Steve Reich: Pioneering Minimalist Composer Who Transformed Modern Music

Experiments with Tape Loops and Phasing

In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich began experimenting with tape loops, creating pieces that would lay the groundwork for his signature phasing technique. Works like It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) featured snippets of recorded speech, looped and played back at slightly different speeds.

As the loops gradually moved out of sync, they created mesmerizing, constantly evolving patterns – a perceptible process that would become a hallmark of Reich’s style.Reich soon translated this phasing concept to live instruments in pieces like Piano Phase (1967) and Violin Phase (1967).

In these works, two or more musicians play the same melodic pattern, slowly shifting out of unison to create shimmering, kaleidoscopic textures. “I am interested in perceptible processes,” Reich explained. “I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.”

Non-Western Influences

In 1970, a transformative trip to Ghana opened Reich’s ears to the complexities of West African drumming. He studied with master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie, immersing himself in the intricate polyrhythms of Ewe music.

The impact was profound, leading to Reich’s groundbreaking work Drumming (1971) – a sprawling, 90-minute percussion piece that weaves together African rhythms, phasing techniques, and masterful ensemble interplay.

Reich’s fascination with non-Western music continued throughout the 1970s. He became enamored with the shimmering tones of Balinese gamelan, an influence that seeped into works like Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973) and the monumental Music for 18 Musicians (1976). In Tehillim (1981), Reich turned to his Jewish heritage, setting Hebrew psalms to pulsing, interlocking instrumental patterns.

Masterworks of the 1970s and 80s

The mid-1970s saw Reich create perhaps his most iconic work: Music for 18 Musicians. Premiered in 1976, this hour-long masterpiece is built around a mesmerizing cycle of 11 chords, performed by an ensemble of pianos, marimbas, xylophones, clarinets, voices, strings, and percussion.

The music ebbs and flows in hypnotic waves, with individual instruments emerging and receding in a constantly shifting tapestry of sound. It remains one of the most celebrated and influential works of minimalism.

In 1988, Reich took a deeply personal turn with Different Trains, a searing reflection on the Holocaust. The piece juxtaposes recorded speech samples – including Reich’s own governess and a Pullman porter – with a live string quartet, creating a haunting meditation on memory, history, and the divergent fates of Jews in Europe and America during World War II.

Different Trains won Reich a Grammy Award in 1989, cementing his status as one of the world’s preeminent living composers.