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Steve Reich report Trubnikova

Steve Reich and his concept of using short phrases and exclamations as basis of his music pieces create an amusing mixture of contemporary overlapping the classical and making its way into democracy.

The main paradox of minimalism, as of the other philosophical ideas implemented in various kinds of art including music is in the depth of its structure and meaning. Same here happens with Reich’s music: there are not that many things actually recorded for each period, but the combination of  the work of the orchestra/ band and of the overlapping sounds of trains in his peace called “Different trains” is able to express spectrums of feelings, unite the thoughts of thousands of people and walk us through years of history. The piece creates an image of industrial society where an individual person is not placed big importance on, but it is the community as a whole unit. For sure everyone finds different concepts in his music for themselves, but I think the message Reich tries to convey screams “Don’t judge a book by its cover!” The actual complexity comes from the minimal use of the instruments. A lot of things that are genial can be created from scratch. At the same time, Reich shows us how complex and versatile are the structures of his pieces.

Music for Mallet Instruments is in a way similar to Different Trains. However, not only because the duration of the piece is longer and requires more musicians to participate in the orchestra, but maybe due to longer periods throughout the composition of the piece and carefully placed repetitions overlapping each other further as the musicians play and sing, it feels like Reich tells the history of life itself, inviting the audience to join the storytelling and live through all the periods of life, not of a single person. You can see it through the eyes of life itself, of the creation and rhythm. The pioneer ideas of overlapping tape recordings and sounds that came from Reich’s early pieces can certainly be traced in his later pieces. They become more and more complex including many more repeating patterns.

Reich invented the concept of writing stories with a minimum of  words but with a maximum of effort, complexity and use the full scale of sound turning his pieces into new philosophy and opening a new door for the musicians of the next decades.

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