I'm not sure about this work. I felt resistance as I listened to it. It's for string quartet and tape, composed in 2009 - 2010, and in three sections. He uses a technique that takes recorded voices, in this case peoples reactions to 9/11, and pitches an instrument to play along with the spoken text. Composer Jacob Ter Veldhuis (Jacob TV) uses this to great comedic affect in pieces like Body of Your Dreams but obviously there's nothing funny about WTC 9/11. The problem, for me, is that the event itself was so powerful and the spoken words in WTC 9/11 are so powerful that the music becomes rather incidental. Also, the piece, which lasts about 15 minutes seemed short to me. The only time I started to feel really drawn in was in the third section when a woman talks about staying up all night and singing, as a way of dealing with the situation I presume. Right after those words a female voice can be heard vocalizing and after that a man singing something in Hebrew. I felt that somehow this was musically a more interesting and effecting choice that what had come before. Of course, any new work needs to be listened to more than once so I will be returning to WTC 9/11. If you know the work I'd love to hear your take on it.
Here's a Wikipedia article about it. I was interested that Reich wanted to make it a longer work but that "the piece wanted to be terse."
No comments:
Post a Comment