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The Philadelphia Singers is proud to join with Relâche and Orchestra 2001 to present GLASS REICH BRYARS on Saturday, March 6 at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. This program brings together three of Philadelphia's Premier performing arts organizations in an evening of new works by three of today's musical giants.
Philip Glass's Persephone is a five-movement tour-de-force for orchestra and chorus. It was commissioned by Relâche and was first recorded and performed by the ensemble in 1994 in Philadelphia with Philip Glass performing the vocal parts in his arrangement for keyboard. The studio recording with voices was used for a Robert Wilson theatrical installation. The presentation by The Philadelphia Singers' marks the first time that the choral parts will be heard in a live performance.
Steve Reich's You Are (Variations), which he composed in 2004 is one of his most recent works and is scored for an 18-voice chorus and large instrumental ensemble including four pianos. Steve Reich a winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in music explores the use of the voice as a textural and harmonic focal point in the Philadelphia premiere of this moving work. Similar to earlier Reich works employing texts - such as Tehillim, The Desert Music and Proverb - You Are (Variations) focuses on timeless questions of ethics, aesthetics and the nature of consciousness itself.
Laude 22 and 23 (Fammi cantar l'amor) for a cappella women's chorus from Gavin Bryars' cycle Laude Cortonese fill out this program. Written in Italian and hearkening back to both forms and styles of the earliest polyphony of the Renaissance, Music Director David Hayes says, "They form a fascinating bridge between the musical and vocal styles of Glass and Reich."
Notes by Steve Reich - August 2004
You Are (Variations) (2004) is in four movements with each movement a setting of a short text. The movements/texts are:
You are wherever your thoughts are
Shiviti Hashem L'negdi
(I place the Eternal before me)
Explanations come to an end somewhere
Ehmor m'aht, v'ahsay harbay
(Say little and do much)
The first text is an English translation from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, one of the most magnetic and profound of the late 18th century Hasidic mystics. The quote is from his 'Likutey Moharan' I:21.
The second text is from Psalm 16 in the original Hebrew and translates as 'I place the Eternal before me'. The third is an English translation from the German of Ludwig Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations'.
The fourth quote is from Pirke Avot, one of the earliest parts of the Talmud and by far its most popular tractate. The Hebrew, from Rabbi Shammai, translates as 'Say little and do much'.
Since these texts are all quite brief, it is natural to repeat them with a somewhat different musical setting in each repeat. Hence variations were basically forced on me as a form by my choice of texts. The actual means of variation varies considerably.
Starting out, I made an harmonic ground plan with a short cycle of chords that would serve as the underpinning for all the variations, as has been done historically numerous times before. However, I found that upon completing the first setting of 'You are wherever your thoughts are', the second time I started to vary the harmonies. As I went on, they departed further from the original ground plan. I frankly enjoyed this immensely since I was following spontaneous musical intuition. In the thrid variation there are quotes from 'L'homme Armee', the popular song from the 14th century. Starting with the fifth variation I began piling all four pianos on top of each other with conflicting harmonies that produces something new and extremely energetic. In the sixth variation one may hear echos of James Brown.
The second text, in Hebrew, is sung and then immediately sung in canon which is then repeated and augmented creating a kind of slow motion canon with marimbas, vibes and pianos driving it on in constantly changing meters. After a short pause the slow third movement begins, varying the repetitions of its text in changing, often minor, harmonies. The last movement, again in Hebrew, returns to the original tempo and is composed of augmenting canons similar to the second movement.
What unites the piece harmonically is a constantly recurring D major dominant chord - usually with G, rather than A in the bass. This bright ray of D major light illuminates most of the piece, most intensely in the final movement.
You Are (Variations) is scored for 3 sopranos, 1 alto and 2 tenors with 2 flutes, oboe, english horn, 3 Bb clarinets, 4 pianos, 2 marimbas, 2 vibraphones and strings. The overall duration is a little more than 26 minutes. The piece was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Lincoln Center, and the Ensemble Modern.
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