Tehillim

Reich explores his Jewish heritage musically for the first time in his four-part work Tehillim (meaning "praises"), which draws from the Hebrew Book of Psalms. The rhythm of the texts dictates the rhythms and flow of the music, with each section derived from a psalm: 19, 34, 18 and 150. Scored for chamber ensemble and four vibratoless female voices, amplified in performance, the piece in its opening offers a lively reminder of how Reich embraced the dance impulse that had been shunned in the cerebral experiments of leading avant-garde composers in Europe, such as Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who strictly ordered every dimension of musical composition, including pitch, dynamics, duration and sonority. Reich's is music that appeals to the senses—but there are polyphonic processes at work here, too: hear how the opening drumming and clapping, and the mellifluous voices that follow, give way to a series of four-part canons, in which the melodies follow each other at staggered intervals. Tehillim’s rapidly changing time signatures are one challenge that this work presents for its performers—as the first piece by Reich to require a conductor, it offers a joyous sign that, for this Minimalist composer, less was no longer more.