EN / RU

Running time:
60 minutes, no break
6+
7 June 2023 Wednesday 19.00 Grand hall
19.00 Grand hall

Steve Reich
"Music for 18 musicians"

Soloists:
Ksenia Bashmet, piano
Peter Aydu, piano
Mikhail Dubov, piano
Mikhail Turpanov, piano

The Questa Musica ensemble:
Maria Greliches, soprano
Anna Shaverdyan, soprano
Kaleria Kovalenko, mezzo-soprano
Alena Parfenova, mezzo-soprano
Yevgeny Subbotin, violin
Yevgeny Rumyantsev, cello
Nikita Agafonov, clarinet
Ignat Krasikov, clarinet

Percussionists: Andrey Volosovsky, Alexey Orlov, Vladimir Terekhov, Mikhail Putkov, Maxim Sanin and Ulyana Shcherbakova

"Music for eighteen musicians" is one of the key works of the 20th century in the genre of minimalism. Written in 1976, the piece is inspired by the musical culture of Bali, including the sound of the gamelan, a traditional percussion orchestra for the area. Although, as Reich himself admitted, all this served only as a starting point for his individual creative search.

"I didn't intend to reproduce the sound of a gamelan at all. I wanted to understand how this music is structured within itself, how it is possible to organize music in a completely different way, not as it is in the Western European classical tradition," said Reich.

"Music for 18 musicians" impresses with the combination of transparent structure and hypnotic effect it has on the listener. A cycle of 11 chords sounds at the beginning of the piece and is repeated at the very end, acting as a kind of pulsating cantus of the whole piece. When immersed in this spiral flow of sound, even small shifts become eventful, and any emotional dominant becomes a point of a unique aesthetic experience.