Reich, Steve - Jacob'S Ladder / Traveler'S Prayer

An album comprising the first recordings of 'Jacob’s Ladder' (2023) and 'Traveler’s Prayer' (2020). 'Jacob’s Ladder', performed by the New York Philharmonic led by Jaap van Zweden with Synergy Vocals, was made during its October 2023 world premiere at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. The premiere recording of 'Traveler’s Prayer', performed by Colin Currie Group and Synergy Vocals, was made at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, also in 2023. The two pieces were first released as part of Steve Reich's 'Collected Works', a twenty-seven-disc box set featuring music recorded during the composer’s forty years on the label. The composer explains, “Any melodic movement – up, down, or held – can find its analogy on a ladder. Sometimes one only goes up a few rungs to reach something and then descends, or perhaps climbs higher, pauses, and then descends pausing at each rung on the way down. “There are four short sections – exposition, if you like – on each of the four lines of text then four longer sections elaborating on and developing those first four,” he continues. “What’s particularly interesting to me in these much longer sections is that they are mostly instrumental music. The instrumental music interprets the movement of messenger/angels going up, down, or pausing on a ladder (or ladders) between heaven and earth: a musical interpretation without words.” 'Traveler’s Prayer' was composed before and during the 2020 pandemic. “The virus shifted the gravity of the words I was setting… three short excerpts from Genesis, Exodus and Psalms,” Reich says. “These excerpts are usually added to the full Traveler’s Prayer found in Hebrew prayer books,” he continues. “While these verses can certainly apply to travels by air, car, or boat, they can also be applied to travel from this world to the next. “The first melody is from Biblical Hebrew chant in America and parts of Europe while the second is a more ornate style from Italy… The third melody I composed since, outside of Yemen, there is no existing tradition for chanting Psalms. As to structure, there are extremely free canons throughout.” ‘There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them.’ – Guardian // ‘Reich flashes – without lingering – on jeweled moments, and at one memorable point, briefly brightening harmonies in the strings are brought back to somber earth by just a few dark piano notes. Yet nothing is overstated; even the dissonances in this subtle work are softly luminous. Energetic while meditative, Jacob’s Ladder [feels] light, graceful, refreshing.’ – New York Times // ‘At a time when no one was going anywhere, Reich turned to the Jewish traveler’s prayer. The tone of the score, from first note to last, is sustained sublimity. Nothing is said or indicated of the pandemic. But nothing I’ve heard comes as close to capturing the sense of strangeness, the changed world in which clock time lost its dominance or the dramatic lessening of our usual distractions that forced us to pay new attention to our surroundings.’ – Los Angeles Times