Utah Symphony pairs Reich debut and Stravinsky in sleek, spiky program
Steve Reich isn’t a composer whose name you’d expect to find on a Utah Symphony program. But on Friday night his monumental work The Desert Music received its Utah premiere under the baton of the orchestra’s creative partner David Robertson.
With large orchestral forces, including a greatly expanded percussion section and a vocal ensemble, Reich created a vast and contrasting soundscape. Robertson, joined by guest singers Synergy Vocals, gave a compelling and mesmerizing reading that captured the scope and depth of the work.
A prolific composer and one of the most important figures in minimalist music, Reich still finds new ways to express himself, while never abandoning his distinctive compositional techniques. The Desert Music began, as almost every other piece he has written, with a basic rhythmic pulse played by the percussion, in this case marimbas and vibraphones, to lay the groundwork. The other instruments picked up the beat, and gradually the full orchestra built on this basic line. This technique allowed Reich to create waves of sound with modulating harmonies and changing textures and dynamics.
Reich’s work takes its name from one of the poems in William Carlos Williams’ collection The Desert Music and Other Poems. Reich used several poems from this collection and deftly blended the sung lines into the overall orchestral fabric, allowing the voices to become an extension of the instrumental ensemble.
The British group Synergy Vocals has performed a number of Reich’s works since its founding in the 1990s. At Friday’s concert the nine-member ensemble blended well into the orchestral texture while at the same time remaining uniquely distinctive and vocally vibrant.
Robertson did a remarkable job in bringing cohesiveness and structural unity to the many different levels at play here, not an easy task given the work’s rhythmic and textural complexity. He captured its restless energy and relentless drive with his precise direction that allowed the music to unfold with fluid phrasings and a sense of purpose.
The other work on this weekend’s program was Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, a work that appears on Utah Symphony concerts at regular intervals. And even after more than a century the music is still hypnotic and still manages to sound “modern.”
The forlorn bassoon solo that opens Le Sacre was played with finely crafted expressions and a fluid tempo by principal musician Lori Wike, which was subsequently mirrored by Lissa Stolz’s fine English horn solo. From that unassuming opening Robertson built a well-conceived and gradual climax into the main body of the work as the other members of the orchestra slowly entered. His reading captured the vibrancy and near-barbaric drive of the music. His tempo choices were spot on and brought tension and urgency to the music. Robertson paid attention to the minute details in the score and his direction ensured that the orchestra played with precision and clarity even in the loudest passages.
The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday. utahsymphony.org
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