Music for Pieces of Wood

Program notes

About the Work

Music for Pieces of Wood (1973) is minimalism at its purest and most elemental: a piece scored for nothing but five pairs of tuned claves, small hardwood sticks struck together. A sequel to his Clapping Music of the year before, it strips Reich’s art down to its bones (rhythm, pulse and the gradual unfolding of pattern), with no harmony or melody to speak of, only the dry, bright clack of wood on wood at five different pitches. It is performed here by players drawn from the orchestra.

What to Listen For

This is a study in pure rhythm, so listen to how it is built. The highest-pitched player keeps a steady, metronomic pulse from beginning to end; the others enter one by one in canon, each adding a repeating rhythmic pattern until the texture is dense. Listen for the interlocking, syncopated patterns that emerge as the parts combine, and for the sudden ‘gear-changes’ your ear hears as the music seems to shift between different metres. It is the same psychoacoustic magic as Reich’s phase pieces, achieved with the simplest possible means: rhythmically intricate, physically exciting, and over before you know it.