Steve Reich’s Variations
You Are Variations is now one of my favorite Steve Reich pieces. Reich has been moving more and more towards pieces that say something explicitly. And what You Are has to say really gets to me.
The words to the first part of the piece are “You Are Where Your Thoughts Are,” which to me is almost like a composer’s dare. It’s kind of like asking the audience if they are paying attention to the music. And sometimes when my mind wanders during listening, I’ll hear those words nudging me back into the fold. Along with the call to attention, it is also about keeping your attention on what is really important to you…and I think about this when my thoughts turn negative and I become what those thoughts are. It’s no mistake that Reich’s piece is so philosophical since he studied it at Cornell and based the piece on his understanding of it (the third movement uses the words of Wittgenstein).
The last movement illustrates this perfectly. In it Reich juxtaposes two sentiments, “Say little and do much.” It’s sung in Hebrew. And whenever they sing, “Say little,” (”Ehmor m’aht”) it is in short declarative phrases and when they sing, “Do much” (”v’ahsay harbay”) is in long stretched vowels. It’s elementary word painting that operates on a grand scale.
Ehmor m’aht, v’ahsay harbay (mp3) - Steve Reich Buy
The Daniel Variations were very different in tone and somewhat in procedure. While it had fewer string players (a string quartet to be exact), they had more prominent solo roles in the work itself, which was somewhat surprising since Reich is not generally known for his string writing. But it was piercing in I think the way it was meant to be. And the pianos were not necessarily pounding away (that’s what the mallet instruments were for), but simply adding defining textures. And the harmonies were explosive for a Reich piece, beginning in a way darker than I’d ever heard from this composer.
Of course, when the subject matter in 911, it’s hard to not incorporate a little darkness. With Daniel Pearl’s name it became in some ways political and in other ways very poignant. Reich usually gives the standard lecture about his music not being “extramusical” and yet this piece embraces it, to the point of even having Daniel Pearl’s father give Reich notes on how to compose.
And by the final movement, we had somehow transcended the darkness and gone to far away keys and were making the jump to another cloud. It was strangely Beethovenian.
