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Variations For Winds, Strings And Keyboards
''Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards'' is an orchestral piece composed in 1979 by Steve Reich. The piece is scored for oboes, flutes, full brass (three trumpets, three trombones, and tuba), strings, pianos, and electric organs. ''Variations'' was Reich's first orchestral piece. Structure and Instrumentation Reich describes the piece as being in the form of a chaconne, variations on a repeated short harmonic progression. The piece has three variations of a complete cycle of harmonic progressions (C minor to C flat, and then gradually back through several keys to C minor), moving one note of a chord at a time, a process of suspension. The three movements are approximately six, ten, and nine minutes. The winds and keyboards (three oboes doubled by electric organs, alternating with three flutes doubled by pianos and electric organs) play the melody throughout. Harmonies are played by the strings doubled by organs. The brass add to the harmonies in the first and last section ...
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Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." To do so, his music employs the technique of phase shifting, in which a phrase is slightly altered over time, in a flow that is clearly perceptible to the listener. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, as on the early compositions ''It's Gonna Rain'' (1965) and '' Come Out'' (1966), and the use of simple, audible processes, as on ''Pendulum Music'' (1968) and ''Four Organs'' (1970). The 1978 recording ''Music for 18 Musicians'' would help entrench minimalism as a movement. Reich's work took o ...
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Shaker Loops
''Shaker Loops'' is a 1978 composition by American composer John Adams, originally written for string septet. The original "modular" score, published by Associated Music Publisher, has since been withdrawn and replaced by a 1983 string orchestra version. This version was first performed in April of that year at Alice Tully Hall, New York, by the American Composers Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The string orchestra version can be played either by a septet of soloists or by a string orchestra of any size, where the violins are divided into 3 parts throughout. The work is in four movements. History ''Shaker Loops'' began as a piece called ''Wavemaker'' in which Adams tried to emulate the ripple effect of bodies of water in his music. The piece was a commercial failure, but Adams kept the idea of repeating loops of oscillations on string instruments. He retitled the piece ''Shaker Loops'', both because of the "shaking" of the strings as they oscillate between notes ...
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Compositions For Symphony Orchestra
Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include visuals and digital space *Composition (music), an original piece of music and its creation *Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work * ''Composition'' (Peeters), a 1921 painting by Jozef Peeters * Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction * ''Compositions'' (album), an album by Anita Baker * Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video Computer science *Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones *Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions History *Composition of 1867, Austro-Hungaria ...
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1979 Compositions
Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ''Chiquitita'' to commemorate the event. ** The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full Sino-American relations, diplomatic relations. ** Following a deal agreed during 1978, France, French carmaker Peugeot completes a takeover of American manufacturer Chrysler's Chrysler Europe, European operations, which are based in United Kingdom, Britain's former Rootes Group factories, as well as the former Simca factories in France. * January 7 – Cambodian–Vietnamese War: The People's Army of Vietnam and Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreat west to an area ...
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Compositions By Steve Reich
Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include visuals and digital space *Composition (music), an original piece of music and its creation *Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work * ''Composition'' (Peeters), a 1921 painting by Jozef Peeters * Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction * ''Compositions'' (album), an album by Anita Baker * Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video Computer science *Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones *Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions History *Composition of 1867, Austro-Hungaria ...
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Tehillim (Reich)
''Tehillim'' is a composition by American composer Steve Reich, written in 1981. Title The title comes from the Hebrew word for "psalms", and the work is the first to reflect Reich's Jewish heritage. It is in four parts, marked fast, fast, slow, and fast. ''Tehillim'' is the setting of Psalms 19:2–5 (19:1–4 in Christian translations); Psalm 34:13–15 (34:12–14); Psalm 18:26–27 (18:25–26); and finally Psalm 150:4–6. The four parts of the work are based on these four texts, respectively. "Literally translated he word ''Tehillim''means 'praises'," writes Steve Reich in his composer's notes, "and it derives from the three letter Hebrew root ‘hey, lamed, lamed’ (hll) which is also the root of halleluyah." Instrumentation and the music In its standard chamber version ''Tehillim'' is scored for four women's voices (one high soprano, two lyric sopranos and one alto), piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, six percussion (playing 4 small tuned tambou ...
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Six Pianos
''Six Pianos'' is a minimalist piece for six pianos by the American composer Steve Reich. It was completed in March 1973. He also composed a variation for six marimbas, called ''Six Marimbas'', in 1986. The world première performance of ''Six Pianos'' was in May 1973 at the John Weber Gallery in New York City. The European première took place in January the next year in Stuttgart, Germany. Reich's idea was originally for a piece titled ''Piano Store'' that could be played on all the pianos in a piano store. A friend in New York gave him and his fellow musicians access to the Baldwin Piano and Organ Company's premises during evenings, where they could try out ideas. Reich eventually settled on an ensemble of six upright pianos in close proximity, which would allow very precise timing without being masked by the resonance of grand pianos. Structure The piece begins with four pianists playing different notes to the same 8-beat rhythmic pattern. Then two more pianists begin to p ...
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Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ
''Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ'' is a 1973 composition by American composer Steve Reich. The piece is scored for glockenspiels, marimbas, metallophone (vibraphone without resonator fans), women's voices, and organ, and runs about 17 minutes. The piece is in four sections, played without a break, marked off by changes in key and meter: 1) F dorian, in 3/4 time; 2) A flat dorian, in 2/4; 3) B flat minor, in 3/4; and 4) D flat, in 3/4. The piece features two interrelated musical processes: the building up of a duplicate of a preexisting pattern played by the marimbas and the glockenspiels, and the augmenting (lengthening of the duration of notes) of repeated chord cadences of the women's voices and organ. The women's voices sing a simple vowel sound, "ee", doubling upper notes of chords played by the organ. The decision to double organ and women's voices was made by Reich after several months of experimentation. First he tried doubling four wind instruments with ...
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Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of labels in 1999. It is the oldest surviving established record company. History Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft was founded in 1898 by German-born United States citizen Emile Berliner as the German branch of his Berliner Gramophone Company. Berliner sent his nephew Joseph Sanders from America to set up operations. Based in the city of Hanover (the founder's birthplace), the company was the German affiliate of the U.S. Victor Talking Machine Company and the British Gramophone Company, and, from 1900, a fully owned subsidiary of the latter, but that ended after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 when ownership reverted to Germany. Though no longer connected to the British Gramophone Company, Deutsche Grammophon continued to use the "His M ...
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John Adams (composer)
John Coolidge Adams (born February 15, 1947) is an American composer and conductor whose music is rooted in minimalism. Among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music, he is particularly noted for his operas, which are often centered around recent historical events. Apart from opera, his ''oeuvre'' includes orchestral, concertante, vocal, choral, chamber, electroacoustic and piano music. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Adams grew up in a musical family, being regularly exposed to classical music, jazz, musical theatre and rock music. He attended Harvard University, studying with Kirchner, Sessions and Del Tredici among others. Though his earliest work was aligned with modernist music, he began to disagree with its tenets upon reading John Cage's '' Silence: Lectures and Writings''. Teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Adams developed his own minimalist aesthetic, which was first fully realized in ''Phrygian Gates'' (1977) a ...
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Chaconne
A chaconne (; ; es, chacona, links=no; it, ciaccona, links=no, ; earlier English: ''chacony'') is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass) which offers a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia. It originates and was particularly popular in the Baroque era; a large number of Chaconnes exist from the 17th- and 18th- centuries. The ground bass, if there is one, may typically descend stepwise from the tonic to the dominant pitch of the scale; the harmonies given to the upper parts may emphasize the circle of fifths or a derivative pattern thereof. History Though it originally emerged during the late sixteenth century in Spanish culture, having reputedly been introduced from the New World, as a quick dance-song characterized by suggestive movements and mo ...
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Edo De Waart
Edo de Waart (born 1 June 1941, Amsterdam) is a Dutch conductor. He is Music Director Laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. De Waart is the former chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic (2011-2016), Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (2010-2014), and music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (2016-2019). De Waart studied oboe, piano and conducting at the Sweelinck Conservatory, graduating in 1962. The following year, he was appointed associate principal oboe of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Orchestral conducting In 1964, at the age of 23, De Waart won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York. As part of his prize, he served for one year as assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. On his return to the Netherlands, he was appointed assistant conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink. In 1967, he was appointed conductor of both the Netherlands Wind Ensemble an ...
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