Steve Reich: Octet, Music for a Large Ensemble, Violin Phase

I see the Barbican have got yet another Steve Reich festival lined up in a few months' time. I guess there are some enviable things about the life of a composer, but I do pity the poor buggers for being resolutely ignored by the Academy until they're at least 50 — and then, once they've reached retirement age (Reich is 75 this year) and all their friends are putting the slippers on, they have to jet around the world to be lauded for their influence. I hope they make it worth his while, but having attended several events at the last Barbican bash, it's unfortunate that the most enticing of the performances this time clashes with my mother-in-law's 80th birthday party…

It's only just occurred to me, but Reich's career divides quite neatly into, errr, phases. In the sixties it's the experiments with phasing, the R&D stage, represented here by Violin Phase (1967). Then the formal, abstract pieces of the seventies, which are typically named simply after the instrumentation. Thus Pendulum Music, Four Organs, Drumming, Clapping Music, Six Pianos, Music for 18 Musicians, Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards — and Octet and Music for a Large Ensemble, included here. Then, after this and from 1980 onward, Reich took on adaptations, thematic works and material rooted in his biography and culture, blending each with the distinctive approach he'd developed by that point.

So this CD comes from the middle of Reich's career (when he was younger than I am now). I'd say it was middling in terms of quality and importance within his work. But middling Reich is still streets ahead of most others, and I gave over a very rewarding hour listening to this on Sunday morning. Twenty something years ago, it was one of the first CDs I ever owned.

I think the idea with the Reverberations performances at the Barbican to put Reich's pieces alongside some that have been influenced by him. That seems like slightly lazy programming, and it doesn't promise much in the way of drama or insight, since you just know who's going to carry away the garlands each day.

MusicBrainz entry for this album Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Some metadata about this album at Last.fm