"Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards" - Signed to Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

[Place of publication not identified] : [The Author]. 1979. Signed score of the influential composer's important 1979 composition, his first orchestral work.  Off-white glossy paper covers, spiral-bound facsimile rehearsal copy dated 1979 and apparently prepared by the composer himself in advance of the official publication of the same year by Boosey & Hawkes.  Title; (Instrumentation); 1 - 158 pp. Signed and inscribed at the foot of the title in black ink to the conductor Larry Newland and dated 1/8/81, during which time Newland was the Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic. 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. 


Variations was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, and is dedicated to Betty Freeman. A chamber orchestra version of the piece was performed at Carnegie Hall on February 19, 1980. This was a "preview" performance, using Reich's own musicians, to give Reich a better sense of the piece's sound before its official debut. The full orchestral version was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony at the War Memorial Auditorium in San Francisco on May 14, 1980.  In the composer's words, Variations introduced "new harmonic, formal and timbre material into my music. The constant yet slow harmonic change (there are no repeat markings in this score), the slow recurrence of materials form variation to variation, and the scoring for oboes, flutes, full brass, strings, acoustic and electric keyboards, all give this piece a sound quite different from my earlier music."  (21551)

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