radio rewrite steve reich radio rewrite electric counterpoint jonny greenwood, guitar (1987) 14:41 Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. 1. I. fast 6:51 World Premiere: November 5, 1987, by Pat Metheny, at the Brooklyn Academy 2. II. slow 3:21 of Music, Brooklyn, NY. Published by Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes Company. 3. III. fast 4:29 4. piano counterpoint vicky chow, piano (1973, arr. 2011) 13:44 World Premiere: October 23, 2012, by Vincent Corver, at the Pearl, Doha, Qatar. arrangement of Six Pianos for piano and Published by Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes Company. tape by Vincent Corver radio rewrite alarm will sound (2012) 17:28 alan pierson, conductor 5. I. fast 3:52 erin lesser, flute 6. II. slow 3:23 elisabeth stimpert, clarinet chris thompson, vibraphone 7. III. fast 3:21 matt smallcomb, vibraphone 8. IV. slow 3:53 john orfe, piano 9. V. fast 2:59 michael harley, piano courtney orlando, violin caleb burhans, violin nathan schram, viola stefan freund, violoncello miles brown, electric bass gavin chuck, managing director jason varvaro, production manager peter ferry, production assistant Commissioned by the London Sinfonietta with support from London Sinfonietta Entrepre- neurs and Pioneers including Sir Richard Arnold, Trevor Cook, Susan Grollet in memory of Mark Grollet and Richard Thomas; Alarm Will Sound and Stanford Live in honor of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation with generous support from Van and Eddi Van Auken. World Premiere: March 5, 2013, by Sound Intermedia/London Sinfonietta/Brad Lubman, at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Published by Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes Company / Warner/Chappell Music Ltd. Incorporates elements of the Radio- head compoisitions “Jigsaw Falling into Place” and “Everything in its Right Place.” Radio Rewrite Nico Muhly Steve Reich, writing about his Radio Rewrite (2012), points out the long history of composers using preexisting music as an ingredient for their own compositions. Reich points to the popular Renaissance song “L’homme armé,” which was repurposed, as a sort of “found” object, in over forty settings of the Mass. The idea that a popular tune — some- thing you’d hum in the streets, or sing to the kids at bedtime — could find its way into a religious service is exciting for all composers both quick and dead: the permeability of the boundaries between formal and informal music-making has always been one of the most delicious inter- sections for writers and listeners alike. Reich has, himself, borrowed from the 12th-century composer Péro- tin in his Proverb (1995). Here, a short text by Wittgenstein is treated after the fashion of the French master, wherein each syllable is greatly prolonged and treated as a structural, rather than melodic, possibility. Each syllable of the text, held by one voice, becomes the focal point for a meditation on that pitch center, requiring the composer to modulate keys at the end of each syllable. We see a slightly different borrowing technique at work in Radio Rewrite, an 18-minute-long piece for flute, clarinet, two vibraphones, two pianos, electric bass, and string quartet., performed here by longtime Reich friends and advocates Alarm Will Sound, under their conductor Alan Pierson. The piece is in five sections, with the first, third, and fifth being fast, and based on the Radiohead song “Jigsaw Falling into Place” (from In Rainbows, 2007), and the sec- ond and fourth parts being slower, and based on “Everything in Its Right Place” (from Kid A, 2000). Reich writes: It was not my intention to make anything like “variations” on these songs, but rather to draw on their harmonies and sometimes melodic fragments and work them into my own piece. [...] As to actually hearing the original its right place” melody. The effect is arresting. songs, the truth is — sometimes you hear them and sometimes you don’t. Electric Counterpoint (1987) is a virtuosic work for multiple guitars, usually performed by one musician onstage surrounded by prerecorded The Radiohead (and, indeed, Pérotin) influence is particularly evident in tracks. Reich writes about an encounter with Radiohead guitarist Jonny the second section, in which the original melody is slowed enormously, Greenwood, who plays the work here: and given a stately gait. “Everything in Its Right Place,” in its original form, is propelled by the ...[he] had prepared all the backing tracks for my piece, Electric Counter- fact that the melody never quite lands on the chords that accompany it: point, and then played electric guitar live against those tracks in concert. It was a great performance, and we began talking. I found his background it is simple enough that almost any chord below it shades it and lights it as a violist and his present active role as a composer extremely interesting differently. Reich’s homage capitalizes on this, and the fragmented melo- when added to his major role in such an important and innovative rock dy appears in various guises over a wide variety of chords both lush and group. tart. Reich takes Radiohead’s prompt, and in the two slow movements of Rewrite, gorgeously explores both the sinewy contours of the original It was after this meeting that Reich became interested in Radiohead’s melody as well as its vague harmonic implications. music, but it is quite easy to hear Reich’s influence on the band’s music. In “Jigsaw Falling into Place,” Radiohead employ an elusive harmonic Indeed, many musicians of Radiohead’s vintage — and of more recent structure: cyclical, but unpredictable. Reich takes full advantage of the manufacture — grew up listening obsessively to Reich’s recordings on possibilities of this chord structure, but slowed down and in great de- Nonesuch. For me, and many of my colleagues, the recording that paired tail and, in the third section of Rewrite, presents a sequence of playful the Kronos Quartet playing Different Trains with Pat Metheny playing and thrilling variations that hang out in a single key only long enough to Electric Counterpoint (Nonesuch, 1989) was a milestone in our develop- explore a brief series of rhythmic ideas, usually presented in canon in ment as musicians. Like many of Reich’s works, the piece begins with a the vibraphones, winds, and strings, only to shift gears ecstatically into a series of pulses starting and ending in silence, and overlapping with one new key, with a new beginning. another. From this cloud-like texture, a series of small melodic fragments The transition between the fourth and fifth sections is one of the most emerges, one by one, creating a hyper-stylized conversation between the exciting in Reich’s recent output. The slow, very distilled music builds onstage performer and the prerecorded guitars. Once all the contrapun- in intensity, until the strings, pianos, and vibraphones articulate a giant tal voices are active, Reich reintroduces the pulse clouds, which is an suspended chord, and the flute plays a languid, slightly mysterious mel- ecstatic camera move, in which we have very fast music on the ground, ody derived from the lyric “What is that you tried to say?” from “Every- observed by the slow metabolism of the pulses. In Radiohead’s “Idiote- thing,” creating an unsettled, almost dangerous atmosphere. The chords que,” we see them using a technique clearly stemming from Reich’s slowly cycle below the melody, now joined by the clarinet, and suddenly, Electric Counterpoint: the texture, just before the midpoint of the song, they both freeze on the alternating fourths that outline the “Everything in reduces into a pattern of vocal melodic fragments, the drums, and a counterpoint, which is overtaken by a similar zoom-effect with the return Electric Counterpoint of the pulse clouds that define the piece. This is something Reich has Produced, Recorded, and Mixed by Graeme Stewart Mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road Studios, London been up to since the ’70s, with Music for 18 Musicians, where a rhyth- mic process can be overtaken, wave-like, by a storm of pulses. Piano Counterpoint Piano Counterpoint is an arrangement by pianist Vincent Corver of Recorded by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Yonkers, NY Hamburg Steinway D prepared by Arlan Harris Reich’s Six Pianos (1973), here performed by the Canadian pianist Vicky Mixed and Edited by Florent Ghys Chow. Like Electric Counterpoint, this work is for a single performer with several prerecorded layers. The piece is organized around a pattern of Radio Rewrite Produced by Judith Sherman eight notes, presented simply at the beginning, which is slowly overtak- Recorded April 3, 2014, in Studio A at Avatar Studios, New York, NY en by its own twin, building itself two beats later. Corver’s arrangement Engineer: John Kilgore accents this process by displacing the “live” piano part up an octave, to Assistant Engineer: Tim Marchiafava Production Assistant: Jeanne Velonis make the resultant patterns clear. It is a fascinating thing to know the Mixed by Judith Sherman, John Kilgore, Steve Reich, and Alan Pierson original, and to hear this version, which has, in a sense, made even more at John Kilgore Sound & Recording, New York, NY of the skeleton of the piece audible to the listener. Reich’s processes, Album Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, even when one can see precisely what’s going on, still have the ability to Portland, ME surprise the ear, as one chord suddenly transforms into another, reveal- ing additional harmonic rooms behind the one we were just exploring. Design by Barbara deWilde Design Photograph of Steve Reich by Jay Blakesberg This disc pairs a new work with new versions of two older pieces; it is a testament to Reich’s influence that musicians of all ages are interested Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz not just in recreating his music as it was originally intended, but in re- inventing it: making new versions to perform solo, making new, brilliant Thanks first to Alarm Will Sound, Alan Pierson, Jonny Greenwood, and Vicky Chow, recordings of well-respected old chestnuts, and finding new itineraries as well as to Judith Sherman, John Kilgore, and Bob Ludwig.