Steve Reich

Author(s): Michael Nyman

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 112, No. 1537 (Mar., 1971), pp. 229-231
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/956399
Accessed: 27-12-2019 09:11 UTC

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 Steve Reich
An interview with Michael Nyman
Steve Reich and his Ensemble make their first How does this affect the way you choose (or are
appearance in England at the ICA Nash House onto earn a living ?
forced)
Sunday 7 March at 8 pm; their programme includes
REICH I can get by as a composer now, although
the first performances of 'Four Organs' and 'Phase
Patterns'.
I teach one day a week (at the New School in New
York), but I'd like to drop that and try to make a
living as a performer, which I am on the verge of
Steve Reich was born in New York City in 1936. doing He now. But for at least ten years I did all kinds
studied philosophy at Cornell University and music of things-drive cabs, work as a postman--and one
at the Juilliard School and Mills College, under of the thoughts I had was that I certainly would
rather take my chances in a commercial world, as a
Milhaud and Berio. In 1964-5 he appeared frequent-
person, than in an academic world. I think that if
ly as composer-performer at the San Francisco Tape you have any close connection or involvement with
Music Centre. He has provided music for a pro- a department-and this is a particularly American
duction of Ubu Roi and the films The Plastic Haircut situation- then it's going to wipe you out. Being an
and Oh Dem Watermelons. His phase pieces began A & R man for a record company or a location
recordist for a movie (I've done a little bit of that)
in 1965 with It's gonna rain; others are Violin Phase,
Come out, and Piano Phase.1 is one thing, whereas if you go to a university
Reich is one of four American composers, all thinking 'this is the way I'll survive, I'll have a nice
exactly contemporary with Maxwell Davies, Birt- little scene going here and have a lot of time to
compose', I don't think that works (that is, if you
wistle, Goehr and Cardew, who have, quite remark- stay in one place for any length of time).
ably, concentrated intensely small areas of musical
Q 'Come out' is the only piece of yours that is at all
activity which they subject to a microscopic scrutiny.
The result is at times closer to the spirit of some non- known over here. The phase relationships are
western ritual musics than to post-war western .fascinating,; how didatyou
was no tape-editing all ?do them ? presumably there
music. One generation after Cage, they have replaced
REICH I first made a loop of the phrase 'Come out
silence by a completely unbroken continuum, to show them', and recorded a whole reel of that on
improvisation and indeterminacy by freedoms channel 1 of a second tape recorder. I then started
within severely circumscribed limits, and the multi- recording the loop on channel 2; after lining up the
sensory experience with a completely new experience two tracks, with my thumb on the supply reel of the
of time, largely by building their music against recording machine, I very gradually held it back (I
constants. LaMonte Young uses drones, Terry was literally slowing it down, but at such an imper-
Riley a fixed pulse and tape loops, Philip Glass ceptible rate that you can't bear) until 'Come out to
movement in parallel motion, and Reich himself show them' had separated into 'come out-come out/
show them-show them' (which is something like
unvarying dynamics, pitch and timbre.
two quavers away). At that point I take that two-
This interview was conducted last summer, channel relationship, make a loop from it, feed it
with the assistance of Hugh Davies and Richard into channel 1 again, hold it back with my thumb so
Orton, when Reich stopped off in London en route that it is four quavers away from the original sound
for studying drumming in Ghana. and can be heard as a series of equal beats, so that it
is quite distinct melodically. I then spliced together
the two-voice tape with the four-voice tape--they fit
exactly-and what you sense at this point is a slight
Q Is there a convenient descriptive label you like to timbral difference, due to all this addition, and then
attach to your music ? all of a sudden a movement in space. At that point
I then divided it again into eight voices, separated it
REICH When the Columbia record was produced by just a demisemiquaver, so that the whole thing
(with Violin Phase and It's gonna rain) we talked began to shake, then just faded it out and again put
about what would be the best title, and we came those two takes together. So there's absolutely no
up with Live/Electric. Then I wrote a piece called manipulation of the timbre, no manipulation of the
Pulse Music; in a review someone said that I'd been tape.
playing pulse music elsewhere, and I realized that Q 'Come out' was made in 1966, a year after your
he had construed it as a generic term for my music. first phase piece, 'It's gonna rain'. Was this the first
That's not bad, so I'm inclined to use it sometimes; time you had used tape ? What was your musical
at least it gives some indication of the nature of the background that led up to this innovatory use of
music, more than 'avant-garde', 'experimental' or tape ?
'modern', all of which are deadly.
REICH I studied philosophy at Cornell, then went to
Q You once said that you would prefer to have your Juilliard School and to Mills College under Milhaud
works recorded commercially than on a subsidized and Berio. As a student I was working with live
basis, and to succeed 'out there' as a composer music, and I started fooling around with tape in
because these are the terms on which music survives. 1963. I found tape very exciting, because I was
interested in American poets like Olsen and Creely,
'Columbia MS 7256 (available from Musicland, Berwick St, I'd wanted to set their poems to music and never
London Wl) couples It's gonna rain and Violin Phase; Come out
is recorded on Odyssey 32 16 0160, Piano Phase on Victor could. And when I first experimented with tape it
(Japan). was a joy as it opened up the possibility of working
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 with words-my very first tape pieces were with right now. That ties in with non-western music-
words, never with noises or funny sounds. African drumming or the Balinese gamelan-which
Q What was your first tape piece ? also have an impersonality to them as the partici-
pants accept a given situation and add their indivi-
REICH The first piece I did was for a movie called dual contributions in the details of the working out.
The Plastic Haircut. It was very heavily edited, a
cross between animation and live film. Somebody Q You work with an absolute minimum of musical
said he heard a sportscaster trying to narrate the material--five words in 'Come Out' and a dominant
action. So I got hold of a record called 'The 7th chord with the tonic sitting on the top in 'Four
Greatest Moments in Sport' (a kind of old talkieOrgans'. ...
LP which I had heard as a child) and made a collage REICH Four Organs is not a phase piece at all: it
of it in the most primitive of all ways. I'd recordconsists
a of one chord growing in time. My pre-
bit, stop the tape, move the needle, and then start occupation with gradual processes-which don't
taping again, so there was hardly any splicing.affect the timbre or dynamic of the sound, but only
Formally it started very simple and turned into its rhythmic and durational values-means that you
noise through over-dubbing with loops, rather like cana begin to take an interest in things that in older
music were just details. In baroque music you might
surrealist rondo with all kinds of elements recurring.
The exciting thing was that the voices, used as hear a few harmonics in a certain passage which
sound, nevertheless have a residual meaning which stays within one chord, or you might begin to hear
was also very ambiguous-it could be sporting, orall kinds of details of the action of a keyboard
sexual, or political-and immediately seemed to me instrument. These are merely incidental details,
to be the solution to vocal music. but by isolating them you can legitimately use them
So I went on this binge of working with tape,as your basic musical material.
which came to a point about two and a half years Q So one has to learn to listen in a fundamentally
later when I felt that I'd had enough. different way.
Q Since 'Come out' you've been writing (and per- REICH Yes. You listen to developmental music, and
forming) only live music. How did you make the you just can't stay with it, or you can't stay with it
change from tape to instruments ? once you've seen the way you can stay with some-
REICH 1966 was a very depressing year. I began tothing else. I'm interested in a process where you
can get on at the beginning and literally rest on it,
feel like a mad scientist trapped in a lab: I had dis-
uninterrupted, right to the end. Focusing in on a
covered the phasing process of Come out and didn't
musical process makes possible a shift of attention
want to turn my back on it, yet I didn't know how to
away from he and she and you and me, outwards
do it live, and I was aching to do some instrumental
towards it.
music. The way out of the impasse came by just
running a tape loop of a piano figure and playing Q What is your particular interest in African
drumming ?
the piano against it to see if in fact I could do it.
I found that I could, not with the perfection of the
REICH I became interested in African music through
tape recorder, but the imperfections seemed to me A. M. Jones's book, and I recently found a group at
to be interesting and I sensed that they might Columbia
be University with a Ghanaian drummer
interesting to listen to. from the tribe Jones had written about. One of my
Q So through tape you arrived back at live music. reasons for going to Ghana and studying drumming
is, in the very simplest sense, to increase my musical
REICH What tape did for me basically was on the abilities. I studied rudimentary western drumming
one hand to realize certain musical ideas that at
when I was 14 and interested in jazz, and this last
first just had to come out of machines, and on thepiece, Phase Patterns, is literally drumming on the
other to make some instrumental music possible
that I never would have got to by looking at any keyboard: your left hand stays in one position and
western or non-western music. your right hand stays in one position and you
alternate them in what's called a paradiddle pattern,
Q What about the mechanical aspect of your (or which produces a very interesting musical texture
Terry Riley's) writing ? because it sets up melodic things you could never
REICH People imitating machines was always con- arrive at if you just followed your melodic pre-
sidered a sickly trip; I don't feel that way at all, judices and your musical background.
emotionally. I think there's a human activity, 'imitat- Q You're not interested in taking over the sound of
ing machines', in the sense in which (say) playing the the music and incorporating it into your music ?
phase pieces can be construed; but it turns out to be REICH What I don't want to do is to go and buy a
psychologically very useful, and even pleasurable. So bunch of exotic-looking drums and set up an Afri-
the attention that kind of mechanical playing asks for kanische Musik in New York City. In fact what I
is something we could do with more of, and the think is going to happen more and more is that
'human expressive activity' which is assumed to be composers will study non-western music seriously
innately human is what we could do with less of so that it will have a natural and organic influence
on their music.
Ed Fulton Q What are your further plans ?
cpe Phil Gebbett
Chris May
REICH Now that I've worked closely with my
performing group, I can see that the kind of piece
(violin, viola, flute, bass clarinet, recorders, guitar, that Phase Patterns is could also be arrived at by
piano, radios, whistles, small percussion)
leaving open the pattern and even the notes. One
works by May, Feldman, Wolff, Gebbett,
person starts playing a pattern, and the second
Ichiyanagi, Fulton, Cage (Variations I and II;
Music Walk) player's duty would simply be to join him and move
ahead of him; and the other two people would then,
Purcell Room, South Bank SEI without being told anything, listen and start playing
26 March at 7.30 the resultant patterns they heard. I'm certainly not
Tickets: 75p, 50p, 40p, 30p (Tel: 01-928 3191)devoted to improvisation, but that kind of freedom
would work with the group.

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 I also want to do some drum pieces and some sound, the exact equivalent on tape of slow motion
pieces where I use instruments of mixed timbre, in movies. I would take a vocal phrase and slow it
say two electric organs, two marimbas, two snare down enormously, by a factor of at least 300,
drums, all playing simultaneously and each phasing without the pitch coming down. On inspection,
against each other but only on their own level. I also every vowel is heard as a very rich glissando. This
have plans to work with a dancer in New York-- process may sound easy, but it isn't-it gets down
dancers are now two generations on from Merce to some really basic problems of information which
Cunningham-and to do something in slow motion computers aren't yet able to handle.

Handel and the Corfes

Betty Matthews
Among the singers who sang small parts and inCatholic the faith). James then started playing small
chorus of Handel's operas and oratorios from about parts in the Handel operas and oratorios. In 1735
1735, under the composer, was a tenor named Corfe, he appeared in Alcina, possibly he was in Esther and
whose identity has never been firmly established. Saul in 1740, L'Allegro and Acis and Galatea in
The earliest known references to the Corfe family 1741, and Deborah in 1744.
are to be found in the Chapter Acts of Winchester Meanwhile Charles, with that curious off-
Cathedral, where a Robert Corfe was one of three handedness which in that age so often afflicted those
bell-ringers employed from 1669 to 1706. In 1680 a duty to the church was only part-time, had
whose
John Corfe appears amongst the choristers for eight been absent from Salisbury from the Feast of St
years, and a Thomas Corfe passes briefly through Thomas 1729 to the Feast of St John the
the records as a Lay Vicar. However, by 1692 Baptist 1730-a period of six months-and
both John and Thomas had moved to Salisbury, was accordingly fined 3s 6d. He had further in-
where the former had been engaged at the cathedral ducements to neglect his duties. He received a letter
as 'a very serviceable person for the Choir for that from his brother James which read as follows:
he sang a good counter tenor and with good To Mr Charles Corfe-at His House in the Close
skill'. Thomas married, had two children, and was Sarum.
dead and buried in the cathedral by 9 May 1701, Dear Charles,
'One of the Lay Vicars of this Church'. John also If you are not set out of Sarum by that time this
married, and began to found a family which beforereaches you, I beg you'll take Horse & come away
as soon as possible, for I have seen Mr Handel
long threatened to engulf half Wiltshire. His eightthis Day, who expects you in London in order on
children were all baptized in the cathedral, and all Saturday next; he is very impatient till he sees
but one of his sons became choristers. Robert you.
became a vicar choral in Limerick, John a dancing I begg you'll make no delay, for I am sure you'll
master. On 28 June 1718 we first hear of Charles provide for yourself very handsomhely now at this
time.
Corfe (baptized 27 January 1707-8), followed on
2 April 1722 by 'young Corfe'-who turns out to be Dr Green would have wrote you concerning
named James (baptized 26 February 1712-13). It is what I told you in my last. But Mr Snow told
him you would be in town very soon.
these last two who primarily concern us here.
Mr Handel will lead me a weary life till he see
Having served his time in the choir, the elder boy you, so if you have any value for yourself &
was apprenticed with the sum of ?15 in 1724-5, family, come away; in so doing you'll oblige
when he was about 17, and James was paid off yourself &
similarly in 1728-9 when he was a little younger. Your Affect: Br to command
Charles became a Lay Vicar on 8 October 1726. J. CORFE

There was some slight ado about James's indentures, It is perhaps not necessary to clarify the identities
which cost 7s 6d to enter and another 7s 6d which of Dr Maurice Greene or the trumpeter Valentine
had been given to him 'at sevll times'. He was alsoSnow, but the letter is not dated and we can say
presented with two pairs of stockings at 5s 6d withand certainty only that it is earlier than 18 Septembe
shoes at 17s 4d; thus armed, he went out into the 1742, when Charles Corfe (who in 1728 had married
world. It was 1730. Jane Cary) died at the age of 34 and was buried, 'A
James appears to have made his way to London, Lay Singing Man of this Church', in Salisbury
for when we next hear of him he is singing the Cathedral.
Messenger in Arne's Rosamond at Lincoln's Inn It seems likely that James, sometime after 1735
Fields on 7 March 1733. Perhaps he was already when he first made contact with Handel, tried to
at this time organist at the Portuguese Embassy, get his brother to join him, having first spoken to
which was also in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and where Dr Greene to see if there was additional employment
there was one of London's few Roman Catholic to be found in the choir of St Paul's. The reference
chapels (his father, in 1720, had been dismissed to his as
family would seem to imply the existence of
an instructor of the Salisbury choristers when at least
heone child, and the last three of Charles
refused to say whether or not he was of theCorfe's Roman six children did indeed survive from 1735

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