{ I dont play Reich's version of WCW that often, which may suggest that it
{ doesn't overwhelm me either. but there's some Reich I think very highly
{ of, my chacun at work, I guess...
Nor do I, although I owned a recording of it once and have heard it
performed. The early-work-is-better syndrome afflicts both Reich and
Glass, I'd say, but I guess a lot of that is due to the fact that commissioning
plays so large a part in the contempo music world. I think that few even
mediocre composers do much work on spec, as they say--unlike all us
poets who live our writing lives on spec.
{ Mind you, perhaps the most extreme version of poetry set to music was
{ something I heard in Budapest back in 1985. there was a group there that
{ did Reich & stuff Reich-like wonderfully well, & I was lucky enough to be
{ taken to a concert (Reich apparently thought they did his work better than
{ his group did!). They did a killer version of his 'octet,' & some of their
{ own. You have not lived till you've heard the poems of Robbie Burns intoned
{ with a Hungarian accent...
Ever hear the Shanghai Film Orchestra doing Terry Riley's In C? A real trip!
Hal "I think I think; therefore I think I am."
--Ambrose Bierce
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: [log in to unmask]
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
|