{"id":80997,"date":"2020-10-08T15:39:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=80997"},"modified":"2020-10-08T15:39:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:39:18","slug":"psalm-trance-with-african-drumming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/psalm-trance-with-african-drumming\/","title":{"rendered":"Psalm-Trance With African Drumming"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Steve Reich – Tehillim I<\/em>. Psalm 19:2-5, “Hashamyim mehsapehrim kavohd Kail<\/em>” (\u201cThe Heavens Will Declare The Glory of God\u201d) (Alarm Will Sound Ensemble, 2011)<\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Reich (b. 1936) is one of the leading, pioneering composers of the 20th century. What back in the 1960s seemed like the eccentricities of a few American composers, who rebelled against what was considered the modernism of the time, in a style dubbed \u201cminimalism,\u201d became under the leadership of Reich, Philip Glass and others the mainstream of musical culture at the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His composition, <\/span>Tehillim<\/span><\/em>, for four female voices and a small orchestra (1981) is considered a turning point in the entrance of the style into the traditional concert hall. Previously, Reich worked tirelessly on his writing, which was based on repetitive rhythmic-melodic structures, which develop slowly in different ways, until the listener sinks into a sort of static \u201ctrance,\u201d and remains in the eternal dimension of the changing tone, which flickers and rises to infinity.<\/span><\/p>\n

His artistic inspirations are various, with the most central ones being the rhythmic music of Stravinsky and Bartok, music from non-European cultures – such as African drumming, Indonesian gamelan – and music of the body, such as hand-clapping and voice, 12-tone structures, the \u201clooping\u201d of early electronic music, jazz, early rock.<\/span><\/p>\n

For an Israeli, <\/span>Tehillim<\/em> <\/span>is amazing in its approach to the Hebrew language. Reich spent the summer of 1977 in Israel in order to get in touch with his Jewish roots. He applies the language here with the skill of a native speaker, for he knows not only how to write according to prosody and meaning, but write against them, and use them as a driving force to create the musical motifs, and the developing form which is so indicative of his style.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The work, then, cannot be called \u201ctraditional\u201d in the sense of adopting accepted or familiar structures from traditional Jewish music. Rather, it creates a new connection between the ancient texts, and the most contemporary of contemporary speech and song of our won period. The voices are not operatic, but jazzist, with electronic amplification, and the four chosen verses, return and appear in a never-ending cycle. As in his previous compositions, they disconnect us from the biblical meaning, in favor of a cosmically transcendent meaning. From this perspective, we can understand why Reich chose these verses which express the connection between God and the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Wbu0_YObi3Q","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"The Psalms In Classical Music","main_caption":"Psalm-Trance With African Drumming","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"A new series - this time Steve Reich","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Wbu0_YObi3Q","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81190,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80997\/revisions\/81190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}