Octet (Reich)

Eight Lines, a work by American minimalist composer Steve Reich, was originally titled Octet.

Under its original title, Octet, the work was commissioned by the Hessischer Rundfunk (Radio Frankfurt) and completed in April 1979. It was premiered at Radio Frankfurt on June 21, 1979, by members of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw (Reich 2002, 98). It was originally scored for string quartet, two pianos, and two woodwind players each playing clarinet, bass clarinet and flute as well as piccolo. Reich later rescored it, in order to make performance easier, by adding a second string quartet, and retitling the work Eight Lines. The additional two violins solve "the difficulty of playing rather awkward double stops in tune," and the additional viola and cello "allow the rapid eighth-note patterns to be broken up between ... two players" to prevent fatigue (Reich 2002, 119). The wind parts were originally conceived for two clarinet players doubling both bass clarinet and flute as well as piccolo, though right from the world premiere in Frankfurt in 1979 ten players were used, dividing the wind parts among four musicians. The composer regarded this as a perfectly ordinary option, while pointing out "whether there are eight, nine, or ten performers, the piece is always musically an octet" (Reich 2002, 98).

In 1985 New York City Ballet balletmaster Jerome Robbins made an eponymous dance to this music.

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