The Desert Music
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The Desert Music is a well-known piece of music by Steve Reich.
It is a large-scale work in five movements for voices and orchestra bases on texts by William Carlos Williams. In both its tempi and arrangement of thematic material, the piece is in a characteristic arch form (ABCBA).
[edit] Orchestration
The piece is scored for a chorus of 27 voices: nine sopranos, and six each of altos, tenors and basses.
The piece calls for a woodwind section comprising four flutes with three doubling on piccolo, four oboes with three doubling on cor anglais, four Bb clarinets with three doubling on Bb bass clarinet and four bassoons with one doubling on contrabassoon.
Brass comprises of four horns, four trumpets with one doubling on optional piccolo trumpet, two trombones, a bass trombone, and one tuba.
The percussion section is characteristically extensive, comprising two timpani, both doubling on rototoms, two marimbas, two vibraphones, two xylophones, two glockenspiels, maracas, sticks, a pair of bass drums, and a medium gong.
Two pianos, played by four musicians, comprise the keyboard section.
Strings (12-12-9-9-6) broken into three sections of (4-4-3-3-2) seated by their section with the first set of 16 players stage right, next 16 center stage, and last stage left.
MUSICAL ARCH FORM: I- Fast Tempo (quarter = 192 in 4/4 time) II- Moderate Tempo IIIA- Slow Tempo IIIB- Moderate Tempo IIIC- Slow Tempo IV- Moderate Tempo V- Fast Tempo
Sections I and V have the same harmonic structure, sections II and IV have both the same harmonic structure and same words. Sections IIIA and IIIC have the same words.
LYRICS: I-fast: 7 minutes and 30 second
"Begin, my friend
for you cannot,
you may be sure,
take your song,
which drives all things out of mind,
with you to the other world." (from Theocritus: Idyl I- A version from the Greek)
II- Moderate: 7 minutes
"Well, shall we
think or listen? Is there a sound addressed
not wholly to the ear?
We half close
our eyes. We do not
hear it through our eyes.
It is not
a flute note either, it is the relation
of a flute note
to a drum. I am wide
awake. The mind
is listening." (from The Orchestra)
IIIA- Slow: 6 minutes
"Say to them:
Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant
to know how to relize his wishes. Now that he can realize
them, he must either change or perish." (from The Orchestra)
IIIB- Moderate: 6 minutes
"It is a principle of music
to repeat the theme. Repeat
and repeat again,
as the pace mounts. The
theme is difficult
but no more difficult
than the facts to be
resolved." (from The Orchestra)
IIIC- Slow: 6 minutes
Same text as section IIIA
IV- Moderate: 3 minute 30 seconds
Same text as section II
V- Fast: 11 minutes
"Inseparable from the fire
its light
takes precedence over it.
who most shall advance the light-
call it what you may!"
(from Asphodel, The Greeny Flower)
All poems are by William Carlos Williams collected poetry book: Pictures from Breughel and Other Poems copyright in 1954, 1955, and 1962 from the New Directions Publishing Corp.
Relation to other Reich Pieces At one point in Section IIIC, the strings begin playing a section from Reich's New York Counterpoint as the sound of sirens/strings crescendo below the phrase.
