Steve Reich's "Piano Phase" played by Blair McMillen and Stephen Gosling

http://www.keystothefuture.org/ Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen perform Steve Reich's "Piano Phase" on the program "Keys to the Future: SPOTLIGHT on Four Hand Music" at Mannes College on February 9, 2009.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Steve Reich
• piano phase
• piano duo
• contemporary piano
• Keys to the Future

[Utschigutschi]

das hat so ne hypnotische wirkung...

[bobgreen623]

I wonder where Steve Reich's phrases for these piano phases come from? Can he kind of hear in his head what might happen to a phrase as it goes out of phase, or does he have to discard 95% of his ideas? whatever, I love this kind of stuff. Also worth checking out is Terry Riley's 'Rainbow in Curved Air'

[hellothereitsanna]

I've always wanted to play this for two marimbas... I don't even know what to expect the music to look like. does one player do the exact same thing at the same time? and is it written in tempo changes or does it modulate when it phases?

[DoenerToEat]

minimal musik<3333

[JTVAL08]

@A7XLicksMyNuts It's two grand pianos back to back. One of the covers is open, and the other is completely removed. Search for Anderson & Roe Piano Duo, a number of their performances are filmed from a higher angle and you can see how the pianos are arranged.

[IndigoVanguard]

@moonunitenar It must be "Piano Phase (solo) - First solo performance ever" ;-)

[dieterturner]

erinnert mich ein bisschen an idoser. jetzt noch einer mit na beruhigenden stimme und ich bin high

[palavamontana]

This is one of the best performances I've heard of this piece.

Reich first did a phase piece called 'It's gonna rain' in 1966. He used 2 reel to reel tape recorders each playing the same looped spoken phrase. He very gradually slowed one down and almost imperceptible fraction of a second to get them slowly out of sync and to start to 'phase'. The results are staggering and too raw and unnerving for many people.

[A7XLicksMyNuts]

wtf kind of piano is that?

[moonunitenar]

@pestoman lol theres one video here of one guy playing both parts on two different pianos at once. It's a total mindfuck :P

[pestoman]

12 notes. I've tried to play this. its like juggling and reciting the alphabet backwards. you get bout 2 mins in and realise you have no idea which sounds are coming from you or the other piano, and then you lose it. every time. its fkin impossible. brilliant performance.