City Life (music)
Encyclopedia
City Life is a minimalist composition
by Steve Reich
written in 1995.
It is scored for 2 flute
s, 2 oboe
s, 2 clarinet
s, 2 vibraphone
s, unpitched percussion
, 2 sampler
s, 2 piano
s, string quartet
, and double bass
. All instruments except the unpitched percussion are to be amplified. Its duration is 24 minutes. It uses digital samplers
amongst the instruments used in performance, and these play back a wide variety of sounds and speech samples, mainly recorded by Reich himself in and around his home town of New York
. These sounds include car horns, air brakes, car alarms and many other sounds associated with the city.
The use of the samplers extends the idea of using everyday sounds in music, endebted to the taxi horn in Gershwin
's An American in Paris
, the siren
s used by Varèse
, and Antheil
's airplane propeller
within the classical tradition as well as to rock and roll
and rap. This use also harkens back to Reich's early tape pieces, such as It's Gonna Rain
or Come Out
. The samplers are loaded with speech and other sounds (car horns, door slams, air brakes, subway chimes, pile drivers, car alarms, heartbeats, boat horns, buoys, and sirens). The last movement uses bits of field communications from the New York Fire Department during the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
.
The recordings also include fragments of speech, some of which have their 'speech melody' performed by the other instruments. A normal element of speech is intonation, and in this work Reich transfers intonational patterns to instrumental melody notation. Reich's first use of this approach is in Different Trains
, following the earlier example of Scott Johnson
's John Somebody.
s, and like many other Reich compositions they follow an arch-like form of A-B-C-B-A. They are:
Each movement is named for a sample contained within it. The first, third, and fifth movements use speech samples (often doubled with instruments, as in Different Trains
), while the second and fourth use only rhythmic samples, which drives the tempo in these movements.
In true Reich style, the paired movements share a chord cycle. The first movement, interestingly, does not open with pulses (as in many of Reich's other pieces), but with a chorale. This same chorale appears in a slightly more dissonant
voicing at the end of the fifth movement, leading the final chord which ends on an ambiguous C dominant/minor seventh chord
.
The work was commissioned by Ensemble Modern
, the London Sinfonietta, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. It premiered in March 1995 and recorded on the Nonesuch
label in 1996 (included on Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995
).
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
by Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
written in 1995.
It is scored for 2 flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, 2 vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
s, unpitched percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, 2 sampler
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
s, 2 piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
s, string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
, and double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. All instruments except the unpitched percussion are to be amplified. Its duration is 24 minutes. It uses digital samplers
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
amongst the instruments used in performance, and these play back a wide variety of sounds and speech samples, mainly recorded by Reich himself in and around his home town of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. These sounds include car horns, air brakes, car alarms and many other sounds associated with the city.
The use of the samplers extends the idea of using everyday sounds in music, endebted to the taxi horn in Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's An American in Paris
An American in Paris
An American in Paris is a symphonic tone poem by the American composer George Gershwin, written in 1928. Inspired by the time Gershwin had spent in Paris, it evokes the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s. It is one of Gershwin's best-known compositions.Gershwin composed the piece...
, the siren
Siren (noisemaker)
A siren is a loud noise making device. Most modern ones are civil defense or air raid sirens, tornado sirens, or the sirens on emergency service vehicles such as ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. There are two general types: pneumatic and electronic....
s used by Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, and Antheil
George Antheil
George Antheil was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor. A self-described "Bad Boy of Music", his modernist compositions amazed and appalled listeners in Europe and the US during the 1920s with their cacophonous celebration of mechanical devices.Returning permanently to...
's airplane propeller
Propeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
within the classical tradition as well as to rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
and rap. This use also harkens back to Reich's early tape pieces, such as It's Gonna Rain
It's Gonna Rain
It's Gonna Rain is a minimalist musical composition for magnetic tape written by Steve Reich in 1965. It lasts approximately 17 minutes and 50 seconds. It was Reich's first major work and a landmark in minimalism and process music.-Analysis:...
or Come Out
Come Out (Reich)
Come Out is a 1966 piece by American composer Steve Reich. He was asked to write this piece to be performed at a benefit for the retrial of the Harlem Six, six black youths arrested for committing a murder during the Harlem Riot of 1964 for which only one of the six was responsible...
. The samplers are loaded with speech and other sounds (car horns, door slams, air brakes, subway chimes, pile drivers, car alarms, heartbeats, boat horns, buoys, and sirens). The last movement uses bits of field communications from the New York Fire Department during the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
.
The recordings also include fragments of speech, some of which have their 'speech melody' performed by the other instruments. A normal element of speech is intonation, and in this work Reich transfers intonational patterns to instrumental melody notation. Reich's first use of this approach is in Different Trains
Different Trains
Different Trains is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. It won a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.The work's three movements have the following titles:...
, following the earlier example of Scott Johnson
Scott Johnson (composer)
Scott Johnson is an American composer known for his pioneering use of recorded speech as musical melody. He was the recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship.- John Somebody :...
's John Somebody.
Movements
The work is divided into five movementMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
s, and like many other Reich compositions they follow an arch-like form of A-B-C-B-A. They are:
- Check it out
- Pile driver/alarms
- It's been a honeymoon -- can't take no mo'
- Heartbeats/boats and buoys
- Heavy smoke
Each movement is named for a sample contained within it. The first, third, and fifth movements use speech samples (often doubled with instruments, as in Different Trains
Different Trains
Different Trains is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. It won a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.The work's three movements have the following titles:...
), while the second and fourth use only rhythmic samples, which drives the tempo in these movements.
In true Reich style, the paired movements share a chord cycle. The first movement, interestingly, does not open with pulses (as in many of Reich's other pieces), but with a chorale. This same chorale appears in a slightly more dissonant
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
voicing at the end of the fifth movement, leading the final chord which ends on an ambiguous C dominant/minor seventh chord
Seventh chord
A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a major triad with an added minor seventh...
.
The work was commissioned by Ensemble Modern
Ensemble Modern
Ensemble Modern is a chamber ensemble dedicated to the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries....
, the London Sinfonietta, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. It premiered in March 1995 and recorded on the Nonesuch
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
label in 1996 (included on Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995
Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995
Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995 is a 1997 10-CD box set of compositions by composer Steve Reich released by Nonesuch Records as part of Reich's 60th birthday celebration. Described as, "monumental... essential.....
).