Four Organs

---

title: "Four Organs" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["compositions-by-steve-reich", "1970-compositions", "compositions-for-organ"] description: "1970 composition by Steve Reich" topic_path: "general/compositions-by-steve-reich" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Organs" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary 1970 composition by Steve Reich ::

Four Organs is a work for four electronic organs and maraca, composed by Steve Reich in January 1970.

Music

The four organs harmonically expound a dominant eleventh chord (E–D–E–F–G–A–B), dissecting the chord by playing parts of it sequentially while the chord slowly increases in duration from a single 1/8 note at the beginning to 200 beats at the end. The process of increased augmentation is accomplished first by causing notes to sustain after the chord, and then notes start anticipating the chord. As the piece progresses, this "deconstruction" of the chord emphasizes certain harmonies. At the climax of the work, each tone sounds almost in sequence. A continuous maraca beat serves as a rhythmic framework.

Reich describes the piece as "the longest V–I cadence in the history of Western Music", the V and I chords being contained within the one chord. "You'll find the chord in Debussy and Thelonious Monk – the tonic on top and the dominant on the bottom." He has cited the music of Pérotin and other twelfth- and thirteenth-century composers as suggesting the technique of note augmentation used in Four Organs.

For performances of the piece, Reich recommended using electronic organs with as plain and simple a timbre as possible, without vibrato, to avoid the sound of the instrument itself distracting from the harmonic and rhythmic aspects of the piece. Reich himself employed four Farfisa "mini compact" models.

A typical performance lasts around 16 minutes.

Performances

Four Organs was first performed in May 1970 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.{{cite book | last = Reich | first = Steve |editor=Hillier, Paul | title = Writings on Music, 1965–2000 | publisher = Oxford University Press | date = April 1, 2002 | location = USA | pages = 50 | isbn = 0-19-511171-0 }}{{cite book | last = Strickland | first = Edward | title = Minimalism: Origins | publisher = Indiana University Press | year = 1993 | location = USA | pages = 218 | isbn = 0-253-21388-6 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/minimalism00edwa/page/218

Subsequent audiences were not always as polite. October 1971 performances by Reich and members of the Boston Symphony (at Symphony Hall, Boston) received a combination of "loud cheers, loud boos, and whistles."

A 1973 performance of Four Organs at Carnegie Hall in New York City nearly caused a riot, with "yells for the music to stop, mixed with applause to hasten the end of the piece." One of the performers, Michael Tilson Thomas, recalls: "One woman walked down the aisle and repeatedly banged her head on the front of the stage, wailing 'Stop, stop, I confess.'"{{cite video | people = Terry Gross, Steve Reich | title = Fresh Air from WHYY: Steve Reich at 70 | medium = RealPlayer Stream (SMIL) | publisher = NPR | url = https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6209213 | location = Philadelphia | date = 2006-10-06 }}

Cover artwork

Reich’s 1970 recording of Four Organs uses the film Wavelength’s closing photograph for its cover artwork.

Notes

References

• {{cite book | last = Reich | first = Steve |editor=Hillier, Paul | title = Writings on Music, 1965–2000 | publisher = Oxford University Press | date = April 1, 2002 | location = USA | pages = 48–50 | isbn = 0-19-511171-0}}
• Steve Reich: Works 1965–1995 (Nonesuch 79451-2, 1997), interview with Jonathan Cott, p. 33.

References

1. ''[[Steve Reich: Works 1965–1995]]'' (Nonesuch 79451-2, 1997), interview with Jonathan Cott, p. 33
2. ''Works: 1965-1995'', disc 1; 15m52s.
3. Strickland, at 221.
4. [[Harold C. Schonberg. Schonberg, Harold C.]], "Music: A Concert Fuss: Music by Reich Causes a Vocal Reaction", ''The New York Times'', January 20, 1973.
5. Byrnes, Sholto. (October 2, 2006). "The Face: Steve Reich". [[The Times]].
6. Maizels, Michael. (2017). "Steve Reich, Richard Serra, and the Discovery of Process". [[PAJ (journal).
7. O'Brien, Kerry. (2023). "On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement". [[University of California Press]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::