Kronos Quartet
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS Sunday, October 9, 2011, 7pm Hertz Hall Kronos Quartet David Harrington violin John Sherba violin Hank Dutt viola Jeffrey Zeigler cello Laurence Neff lighting designer Scott Fraser sound designer PROGRAM Steve Reich (b. 1936) Triple Quartet (1999)* In three movements (played without pause) Reich Selections from The Cave (1993) Machpelah Commentary 2 Ephraim Isaac Chanting Interior Drone Reich WTC 9/11 (2010)* Bay Area Premiere 1. 9/11/01 2. 2010 3. WTC INTERMISSION Reich Different Trains (1988)* America—Before the War Europe—During the War After the War Program is subject to change. * Written for Kronos Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. CAL PERFORMANCES 29 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES The Music of Steve Reich (b. 1936) two and three and then play the quartet one part the largely Arab town of Hebron in the West they would start from publicly accessible record- along with the prerecorded tape. Alternately, Bank, today the Cave is the only place in the ings by NORAD [North American Aerospace Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for 2009, Steve the piece can be played by twelve players with world where both Jews and Muslims worship. Defense Command] and FDNY [the New York Reich’s music has been influential to composers no tape. The Caveis in three acts. Each act asks the same City Fire Department], and then from inter- and mainstream musicians all over the world. The piece is in three movements: fast– basic questions to a different group of people. views with former friends and neighbors who He is a leading pioneer of minimalism, having slow–fast. It is organized harmonically on four The basic five questions were: Who for you is lived or worked in lower Manhattan. in his youth broken away from the “establish- dominant chords in keys a minor third apart: Abraham? Hagar? Sarah? Ishmael? Isaac? “WTC” is also an abbreviation for “World ment” that was serialism. His music is known E minor, G minor, B-flat minor, C-sharp minor The music of The Cave is based on the sam- to Come,” as my friend composer David Lang for steady pulse, repetition and a fascination and then returning to E minor to form a cycle. pled speech of the interview subjects. Individual pointed out. After 9/11 the bodies and parts of with canons; it combines rigorous structures The first movement goes through this harmonic phrases—chosen for narrative content, compre- bodies were taken to the Medical Examiner’s of- with propulsive rhythms and seductive instru- cycle twice with a section about one minute long hensibility and the inherently melodious quality fice on the East Side of Manhattan. In Jewish mental color. It also embraces harmonies of on each of the four dominant chords. The result of speech—were transcribed into musical nota- tradition there is an obligation to guard the non-Western and American vernacular mu- is a kind of variation form. Rhythmically, the tion and used to generate the melodic material body from the time of death until burial. The sic, especially jazz. His studies have included first movement has the second and third quartet of the instruments and voices. practice, called Shmira (see “Stretching a Jewish Cornell University, the Juilliard School, Mills playing interlocking chords while the first quar- Steve Reich Vigil for the Sept. 11 Dead,” New York Times, College (with Luciano Berio), the Balinese tet plays longer melodies in canon between the Nov. 6, 2001), consists of sitting near the body Gamelan, African drumming (at the University first violin and viola against the second violin The Cave was co-commissioned by Weiner and reciting Psalms or Biblical passages. The of Ghana) and traditional forms of chanting the and cello. The slow movement is more com- Festwochen; the Holland Festival; Hebbel roots of the practice are, on one level, to protect Hebrew scriptures. pletely contrapuntal with a long slow melody in Theater, Berlin; Festival d’Automne à Paris-MC the body from animals or insects and, on anoth- Different Trains (written for and recorded by canon in all twelve voices. The third movement 93-Bobigny; Koninklijike Muntschouwburg/ er, to keep the neshama, or soul, company while the Kronos Quartet) and Music for 18 Musicians resumes the original fast tempo, maintains the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels; Serious Speakout it hovers over the body until burial. Because of have each earned him Grammy Awards, and harmonic chord cycle but treats all the previous and South Bank Centre, London; and the Brooklyn the difficulties in DNA identification, this went his documentary video operas—The Cave and material in the piece more freely. Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. on for seven months, 24/7. Two of the women Three Tales, done in collaboration with video Steve Reich who sat and recited Psalms are heard in the third artist Beryl Korot—have pushed the boundar- movement. You will also hear a cellist (who has ies of the operatic medium. Over the years, his Triple Quartet was commissioned for the Kronos WTC 9/11 (2010) sat Shmira elsewhere) and a cantor from a major music has significantly grown both in expanded Quartet with funds provided by the National New York City synagogue sing parts of Psalms harmonies and instrumentation, resulting in a Endowment for the Arts, David A. and Evelyne In 2009, the Kronos Quartet asked me for a and the Torah. Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 composition Double T. Lennette, Patricia Unterman and Tim piece using pre-recorded voices. My first idea WTC 9/11 is in three movements (though Sextet, as well as the Præmium Imperiale given Savinar, and Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment was to elongate the speaker’s final vowels or the tempo remains unchanged throughout): by Crown Prince Hitachi in Tokyo in 2006 and Commissioning Music/USA, which is made pos- consonants. Stop Action sound. Impossible in 1. 9/11/01 the Polar Prize given by the King of Sweden sible by generous support from The Helen F. 1973 when I first thought of it. Possible in 2001 2. 2010 in 2007. In 2008, Reich wrote his first piece Whitaker Fund and the Catherine Filene Shouse when Dolly was begun. In this piece it was to be, 3. WTC for rock band set-up, 2x5, which premiered on Foundation. Kronos’s recording is available on and is, the means of connecting one person to The piece begins and ends with the first vio- the opening night of Manchester International Nonesuch Records. another—harmonically. lin doubling the loud warning beep (actually an Festival on a double-bill with German electronic I had no idea who was speaking. No sub- F) your phone makes when it is left off the hook. music legends Kraftwerk. His work is published ject matter. After several months I finally re- In the first movement there are archive voices by Boosey & Hawkes. Selections from The Cave (1993) membered the obvious. For 25 years we lived from NORAD air traffic controllers, alarmed four blocks from the World Trade Center. On that American Airlines Flight 11 was off course. Biography reprinted by kind per- The Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah and their 9/11 we were in Vermont, but our son, grand- This was the first plane to deliberately crash into mission of Boosey & Hawkes. family provides the framework for The Cave. The daughter and daughter-in-law were all in our the World Trade Center. The movement then Cave of the Patriarch, as it is known, became apartment. Our phone connection stayed open shifts to the FDNY archives of that day telling the final resting place of Abraham, Sarah and for six hours, and our next-door neighbors were what happened on the ground. Triple Quartet (1999) their descendants. According to Jewish mysti- finally able to drive north out of the city with The second movement uses recordings I cal sources, the Cave is a passageway back to their family and ours. For us, 9/11 was not a made in 2010 of neighborhood residents, an of- Triple Quartet is dedicated to the Kronos the Garden of Eden. It is also said that Adam media event. ficer of the Fire Department and the first ambu- Quartet. It is for three string quartets. For and Eve are buried there. The Cave is of great By January 2010, several months after lance driver (from Hatzalah volunteers) to arrive Kronos or any other single string quartet to religious significance for Muslims as well; they Kronos asked me for the piece, I realized the pre- at the scene, remembering what happened nine perform the piece, they must prerecord quartets trace their lineage to Abraham. Located in recorded voices would be from 9/11. Specifically, years earlier. 30 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 31 PROGRAM NOTES TEXTS The third and last movement uses the voices Los Angeles from 1939 to 1942, accompanied Steve Reich (b. 1936) 2. 2010 of a neighborhood resident, two volunteers who by my governess. While the trips were exciting took shifts sitting near the bodies, and the cel- and romantic at the time, I now look back and Neighborhood residents, FDNY officer, first ambulance WTC 9/11 (2010) list/singer and cantor mentioned above. think that, if I had been in Europe during this driver to arrive at World Trade Center: Throughout WTC 9/11 the strings double period, as a Jew I would have had to ride very I was sitting in class— and harmonize the speech melodies and pro- different trains. With this in mind, I wanted to 1. 9/11 four blocks longed vowels or consonants of the recorded make a piece that would accurately reflect the four blocks north of ground zero— voices.