Watershed I (1995)
Solo percussion
by Roger Reynolds
Other composers on disc:
Brian Ferneyhough
Franco Donatoni
Hans Werner Henze
Iannis Xenakis
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karsten Fundal
Primary Artist(s): Mathias Reumert, percussion
Label: Métier Records
Release date: 19 July 2019
Dates of recording: 2015
About Watershed I: Watershed was written with the idea that musical messages and identities can
be conveyed not only via sound but also through gestural inflection on the part
of the performer. Such gestures are built into the piece, devised through a
specific multiple percussion setup that was designed by dedicatee Steven Schick
in collaboration with composer Roger Reynolds. The strategy was to maximize
gesture by an explicit geometrical disposition of four groups of instruments, in
order to visualize physically the polyphony of musical character between and
among these four groups. To witness this in a live performance is an exciting
experience, and I vividly remember Schick’s performance at Reynolds’s 70th
Birthday Concert – I hadn’t seen anything like it before. However, a recording
can also do the piece justice – especially if you know what to listen for.
Skins (drums) are the central family of instruments. They are the
“academics” among the four groups: rationally arranged in a tight formation,
and with a “rational”, un-flexible musical language. For example: devoid of
gradual accelerandi and decelerandi, which are instead attempted by
incremental rhythmical augmentation. “A kind of philosopher’s music” (quote:
Steven Schick).
Metals, on the other hand, are lyrical, free, and arranged in a large
spiral going around the performer, with the lowest instrument positioned at
bottom right and the highest placed far up in the air to the left of the performer.
This counter-intuitive arrangement of the metal instruments is not only difficult
to perform at, it also feels weird. And that is the intention: a sense of
unfamiliarity, internally built into the composition through the actual physical
setup, will manifest itself, at best, in a corresponding emotional response with
the performer.
Oddities, the third group, simply should be small “odd sounding”
instruments, preferably including “unpredictable” ones. In a rehearsal, Reynolds
once called them “alternative drums”: of the same impulse, but of a different
texture than drums. A performer chooses his own oddities, which therefore have
the ability to put a sonic “fingerprint” on the interpretation. Originally placed on
a small table, my solution was to suspend them in the air in order to maximize
their resonance.
Finally, Wooden Boxes with rattling wire snares function as “critics,”
and in two ways exist outside the “playing field” of the other groups: They don’t
engage musically but instead “comment” or “critique” the other instrument
groups, and they are placed just about outside reach of the performer, in a spiral
going behind his back.
Watershed, then, is a drama wherein these four groups of instruments behave,
interact, and ultimately transform.
A few more words about the piece. Three “Rain” sections temporarily suspend
the dominating characteristics of each instrument group (on the recording they
begin at 3:42, 6:44, and 11:50, respectively). Roger Reynolds describes them as
having a “gentle, expansive, natural feel” and offers a metaphor: “The image is
that of listening out of an open window, late afternoon – the remnants of a
summer storm.” The very first note in Watershed – a tamtam stroke – represents
the first “tick” in a slow “clockwork” that sounds sporadically throughout the
piece. Listen for loud strokes on the metals that appear to be unattached to the
rest of the music: first the tam, then another tam stroke, then a third tam stroke
followed by a water gong, then water gong alone, and so on. Step by step, the
“clockwork” ascends the scale of metal instruments, until, midway through the
piece (at 14:57), “The Watershed Divide” is reached, at which point the
clockwork changes direction and starts descending. A section follows in which
instrument groups attempt to mix, ending with a short, frustrated tamtam
“scream” (the first out of four). The next two sections are called “Storm 1” and
“Storm 2” (the name speaks for itself). When the latter storm culminates in two
tamtam “screams” (at 23:43), a defining moment is reached, and instrument
groups now begin to change their “personality types”. For example, the skins
become lyrical and take on non-percussive qualities that initially belonged to
the metals.
Audiences routinely ask, “why does the piece have to be so long?” It has to be
so long in order for this transformation to take place.
Thanks for reading and I hope you will enjoy the music!
