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    Steve Reich: New York Counterpoint

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    rhiamatthams
    The document provides biographical information about composer Steve Reich and analyzes his 1985 work New York Counterpoint. It details Reich's background and musical style, and analyzes elements of New York Counterpoint such as form, rhythm, harmony, melody, and texture.

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    Steve Reich: New York Counterpoint

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    rhiamatthams
    4K views11 pages
    The document provides biographical information about composer Steve Reich and analyzes his 1985 work New York Counterpoint. It details Reich's background and musical style, and analyzes elements of New York Counterpoint such as form, rhythm, harmony, melody, and texture.

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    Powerpoint presentation for AS/A2 Edexcel music.

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    The document provides biographical information about composer Steve Reich and analyzes his 1985 work New York Counterpoint. It details Reich's background and musical style, and analyzes elements of New York Counterpoint such as form, rhythm, harmony, melody, and texture.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    4K views11 pages

    Steve Reich: New York Counterpoint

    Uploaded by

    rhiamatthams
    The document provides biographical information about composer Steve Reich and analyzes his 1985 work New York Counterpoint. It details Reich's background and musical style, and analyzes elements of New York Counterpoint such as form, rhythm, harmony, melody, and texture.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Steve Reich is considered one of the pioneers of minimalist music. He developed techniques like tape loops and phasing to explore musical concepts in innovative ways.

    Reich's music features contrapuntal textures, non-functional harmony, phasing, gradual changes in dynamics and texture, use of canonic imitation and ostinati.

    Reich structures his music by carefully controlling the texture. In New York Counterpoint, he uses sections defined by changes in the texture and instrumentation.

    Reich: New York Counterpoint

    Steve Reich

    2007: Polar Music Prize (with Sonny Rollings) 2009: Pulitzer Prize for Music (for Double Sextet) 2011: Honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music

    D.O.B: 3rd October 1936 (Age:76) Growing up his time was split between his mum in New York and his dad in California.

    "our greatest living composer"


    (The New York Times)
    Pioneering composer of Minimal Music

    His innovative styles included using tape loops and simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts

    ...the most original musical thinker of our time (The NewYorker)

    Studies
    Whilst Growing up Reich took Piano lessons and began to study music at the age of 14 In 1957 Reich graduated Cornell University with Honours in Philosophy In 1973 and 1974 he studied Gamelan Music at the American Society for Eastern Arts in Seattle Studied composition with Hall Overton for 2 years From 1958 to 1961 he studied at the Juilliard School of Music

    1970: drumming at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra.

    Received Masters in Music from Mills College California in 1963

    From 1976 to 1977 he studied the traditional forms of cantillation (chanting) of the Hebrew scriptures in New York and Jerusalem.

    New York Counterpoint: 1985


    Commissioned by The Fromm Music Foundation for clarinettist Richard Stolzman

    Between 1965 and 2009 Reich composed over 40 works :


    Film and programme music Continuation of the ideas Music for Orchestra found in Vermont Music for the Stage counterpoint (1982) Vocal works Works for percussion Works for solo instruments (With tape) New York Counterpoint is an example of minimalism in three movements: fast, slow, fast, played one after the other without pause.

    New York refers to the hectic city life reflected in the movement and Counterpoint refers to the repetitive free canons formed by the staggered entries of the parts

    Minimalism
    Originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School.

    Features:
    Contrapuntal texture Non-functional, slow moving harmony Phasing Little variety of instrumentation Gradual changes in texture and dynamics Use of canonic imitation Diatonic harmony Use of ostinati Repetitions of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic patterns

    Context
    New York Counterpoint is an example of post modernist minimalism and is part of a series of three Counterpoint pieces: the first, titled Vermont Counterpoint (1982), was written for flute and tape, and the third, Electric Counterpoint (1988), was written for guitar and tape.

    Purpose
    Commissioned by The Fromm Music Foundation for clarinettist Richard Stolzman. Use of pre-recorded tape meant only one instrumentalist was needed The tape is typical of Reichs work

    Instrumentation
    New York Counterpoint was composed for a pre recorded tape of 10 clarinets and 1 live clarinet. Every note is written in the key of B major but heard as A major since the clarinets sound a tone lower than written.

    Typical of Reichs work and of minimalism

    Form and Structure


    Reich structures his music through the careful control of texture: Could be considered ternary form with the B section defined by the presence of the pulsing 4-part chords

    Doesn't fit any notions of form

    Section A: bars 1-24 Section B: bars 25-66 Section A: bars 67-72

    Typical of minimalism

    Rhythm and Metre


    The metre of the piece is which does not change in this movement.

    Phasing & Canonic Imitation


    Section B: pulsing semi quavers in the last 4 clarinets

    Polyrhythmic

    Syncopation

    Harmony and Tonality


    The movement is entirely diatonic however the lack of progression towards the tonic means that the harmony is non-functional.

    The key signature of 5 sharps combined with a keynote of E puts this piece in the Lydian Mode, transposed down a semitone

    Harmonic language is mainly triadic

    The melodic ostinati are centred on alterations of chords IV and V, but their canonic entries cause the chords to overlap and change at different times in different parts: this can sometimes give a feel of dissonance.

    Melody
    Typical of minimalism

    This is the Ostinato we hear in bars 1 and 2 played by clarinet 7: it is repeated and adapted throughout the piece

    Canonic imitation and phasing. (Changes the sound but not the music)

    Additive process of gradually completing the melody by replacing rest with notes

    Subtractive process of replacing some notes of the melody with rests

    The melodic material is triadic and based on the chords E and F# major. It is also limited to a range of one octave

    Texture
    Highly contrapuntal texture Parts constantly work in pairs: either playing the same or imitating each other

    From bar 25 until its part ends in bar 66 the live clarinet plays a freer, more improvisatory part that does not form part of the scheme of paired imitation In bar 27 cls. 7 and 8 and the two bass clarinets (9 and 10) start a pulsing chord underneath the imitative texture. There are six examples of this in the piece

    In bars 13-24 there is a 6-part texture, with 3 imitative pairs

    Bars 27-32 C#11 (= C#, D#, B, F#)

    Bars 33-8 E aug11 (= E, G#, D#, A#)

    Bars 39-46 G#11 (= G#, A#, F#, C#)

    Bars 47-52 C#11

    Bars 53-58 E aug11

    Bars 59-65 G#11

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