In the 1960s, an American composer named Steve Reich prepared some electronic pieces consisting of gradually shifting tape loops of the same prerecorded–and enigmatic–spoken phrases excerpted from someone telling a story. Reich quickly realized he could produce the same effect with conventional instruments and live musicians. These repetitive patterns and the gradual shifts came to be labeled “minimalist.”

Three decades later, in May of 1993, Reich and his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, created a large-scale piece they dubbed a "documentary video opera." Titled “The Cave,” it investigated the roots of Christianity, Judaism and Islam through prerecorded interviews, images projected on multi-channel video screens, and live musical accompaniment utilizing the speech patterns of the interviewees as the starting point for much of the score.

On today’s date in 2002, at the Vienna Festival, Reich and Korot premiered another music theatre piece, entitled “Three Tales,” intended as symbolic parables of technology in the 20th century, the three topics being the crash of the Hindenburg, the early atomic bomb tests in the Pacific Islands, and the cloning of a sheep named Dolly.

Steve Reich (b. 1936) Music for Large Ensemble Alarm Will Sound and Ossia; Alan Pierson, cond. Nonesuch 79546