Reich: Drumming (20C);

It s not very often that a long complex piece of new music receives a standing ovation. On this note of pleasant surprise, composer Tom Johnson started his 1971 review of Drumming in New York s The Village Voice. He went on to explore some of the reasons for the work s immediate appeal:
What was it about Steve Reich s Drumming that brought the audience to its feet at the Museum of Modern Art on December 3? The simple fact that 13 musicians had performed intricate rhythms with amazing precision for an hour and half no doubt had a lot to do with it. Or perhaps it was because the simple white-note scales were refreshing to ears grown weary of dissonance. Or perhaps it was the joyous blend of marimbas, glockenspiels, drums, and voices that turned everyone on. Or was it the pleasure of seeing African and European elements so thoroughly fused almost as if we really did live in one world. Or perhaps it was because the music had spoken directly to the senses, with the sound itself never sacrificed for the more intellectual rhythmic side of the piece.
In other words, to the New York audience in 1971, these were fresh, new and exciting sounds with an unusual combination of novelty and irresistible allure. This was a very different kind of avant-garde, and Reich though a pupil of Berio and Milhaud was eager to distance himself from the musical mainstream. A few weeks before the premiere of Drumming, Reich explained in the New York Times that, while he admired Bach, the Western composer from whom he drew the most inspiration was Pérotin, who flourished around 1200 above all because of Pérotin s juxtaposition of very long notes with very short ones. But Reich had spent the summer of 1970 in Ghana, taking daily lessons from master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie, and transcribing the patterns. He has claimed that this experience served as not so much a direct influence as an affirmation: It confirmed my intuition that acoustic instruments and voices could be used to produce music that was genuinely richer in sound than that produced with electronic instruments, as well as confirming my natural inclination towards percussion. His experiences in Ghana were a crucial factor in Reich s creative development at the time, but the music of Drumming was never intended as some sort of Manhattan exoticism: Reich was always firm about this, declaring that he had no interest in sounding exotic .
Drumming was composed between the autumn of 1970 when Reich returned from Ghana and the autumn of 1971. It is divided into four sections, based on a rhythmic pattern that is first built up by two drummers at the start. Each section explores different ranges of sounds: in the first, it is four pairs of tuned bongos; in the second, three marimbas and two female voices; in the third, three glockenspiels, piccolo and whistling; and in the fourth, the whole ensemble. The procedures are both attractive and unconventional: as Reich puts it, Drumming shows that it is possible to keep going in the same key for quite a while if there are instead considerable rhythmic developments together with occasional, but complete, changes of timbre to supply variety.
The premiere of Drumming took place at MoMA on 3 December 1971 as part of a Friday evening open-house aimed at drawing in a youthful, adventurous audience to the museum to experience a wide range of creative projects. On that particular Friday, visitors could watch a dance solo by Merce Cunningham, a series of short films, and the performance of Drumming.
Six Pianos and Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ both date from 1973. By this time Reich was becoming interested in gamelan music, which is apparent in these two pieces, heard for the first time at the John Weber Gallery, New York, on 16 May 1973. Six Pianos is a highly animated score inv