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Editorial Reviews
Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, which is the subject of Reich's piece. Commissioned for and recorded by Kronos Quartet, WTC 9/11 is scored for three string quartets and pre-recorded voices. The album also includes Reich's "Mallet Quartet," performed by S Percussion, and "Dance Patterns," featuring members of Steve Reich and Musicians, as well as a DVD with a live performance of "Mallet Quartet" by S Percussion.
WTC 9/11 reflects on the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, when Reich and his family lived only four blocks away from the site of the tragedy. "On 9/11 we were in Vermont, but our son, granddaughter, and daughter-in-law were all in our apartment. Our phone connection stayed open for six hours and our next-door neighbors were finally able to drive north out of the city with their family and ours. For us, 9/11 was not a media event," the composer says.
The piece is scored for three string quartets; Kronos recorded all three parts for the album. WTC 9/11 also uses pre-recorded voices, the speakers' final vowels and consonants elongated in a stop-motion sound technique that Reich says is the "means of connecting one person to another-harmonically." Those voices and their texts belong to NORAD air traffic controllers, as they raised the alert that the airplanes were off course; FDNY workers on the scene; friends and former neighbors of the Reichs, recalling that day; and women who kept vigil, or Shmira, over the dead in a tent outside the Medical Examiner's office, reading Psalms or Biblical passages. The relationship between Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet spans more than 20 years. This is the third quartet the composer has written for Kronos; all three have been recorded by Nonesuch.
WTC 9/11 reflects on the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, when Reich and his family lived only four blocks away from the site of the tragedy. "On 9/11 we were in Vermont, but our son, granddaughter, and daughter-in-law were all in our apartment. Our phone connection stayed open for six hours and our next-door neighbors were finally able to drive north out of the city with their family and ours. For us, 9/11 was not a media event," the composer says.
The piece is scored for three string quartets; Kronos recorded all three parts for the album. WTC 9/11 also uses pre-recorded voices, the speakers' final vowels and consonants elongated in a stop-motion sound technique that Reich says is the "means of connecting one person to another-harmonically." Those voices and their texts belong to NORAD air traffic controllers, as they raised the alert that the airplanes were off course; FDNY workers on the scene; friends and former neighbors of the Reichs, recalling that day; and women who kept vigil, or Shmira, over the dead in a tent outside the Medical Examiner's office, reading Psalms or Biblical passages. The relationship between Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet spans more than 20 years. This is the third quartet the composer has written for Kronos; all three have been recorded by Nonesuch.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The WTC disaster was so horrifying. We will be processing it in our hearts and music for decades to come. Springsteen responded with his best album in years, full of hope and pain. John Adams responded with a requiem for those who are missing/dead (John Adams: On the Transmigration of Souls). Now Reich's response is here for us to hear, and it is horror inducing. His taut string writing--harmonically dense, flying in and out of recognizable keys, strange and terrifyingly powerful--weaves in and out of snippets of voices, those who were responding to 9/11 as it happened. The music often takes its cues from the cadence and tone of the speakers (almost like a non-microtonal Harry Partch at times) and the whole thing is underpinned by a pulsing, insistent, almost droning rhythm. The piece reminds me in its own way of the Penderecki Threnody (Krzysztof Penderecki - St Luke Passion, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, Polimorphy, String Quartet No. 1, Psalms of David, Dimensions of Time and Silence) in its power to overwhelm the emotions. If you don't enjoy Steve Reich already, this is not going to be a piece that you will want to hear over and over, but there is no serious music fan with an open mind that will not come away changed after hearing this piece. And for folks who enjoy Reich and his brand of music, this will be further proof of his lasting power as a magnificent composer for time to come. I don't think that I have the emotional strength to listen to this very often, it literally left me weeping, but I am so glad I listened to it.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Remember Reich's Different Trains, also performed by the Kronos Quartet? He employed the inflection and pitch and rhythm of human speech on which to hang his instrumental composition. He applies the same principle for this other holocaust, so recent and so etched in our minds. While John Adam's own commemoration of the event, which also utilized recorded voices, is essentially a requiem, Reich's work is more journalistic, sequential and present. It closes with the Jewish practice of reciting prayers over someone who just died, and the last element in the piece is that annoying alarm of a disconnected telephone left off its receiver, which parallels the siren in Different Trains. As Reich mentioned in the notes, he could not effectively expand the work beyond 15 minutes. It had to be acute and short. I concur that it works through its intensity. After a short break, the Mallet Quartet begins and the sadness is washed away with the uplifting, interesting pulses and canon of vibraphones and five-octave marimbas. Reich is the grand master of mallet instruments, and this three-movement work, also of about 15 minutes and performd by the group, So Percussion, is unique by its bass notes and gossamer texture of the middle section. The album's third work, Dance Patterns, is a brief percussive film score, merely 6 minutes. Here, two each of piano, vibraphone, and xylophone perform a dance rich in rhythm and modern movement. As a bonus, a DVD is separately included of the Mallet Quartet, in a different performance by So Percussion. The movement of mallets along the four metallophones is much like a choreography of dancers, and the second section's lightness is enhanced. It is this bonus that elevates my otherwise **** rating.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is a fitting complement to City Life, the processed voices haunting among the gratements of the Kronos. The other works show us a more classic Reich, who taught us how long he has travelled from John Cage and Morton Feldman. A desert beach Cd...
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
melancholy but hopeful.....
This is such a strikingly beautiful piece. Sometimes I imagine it as a soundtrack to some big budget epic about a dystopic future. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Gforce
4.0 out of 5 stars
WTC IS A KEEPER. THE OTHER PIECES ARE GOOD BUT NOT ESSENTIAL
The title composition parallels Different Trains (Reich's masterpiece in my estimation) in construction -the Kronos Quartet plays musical lines that parallel the contours of... Read more
Published 13 months ago by David Keymer
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Judge an Album by its Cover: Steve Reich's WTC 9/11
Following a fair amount of controversy regarding scandalous album art, Steve Reich released a new album this past September featuring three works: WTC 9/11, performed by the Kronos... Read more
Published 15 months ago by I Care if You Listen (.com)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two sides of Reich
There are so many things to admire and appreciate in this cd package. The heartrending voice loops could only be used with the distance of time. Read more
Published 17 months ago by G. Brozeit
