Sound Beams

Claude Debussy: Sonata in G minor for Violin and Piano, L. 140
(1862-1918)
Allegro vivo
Intermède: Fantasque et léger
Finale: Très animé
Josefowicz, Chien

Steve Reich: Music for Pieces of Wood
(b. 1936)
Third Coast Percussion

— INTERMISSION —

Johann Sebastian Bach arr. Dmitry Sitkovetsky: Goldberg Variations, BMV 988
(1685-1750)
Aria and Variations
Frautschi, Chen, Arron

A tension: truss means two things, torn by competing forces.

The architectural definition has, from the seventeenth century on, signaled a form of beaming, most often wooden, used to brace bridges or buildings. The classic truss is five-beamed, a square bisected into triangles. Triangles are simple but eminently sturdy; you can understand the allure. Read more…

© Ty Bouque

Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood is a study in economy of means, both in terms of physical and musical materials. Reich specifies an exact pitch for each of the pieces of wood that are the only instruments in this work, and the three sections of the piece are each comprised of a single rhythm, with each player building up his own version of the pattern before blending into the texture. Many of the rhythms that emerge along the way suggest alternative meters or rhythmic inflections that may change the listener’s perception of the whole. Read more…

© Third Coast Percussion