with D as the highest note.

Consummate professional that he is, Reich was on time with his delivery of score and parts; we received the first two movements in October and November, and the final movement on December 13.

Although we often play tonal or tonal-ish music, the ensemble rarely encounters pieces including notated key signatures. So it was something of a shock, when we read through Double Sextet first in December, to find many sections in keys with six or seven sharps. There were regular cries of “Oh, I just missed a key-change”; “What key are we in now!?”; “Ok everyone, Five-sharp major! Ready, set, go”; and “Who still writes using key signatures. I mean, really!”

Here is a teaser video from our first rehearsals in mid-January. Keep in mind, the video contains just half the piece; in performance there will be another six instrumental lines:

Tomorrow, a recording session report, with more video grabs!