Reich’s My Name Is (1967) has become more widely known through its recent commercial recording by Powerplant (2012), but scholarly discussion of the piece has been until now almost entirely absent, despite the piece having been through a number of versions. The archival materials housed at the Paul Sacher Stiftung offer new insight into the work’s compositional journey, from a piece generated by the voices of its audience to an ensemble work consisting of the voices of the performers themselves. What emerges is a tangled narrative of Reich’s views of language, speech, and identity, which materialise through the evolution of My Name Is. One moment stands out in particular in this narrative, a little-known German version of the piece, Mein Name Ist … (Portrait der Schola Cantorum, 1981), which is a parallel work to an English version produced for Reich’s own ensemble, My Name Is: Ensemble Portrait. The Bayer Records recording of the German piece released in 1993 was subsequently deleted, and Reich’s later comment, ‘Forget this piece, I have’, appears to forbid further scholarly investigation. This paper offers a close reading of the versions of My Name Is, opening up new perspectives on the composer’s approach to using speech material, and in so doing reassessing the piece’s significance.

中文翻译：

---

“英语是我唯一说的语言”：Reich's My Name Is (1967) 中的新叙事

Reich 的 My Name Is (1967) 通过最近由 Powerplant (2012) 录制的商业唱片而广为人知，但直到现在几乎完全没有对该作品的学术讨论，尽管该作品已经经历了多个版本。保存在 Paul Sacher Stiftung 的档案材料提供了对作品创作旅程的新见解，从观众的声音产生的作品到表演者自己的声音组成的合奏作品。出现的是 Reich 对语言、言论和身份的看法的错综复杂的叙述，这些观点通过我的名字是的演变而具体化。在这个叙述中特别突出的是一个鲜为人知的德语版本，我的名字是……（Portrait der Schola Cantorum，1981），这是为 Reich 自己的合奏制作的英文版的平行作品，我的名字是：合奏肖像。拜耳唱片公司对 1993 年发布的德国作品的录音随后被删除，而 Reich 后来的评论“忘记这件作品，我有”，似乎禁止进一步的学术调查。这篇论文对《我的名字是》的版本进行了仔细阅读，为作曲家使用演讲材料的方法开辟了新的视角，并以此重新评估了作品的意义。