"Tehillim" - Pre-Publication Annotated Score Signed to NY PHIL Assistant Conductor

[Place of publication not identified] : [The Author]. 1981. Signed score of the influential composer's important 1981 composition, the first of his works to reflect Reich's Jewish heritage, and including Tehillim Parts I - IV.  Paper covers with title, author and "Commissioned by South German Radio, Stuttgart / West German Radio, Cologne / Rothko Chapel, Houston," spiral-bound facsimile rehearsal copy dated 1981 and prepared by the composer himself in advance of the official publication of the same year by Hendon Music.  Title/Cover (vb); Instrumentation (vb); (1) - 165 pp [typeset score Tehillim Part I and II]; 1 - 106 pp [manuscript facsimile Tehillim Part III - IV]. Signed and inscribed at the foot of the Instrumentation page in pencil to the conductor Larry Newland and dated 12/29/81, during which time Newland was the Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic.  The composer has also added in ink "C[opyright] Steve Reich 1981" to the foot of the first page of music and has extensively amended in ink the printed Instrumentation page, including the additions of instruments "Pic, Flute, Marimba, Vibraphone," specifying number of Strings players "(12-10-8-6-4)," bracketing the percussion instruments and noting "6 players" and amending various instrumentation listings with "*" denoting "* = Amplified."   In very fine condition. 

Steve Reich was one of the first masters of the modern style of repetitive music, where cells evolve slowly into more intricate musical patterns. This is often termed "minimalist music", although the term seems inappropriate for the sophistication and variety found in Reich's works in the 1970's and 1980's. 


"Tehillim (pronounced "teh-hill-leem") is the original Hebrew word for "Psalms". Literally translated it means "praises", and it derives from the three letter Hebrew root ‘hey, lamed, lamed’ (hll) which is also the root of halleluyah. Tehillim is a setting of Psalms 19:2-5 (19:1-4 in Christian translations), 34:13-15 (34:12-14 in Christian translations), 18:26-27 (18:25-26 in Christian translations) and 150:4-6....In contrast to most of my earlier work, Tehillim is not composed of short repeating patterns. Though an entire melody may be repeated either as the subject of a canon or variation this is actually closer to what one finds throughout the history of Western music. While the four-part canons in the first and last movements may well remind some listeners of my early tape pieces It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out, which are composed of short spoken phrases repeated over and over again in close canon, Tehillim will probably strike most listeners as quite different from my earlier works. There is no fixed meter or metric pattern in Tehillim as there is in my earlier music. The rhythm, of the music here comes directly from the rhythm of the Hebrew text and is consequently in flexible changing meters. This is the first time I have set a text to music since my student days and the result is a piece based on melody in the basic sense of that word. The use of extended melodies, imitative counterpoint functional harmony and full orchestration may well suggest renewed interest in Classical or, more accurately, Baroque and earlier Western musical practice. The non-vibrato, non-operatic vocal production will also remind listeners of Western music prior to 1750. However, the overall sound of Tehillim and in particular the intricately interlocking percussion writing which, together with the text, forms the basis of the entire work, marks this music as unique by introducing a basic musical element that one does not find in earlier Western practice including the music of this century. Tehillim may thus be heard as traditional and new at the same time." (Steve Reich) (21552)

---

Signed Document/Item

Classical Music

Manuscript Music

Printed Music

• Sold