Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Eighth Blackbird

All About Steve (Reich) on “The Lost Chord”

There’s no minimizing the fact that Steve Reich is 90 years old today.

Reich, of course, is best known as a pioneer of minimalism, his music marked by repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. He’s also notable for his experiments with phase shifting, one or more repeated phrases playing slower or faster against others, gradually going “out of phase,” and creating new musical patterns.

His use of tape loops has also been influential. He’s made his mark especially on experimental music, contemporary electronic music, and rock. In fact, his experiments have been so widely respected and emulated that he’s been one of the most significant American composers of his generation.

I hope you’ll join me this week for “The Lost Chord,” as we celebrate Reich’s birthday by listening to two of his works.

First, we’ll hear his Pulitzer Prize winner from 2007, “Double Sextet,” commissioned by the ensemble eighth blackbird – despite its name (always in the lower case) consisting of six musicians, here playing against a slightly different prerecording of themselves. I defy you not to groove to the propulsive outer sections.

We’ll follow that with his settings of four Hebrew psalms, “Tehillim,” which sports a quite a distinctive palette: four treble voices, piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, six percussionists (playing 4 small tuned tambourines without jingles, maracas, marimba, vibraphone and crotales, and clapping), two electronic organs, two violins, viola, cello, and bass. This is one work that proves you can be “minimal” but still engage the ear for half an hour.

Minimal music yields maximum rewards on “All About Steve,” celebrating Steve Reich at 90 on “The Lost Chord,” today on KWAX Classical Oregon!

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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT (***now with a repeat Sunday at 9:00 PM EDT/6:00 PM PDT***)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link

!https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 3, 2026
Birds in Music From Mozart to Eighth Blackbird

This one goes out to all the red-winged blackbirds, grackles, starlings, and cowbirds that have been swarming my feeders for the past week.

Jennifer Higdon’s “On a Wire,” named for the familiar sight of birds, well, hanging out on a wire, was composed for the contemporary music sextet eighth blackbird (which markets itself all in the lower-case). Interestingly the piano part includes passages that have adjacent musicians bow the strings inside the instrument. The technique is called (wait for it) “bowed piano.” You can identify the members of eighth blackbird by their instruments: flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello.

eighth blackbird is named for Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” a poem that’s been set by many composers. Lukas Foss’ response is one of the more frequently encountered.

Starlings aren’t always an annoyance. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was so charmed by one during a visit to a Viennese pet shop that he brought him home to his family. From the evidence of one of the composer’s diary entries, we know that a theme used in his Piano Concerto No. 17 was inspired by a song that his fine feathered friend had sung to him. Admittedly, Mozart tidied it up a bit first. (Originally, there had been an out-of-place G-sharp.)

I understand that everyone needs to eat, and I don’t begrudge a handful of any of these birds, but when it becomes a winged mob in leather jackets with chains, then I’m compelled to throw up the sash and trumpet through an old wrapping-paper tube.

Gentle birds, be reasonable! Eat well, but then, please – go in peace!

More about Mozart’s starling here

https://interlude.hk/mozart-inspired-pet-starling/

BONUS: From “Where’s Charley?” “My darling, my darling, I’ve fluttered and fled like a starling…”

February 22, 2023
Marriner Reich & Rosh Hashanah on WWFM

This afternoon, we’ll remember Sir Neville Marriner, who died yesterday, peacefully, in his sleep, at the age of 92. Impressively, Marriner conducted his final concert in Padua on Thursday. Tomorrow, he was scheduled to begin a tour of Austria, Germany and Belgium with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the orchestra he founded in 1958. We’ll honor this indefatigable musician with a number of his cherished recordings, as well as one or two which are perhaps not so well known.

We’ll also look to American composer Steve Reich, who is 80 years-old today. We’ll hear his Pulitzer Prize winning “Double Sextet,” performed by Eighth Blackbird. If you’re a Steve Reich fan, you’ll want to join David Osenberg for another “Celebrating Our Musical Community,” tonight at 8:00 EDT. He’ll introduce a concert of Reich’s works presented by gifted students and artists-in-residence at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, including members of Eighth Blackbird and Nexus Percussion.

Finally, we’ll include some music in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, including a work for string quartet by Darius Milhaud, based on tunes from High Holy Days liturgies indigenous to the composer’s native Provence.

That’s a lot to cover in only three hours. We’ll do our best to make the New Year sweet, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

October 3, 2016

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