steve reich - biography


9. Triple Quartet - Three Tales - Hindenburg

Reich's most recent work has been divided between chamber pieces (eg. a new piece for Kronos, Triple Quartet, premiered in 1999) and an even larger-scale video opera collaboration with Korot, Three Tales, of which the first tale, Hindenburg, also premiered in 1999. Three Tales, when completed, will tell the story of the twentieth century by focussing on three events, referred to as Hindenburg, Bikini and Dolly. Hindenburg concerns itself with the famous zeppelin that exploded in 1937 and also with the German General who provided the airship with its name. Bikini deals with the atom bomb tests at Bikini island (and may also play off the bathing suit of the same name). Dolly will discuss the sheep of the same name who was cloned in Scotland in 1997.

Hindenburg (1998) consists of five scenes, accompanied by video. Unlike The Cave, which used multiple video channels simultaneously, Hindenburg uses a single screen which is at times divided into sections. The video footage is layered, heavily edited and repetitive, which the music complements. The footage is also in black and white, a contrast to the vivid color used in The Cave. The music is an amalgam of Reichian styles that have preceeded it, while breaking new stylistic ground. In some sequences, instead of using spoken words to induce the musical phrasing, Reich employs percussionists to play along as words from headlines and news stories appear on the video screen. It takes 15 musicians to perform the music behind the video piece, and the results are as layered and full of dynamism as anything post-18 in Reich's repertoire. There are explorations of phasing, sound and vocal sampling and repetition, even a "sampling" and phasing of the Niebelung motif from Wagner's Das Rheingold. One only expects the remaining two tales to be as vibrant and full of experimentation as this richly cohesive beginning.