My name is…REICH

The genesis of the work Reich / Richter inspires this programme, which takes us into the American composer’s repertoire. From his beginnings, with very experimental works, to this work for ensemble, passing through Bach and Stravinsky, two composers he considered central to his inspiration and decision to become a musician.

The piece was commissioned by The Shed gallery in New York and is based on the series Patterns by the German artist Gerhard Richter in which, on an abstract painting, he carries out a whole process until he obtains results that are psychedelic in nature.

This is the first collaboration between the two artists who focus their work on the shared sensorial exploration of music and art. Richter’s mathematical formulas fit perfectly with the rigorousness and repetition of Reich’s musical structures. Ultimately, for minimalists, repetition is fundamental, it amplifies our involvement in musical experiences.

Both Pendulum music and Violin Phase, Reich’s first two works, explain the essence of the music-making process. Pendulum music is based on a single peculiar melody in constant transformation, and its genius manages to maintain the sensation of never knowing where the score is going.

Bach is part of the greatest key musical architectures in history. An example is “The Well-Tempered Clavier”, which we propose to listen to him hand in hand with Stravinsky’s instrumentation, a happy union of two of the central composers in Reich’s biography.

Fratres by Arvo Pärt, a contemporary of Reich’s and one of the world’s most widely performed composers, is a work from the 1970s that has been performed in seventeen versions. A three-part work with no fixed instrumentation, it can be performed on several instruments.