时间:2018-12-16 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2011年(十一月)


英语课

At 75, Seminal 1 US Composer Still Inspires


 


American composer Steve Reich turned 75 this year. The so-called “minimalist” credits jazz, African drumming and Balinese gamelan as inspirations.



His music - from experimental tape loops to the Pulitzer prize-winning “Double Sextet” - has, in turn, inspired other composers.



In the early 1960s, when Reich was at the beginning of his career, the contemporary classical music scene was dominated by atonal 2 music.



"It fell to my generation to basically say, 'Basta. Enough.' to music which you could not tap your foot to," Reich says, "to music to which you could not possibly walk out humming anything, and music which had no harmonic center."



Reich was studying composition at Mills College in California, a hotbed of avant-garde creativity. Experimenting with lengths of audio tape, he spliced 3 them together to form a loop and put them on a tape player so they would continuously run over and over again.



Reich went to San Francisco’s Union Square and recorded a charismatic street preacher, whose sermon hovered 4 between speech and song.









US composer Steve Reich, who turns 75 this year, continues to inspire a new generation of musicians.




"As he said, 'It’s gonna rain,' a pigeon took off," Reich says. "So you had a pigeon drummer and this incredible voice and sort of low traffic in the background. Well, I thought, 'Oh, wouldn’t it be great if it were two loops, and they were going, ‘it’s gonna, it’s gonna, it’s gonna rain rain rain rain,’ and the pigeon would just be drumming away.”



According to Tim Page, professor of journalism 5 and music at the University of Southern California, Reich's work was the opposite of what was going on at the time.



"It was very repetitive, it was very quote-unquote tonal. And it had a very steady pulse," Page says. "So it was pretty much setting pretty much all the traditional modernisms that were in fashion in the 70s on their head. For a lot of us, hearing his music was literally 6 a life-changer."



One of those whose life was changed after hearing compositions by Reich was fellow composer David Lang. He first heard "Its Gonna Rain" on an album he came across at the record store where he worked.



"I had never been prepared to hear anything like this," Lang recalls. "It didn’t have a melody; it didn’t have harmony - at least the way I had been prepared to understand it. It didn’t have a way of progressing. And I remember thinking, 'This is the coolest thing I ever heard in my life.' I was 17 years old."



Reich became influential 7, and not just for classical musicians. Rockers like Brian Eno and David Bowie, as well as hip-hop artists, all owe something to him.



Younger rock musicians - like guitarist Bryce Dessner with the band, The National - are also interested in Reich's music. "For a lot of musicians like myself, I think Steve Reich’s appeal is quite broad, and, in a way, just to open this big space for musicians to move in."



Dessner is also a classical guitarist and composer. He says The National enjoys a daily connection to Reich’s music. Drummer Brian Devendorf is obsessed 8 with the composition “Clapping Music.”



"He plays it every night before the show. He'll play it for an hour to warm up, and it’s kind of fun. It's like this constant pattern looping through our heads before we go out on stage, is Steve Reich’s "Clapping Music" as played by Brian."



But it’s not just Reich’s past that intrigues 9 fans.



"One of the things that’s really sort of extraordinary about Steve Reich is that he’s 75 and yet he’s still somebody to whom everybody looks with great interest to see what he’ll do next," says Page. "And that’s a rarity."



Reich himself is still looking forward, even after celebrating his 75th birthday.



"That young musicians around the world want to and actually do play my music very well and to go around and hear that, in reality, is the best present a composer could ask for."



Concerts and festivals celebrating the composer's 75th birthday continue through the year in North America, Europe and Australia.



1 seminal
adj.影响深远的;种子的
  • The reforms have been a seminal event in the history of the NHS.这些改革已成为英国国民保健制度史上影响深远的一件大事。
  • The emperor's importance as a seminal figure of history won't be diminished.做为一个开创性历史人物的重要性是不会减弱的。
2 atonal
adj.无调的
  • The majority always turn an unfavorable attitude towards atonal composition.大多数人对无调性作品的态度往往是不能接受的。
  • People did not accept atonal music at that time.那时,人们还不接受无调性音乐。
3 spliced
adj.(针织品)加固的n.叠接v.绞接( splice的过去式和过去分词 );捻接(两段绳子);胶接;粘接(胶片、磁带等)
  • He spliced the two lengths of film together. 他把两段胶卷粘接起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Have you heard?John's just got spliced. 听说了吗?约翰刚结了婚。 来自辞典例句
4 hovered
鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫
  • A hawk hovered over the hill. 一只鹰在小山的上空翱翔。
  • A hawk hovered in the blue sky. 一只老鹰在蓝色的天空中翱翔。
5 journalism
n.新闻工作,报业
  • He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师,可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
  • He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。
6 literally
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
7 influential
adj.有影响的,有权势的
  • He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
  • He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。
8 obsessed
adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的
  • He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
  • The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。
9 intrigues
n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 );神秘气氛;引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 );激起…的好奇心
  • He was made king as a result of various intrigues. 由于搞了各种各样的阴谋,他当上了国王。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Those who go in for intrigues and conspiracy are doomed to failure. 搞阴谋诡计的人注定要失败。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
学英语单词
A-D (analog to digital)
Abdomen-Yinjiao
abdominal aneurysm
adjustable simplex pull rod
adjusting apparatus
angle-digital converter
anti-rebound device of compensation rope
antiflatulence
aquaclear
at your own risk
authigenous (authigenic) constituents
be the death of sb
blue-nosed
bronchopulmonary lavage
burn out resistance
cadmium bronze
Cajal's cells
capitulum dichasium
carnyx
Chagres fever
CircOlectric(bed)
circular saw
cooling by circulating water
copperplate
corpus fibrosum simplex
correctness of concurrency control
CSLIP
culture flask
desubulate
diazo colours
disturbance thickness
embossed weave
embroiders
emulsion wax
enable interrupt
equilibrium enrichment
etherified
farm mechanic
flight gyro
gelida
genus Beta
Great Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion
haight
height class volume table
highfliers
hydraulic rock grab
ideal velocity
idle signal alpha
immunoresistance
information-intensivetypes of industries
intermyotomic space
iron therapy
Khwarezmian
knock-over bit
lathyrus nigers
maintenance access interface
merches
migraineur
missiological
monetary market mutual fund shares
movable electric contact
near drowning
non-nested loop mode
nylund
once-prominent
outpiss
oxygen-transfer trailer
paddy fly
Pawlikowice
pipe communication mechanism
polarissima
Ponoka
practical-reason
press-brake
purging by crystallization
quittable
rapid processing
real positive
repligen
rflps
rivuluss
rough surfaced endoplasmic reticulum
rushed away
securitized
sheep pox
signal modification
siphon vortex flushing action
skyspaces
Streptelasma
structure psychology
superbness
surface area apparatus
swell mob
tashunca-uitcoes
Thomas R.
tricklet
tumor rejection antigen
Ulu Bedok
van't Hoff factor
Wallichia mooreana
wax gourd
wormkiller