Daniel Variations

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Daniel Variations is a composition by Steve Reich written 2006. It is scored for soprano and tenor voices, clarinets, four pianos, strings and percussion. Daniel Variations is in four movements, using text from the biblical book of Daniel for the first and third movements, and from the words of Daniel Pearl, the American-Jewish reporter, kidnapped and murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan in 2002, for the second and fourth movements.

The texts for the movements are:

I saw a dream. Images upon my bed and visions in my head frightened me. (Daniel 4:2, or 4:5 in Christian translations)

My name is Daniel Pearl. (I'm a Jewish American from Encino California.)

Let the dream fall back onto the dreaded. (Daniel 4:16, or 4:19 in Christian translations)

I sure hope Gabriel likes my music, when the day is done

Repetitions of each text unfold within a series of harmonic variations structurally similar to Reich's You Are Variations (2004), against a background of interlocking string motifs and piano and vibraphone textures.

Daniel Variations was commissioned by Daniel's father, Judea Pearl and the Pearl Foundation, along with the Barbican Centre, where it received its premiere in 2006 as part of the comperser's 70th birthday retrospective.