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FULL TEHILLIM (Steve Reich) The Legacy of Steve Reich New York 2026
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: TEHILLIM The Legacy of Steve Reich
- Composer: Reich Steve, Bach Johann Sebastian
- Libretto: The Bible, Psalms Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Trinity Church, New York City
- Recorded:
- Type: Staged Opera Live
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Experience this rare opportunity to hear contemporary work by Steve Reich presented alongside the Bach piece that inspired him — performed on modern and baroque instruments. Trinity Choir, Sandbox Percussion (@sandboxpercussion), and new-music ensemble NOVUS kick off the season with a special program that puts Reich’s music in dialogue with the past and present.
Viet Cuong opens the program with “Next Week’s Trees”, a poetic and persistently hopeful work that invites listeners to embrace the beauty of the natural world. Bach’s Christ lag in “Todes Banden” follows, revealing a spiritual depth that resonates across centuries. We close with Reich’s own era-defining “Tehillim”, illuminating how he reimagined elements of Bach’s musical language into one of the most distinctive voices of the 20th century.
Tehillim is a composition by American composer Steve Reich, written in 1981.
The title comes from the Hebrew word for “psalms”, and the work is the first to reflect Reich’s Jewish heritage. It is in four parts, marked fast, fast, slow, and fast.
Tehillim is the setting of Psalms 19:2–5 (19:1–4 in Christian translations); Psalm 34:13–15 (34:12–14); Psalm 18:26–27 (18:25–26); and finally Psalm 150:4–6. The four parts of the work are based on these four texts, respectively. “Literally translated [the word Tehillim] means ‘praises’,” writes Steve Reich in his composer’s notes, “and it derives from the three letter Hebrew root ‘hey, lamed, lamed’ (hll) which is also the root of halleluyah.”
Instrumentation and the music
In its standard chamber version Tehillim is scored for four treble voices (one high soprano, two lyric sopranos and one alto), piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, six percussion (playing 4 small tuned tambourines without jingles, clapping, maracas, marimba, vibraphone and crotales), two electronic organs, two violins, viola, cello and bass. The voices, winds and strings are amplified in performance. There is also a version for orchestra using full strings and winds, with only the voices amplified.
The first and longest movement is based on canons, while the second, performed without pause, utilizes a theme and variations structure. The third movement, the only slow movement, features call-and-response, and continues without pause into the finale, which recapitulates in turn the structures of the first three movements.
A typical performance takes about 30 minutes.
Quoted from Wikipedia