POX: Steve Reich

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to clarify, all those people are performing, not just having their pieces performed! I didn't even think Glass and Reich were on talking terms...

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe they'll leave the hall during each other's pieces (like Reich vs. Babbitt in the early days of Bang on a Can)!

Since it's a benefit event, tix are $100-$200, so I don't feel quite so bad about not being in NYC for this. I would just be home cursing my poverty.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 11 April 2004 05:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm going. I've missed too many oppurtunities to see music like this, in favor of 1,000 crappy bands in a 1,000 crappy venues. I'm especially excited to hear Meredith Monk in person. What would make this truly perfect is if afterwords, we all got to go lie on some pillows in some weird all-night spot and listen to Terry Riley play the organ for 4 hours.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 11 April 2004 06:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, that's sound reasoning. (I have, on v. rare occasions, spent over $100 on a meal, so why not shell out that much for what promises to be a truly memorable concert.)

However, I still won't be in NYC :-(

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 11 April 2004 06:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I heard a live performance of Drumming tonight (parts 1 and 2, anyway). I hadn't heard the piece in ages, and I'd never heard it live -- or seen it! Eight percussionists clustered around half as many marimbas was a sight to behold...

It's exciting just to watch them perform it, I agree. I feared for the musicians' ability to play it without screwing up. When I heard it, there was something about the acoustics of the particular hall which was making some sort of added beat pattern or something. It was very effective, though probably unintentional.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 11 April 2004 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember seeing it in concert once and watching about three different people seated before me in the audience nodding their heads to it, and each of them were following completely different rhythms. was perfect.

― (Jon L), Sunday, 11 April 2004 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

What would make this truly perfect is if afterwords, we all got to go lie on some pillows in some weird all-night spot and listen to Terry Riley play the organ for 4 hours.

After-party at the Dream House, yo!

― hstencil, Sunday, 11 April 2004 21:18 (twenty-two years ago)

The ECM version (yes it has to be this one, the pacing and tension are jawdropping) of Music for 18 Musicians is sublime, eternal, terrifyingly beautiful sound.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 00:48 (twenty-two years ago)

My record library has that ECM LP, and the first reich I ever heard but I felt I satisfied my curiosity and never really went back for more of his music. Maybe time to revisit.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

Reich has a new album out. I did not know. (There's no proper Reich thread.)

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Saturday, 15 October 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

eleven months pass...

Belated Happy 70th Birthday, Steve Reich! (Er, not that I expect him to see this.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:04 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.barbican.org.uk/reich
I only wish I'd made it to one of those events.

― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

September 29, 2006
Steve Reich, Sunny? Well, It Is His Birthday
By ANNE MIDGETTE
Steve Reich has moved to the country.
For decades this composer has been a quintessential voice of downtown New York. And to mark his 70th birthday, on Tuesday, the city’s leading cultural institutions are joining forces in an unprecedented celebratory collaboration, Steve Reich@70, offering a month (more or less) of his music at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center and elsewhere.
But Mr. Reich left Lower Manhattan for Westchester earlier this summer. And he is very, very happy about it.
“It’s really a pleasure,” he said by phone last week. “I used to be a composer, but now I’m into home improvement.”
“Sunny” is hardly an adjective most people would have applied to Mr. Reich for most of his life. Words like “intense,” “driven” and “caffeinated” came more readily to mind. But sunny, it seems, he has become, waxing lyrical about his new house (built by the Modernist architect William N. Breger) and as excited about the coming celebrations as, well, a boy waiting for his birthday.
And this new warmth may be reflected in his music.
Mr. Reich has always been a distinctive voice. His classification as a minimalist, grouped with Philip Glass, has come to seem, with the years, increasingly irrelevant. You could say that Mr. Reich stripped music down to its bare essentials in seminal works like “Clapping Music” (1972), written for two performers and their hands, or “Drumming” (1971), an hour-plus piece written entirely for percussion instruments. But even those pieces, spare in means, have their own eloquence.
Elements have steadily been added over the years: more instruments, human voices (with “Tehillim” in 1981), more visuals, more stories. The last have been a particular feature of Mr. Reich’s collaboration with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, which has produced ambitious music theater works like “The Cave” (1990-3), an exploration of Jewish and Muslim beliefs, or “Three Tales” (2002), which challenged a range of attitudes among scientists.
Meanwhile the music has gotten not only fuller, but freer.
“There’s a different generosity,” said Jennifer Bilfield, who was president of Mr. Reich’s publishers, Boosey & Hawkes, before moving in August to become artistic and executive director of Stanford Lively Arts in California. “His writing is more expansive. ‘Proverb’ ” — from 1995 — “is a piece that struck me as a very decisive shift. There’s a different intimacy, an inner quiet that’s very moving.”
It was Ms. Bilfield who had the idea of getting Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy to collaborate on Mr. Reich’s birthday, an idea nobody else thought would work. The three presenters are, after all, competitors in an increasingly tough market. But Mr. Reich had close relationships with all of them, and Ms. Bilfield was already braced for one of them to call her and ask about doing a festival for his birthday, which would keep the other two out of the picture.
“It was really to pre-empt what would have been a more awkward discussion,” Ms. Bilfield said. “I basically picked up the phone and said, ‘Can you imagine what a great energy it would be, what a great example for the presenting world?’ And each institution had a different relationship with Steve. When the parties came to the table, there was no tug of war, not at all.”
The Brooklyn Academy will focus on dance, including the American premiere of “Variations for Vibes, Piano and Strings,” commissioned for the choreographer Akram Khan, which will open the festival on the actual birthday. Carnegie Hall will concentrate on instrumental music, including a training workshop and the American premiere of Mr. Reich’s latest work, “Daniel Variations,” written in memory of the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. And Lincoln Center presents vocal works, including three performances of “The Cave.”
“Daniel Variations,” co-commissioned by the Daniel Pearl Foundation, interweaves texts from the Old Testament Book of Daniel and Pearl’s own writings. The Book of Daniel, Mr. Reich pointed out, is set in Babylon — present-day Iraq. The piece blends in a string quartet, which at the words “My name is Daniel Pearl” takes off, Mr. Reich said, in a major key. (Mr. Pearl was a violinist.)
“It’s a very un-Steve Reich-like, expressive piece of music,” Mr. Reich said.
As if to warn his fans not to expect too much more of this baroque phase, he added: “The last few works have been very open, very expressive, very free, very different. Now I’ve kind of got a yen to go medieval.”
But his inner romantic may already have been outed.
For his 70th birthday Nonesuch has released a new box set, “Phases” (Nonesuch 79962-2), with a selection of Mr. Reich’s greatest hits, most of them in the recordings made with the ensemble he founded in 1966, Steve Reich and Musicians, which he refers to as “original instruments.” The performances are very fine. But it’s fascinating to listen to recordings made by another group a generation later.
Mr. Reich’s ensemble focuses on presenting the composition; the younger group, Alarm Will Sound, crack performers all, also focuses on interpreting it. On that band’s CD of “Tehillim” and “The Desert Music” (Cantaloupe Music CA21009), Mr. Reich’s music takes on a whole new dimension of ravishing beauty, beauty that was in there all along.
And Mr. Reich embraces the idea that other people are performing his works, and performing them so well.
“What impresses me,” he said, “is the ease that younger musicians have playing my music, not only right, but idiomatically.” On a recent trip to Latvia he heard a performance of “Music for 18 Musicians” (1974-76). “These people were burning,” he said. “I wasn’t sure where Latvia was, but they knew where I was.”
Sitting in Pound Ridge, still surrounded by packing boxes, in his striking new house (Mr. Breger was also the architect of the Civic Center Synagogue, where Mr. Reich and Ms. Korot were married), he sounded, well, downright expansive. And his goals, for once, seemed perfectly simple.

“What do I want?” he said. “I want people to love the music, not to feel, ‘What, him again?’ It seems that the music is holding up over time. That’s the most gratifying thing.”

I don't really get the idea that warmth or expressiveness is something new in his music. I always found the timbres of Tehillim, Drumming, and Music for 18 Musicians, in particular, to be pretty warm. In fact, that's one of the thing I think contribures to their strength.

Can't you be intense and sunny at the same time?

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:19 (nineteen years ago)

there's still time, LC. most of the events are tomorrow and Sunday.

― zebedee (zebedee), Friday, 6 October 2006 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

Actually "warm" and "sunny" are words I thought most people associate with Reich, while I can't imagine anyone referring to his work (other than the really early pieces) as "driven" or "caffeinated." It sounds like the journalist either only really knew his earliest work or was listening to Philip Glass instead.

― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 6 October 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

(Hrm, I suppose I could see "Different Trains" or "Cello Counterpoint" being driven but it still seems like a weird general statement to make.)

― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 6 October 2006 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

there's still time, LC.

Alas, I'm at the wrong end of the country.

― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

A Steve Reich POX is hard, as you'd probably need the box set to be selective in picking ten. I own and like a few of his albums, but an OPO would be more appropriate, as would a re-issue of that recording of Four Organs mentioned upthread.

― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

For what it's worth, this is the tracklisting of the box set that's just come out, a POXIV, if you will (sorry):

Disc: 1
1. Music For 18 Musicians

Disc: 2
1. Different Trains
2. Tehillim
3. Eight Lines

Disc: 3
1. You Are
2. New York Counterpoint
3. Cello Counterpoint
4. Electric Counterpoint
5. Triple Quartet

Disc: 4
1. Come Out
2. Proverb
3. Desert Music

Disc: 5
1. Music For Mallet Instruments Voices And Organ
2. Drumming

― LC (Damian), Friday, 6 October 2006 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

1. Different Trains
2. Tehillim

this set is for us jews.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:10 (nineteen years ago)

Another Reich/Nonesuch box set? I had no idea the other one was out of print. This one seems rather arbitrary by comparison.

Anyway, my POX:

1. Eight Lines (Octet)
2. Four Organs (Bang on a Can) *
3. Four Organs (Reich/Gibson/Murphy/Chambers/Glass)
4. Music for 18 Musicians
5. Music for a Large Ensemble (12 78)
6. The Four Sections (Winds & Brass)
7. Phase Patterns
8. Piano Phase
9. Six Marimbas
10. Violin Phase (10 67)

(* Four Organs is my favorite Reich piece, but I haven't gotten around to collecting all the versions yet. Some purists seem to have a grudge against Bang on a Can's performance, so I'm assuming there are better versions that will take its place someday. In the meantime, though...)

― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:29 (nineteen years ago)

This set sounds really inferior to buying things a la carte, although I guess that's easy to say as someone who has already heard a lot of Reich (though not everything).

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:32 (nineteen years ago)

I don't like "Four Organs" but it has some modern classical heavy hitters behind it on this thread. (I actually haven't heard it in a long time, possibly as long as a decade or more, so it's hard to say what I would think if I listened to it right now.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 October 2006 23:34 (nineteen years ago)

I got the box in the mail and am digging it quite a bit. I'd never heard Music For 18 Musicians before; it's real purty-like.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Saturday, 7 October 2006 12:14 (nineteen years ago)

Listening to the Nonesuch edition of 18 Musicians in the morning is slowly becoming a ritual for me.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Saturday, 7 October 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

I'm late to the 18 Musicians band-wagon and I can't figure out what took me so long to pick up this addictive masterpiece.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Saturday, 7 October 2006 14:56 (nineteen years ago)

i'm very surprised phil had never heard "...18 musicians"!

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 7 October 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

Me too, I think that might be my favorite Reich composition. (I'm very surprised I still haven't bought a recording of it.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 7 October 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

Desert Music is my jam.

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Sunday, 8 October 2006 04:59 (nineteen years ago)

i know almost nuffink by him, but (or, therefore) i've been enjoying the little burst of reich retrospecting around this birthday. i caught the fresh air thing a few days ago, cobbled together from different interviews over the years, it was really interesting. i liked the anecdote about the woman beating her head on the stage during the performance of "four organs." i went and downloaded the "early works" album, which i've been digging. "it's gonna rain" is pretty genius. i'm tempted by the boxset for convenience sake, but maybe better to pick them up one by one.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 8 October 2006 05:56 (nineteen years ago)

don't know why I forgot to bring this up before, but archive.org has an amazing radio show of early Reich, check it out here:

http://www.archive.org/details/ReichBerkeleyMuseum

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 8 October 2006 06:10 (nineteen years ago)

I had a dream about Steve Reich last nite. Maria had written a new composition for him, he was her teacher, and she was really nervous about it, and then I had the great idea that I should get him to listen to black metal and write down his responses to what he had heard and i feverishly looked for stuff to play him, but then Terry Gross showed up and it was late so Steve and Terry ended up staying the night and sleeping in a big bed together and everyone kept saying "Reich" and laughing. Maria's music was really cool.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 October 2006 09:52 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.booseytones.com/index.php?l=EN&a=mf
Tuesday, October 03, 2006

FREE STEVE REICH RINGTONE!!
Current mood: excited
Category: Music

Hello all-

To celebrate Steve's 70th birthday, we are very happy to offer all Barbican subscribers, Reich festival ticket holders and you, Steve's loyal MySpace friends, an exclusive Steve Reich ringtone absolutely free!

You can choose from the following works:

Different Trains – After the War
Different Trains – Before the War
Duet
Electric Counterpoint – Fast I
Electric Counterpoint – Fast III
Electric Counterpoint – IIIb
New York Counterpoint – I
New York Counterpoint – III
Triple Quartet – 3rd Movement

To claim your free ringtone, simply visit www.booseytones.com and enter the following code: REICH 70.

Verizon users beware! Verizon does NOT allow any outside content on their phones. Please complain!

― chakra khan chakra khan (sanskrit), Sunday, 8 October 2006 22:56 (nineteen years ago)

He has a MySpace?!

― LC (Damian), Sunday, 8 October 2006 22:58 (nineteen years ago)

Saw the performance at the Barbican last night - Daniel Variations is OK, Music for 18 Musicians was jaw-droppingly good.

― toby (tsg20), Monday, 9 October 2006 07:57 (nineteen years ago)

Wot! No love for 'Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards'? Time to remedy that...

1. Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards
2. 'The Cave of Machpelah' from the Cave
3. Different Trains
4. Vermont Counterpoint
5. Electric Counterpoint
6. Music for 18 Musicians
7. Duet for Two Violins and String Orchestra
8. Six Marimbas
9. 'Check it Out' (first movement of 'City Life')
10. Eight Lines

Reich is someone who I always thought didn't really have that extensive a back catalogue, but POX made me realise how much I had to leave out. Honourable mention for 'Electric Guitar Phase' though which has the same kind of visceral thrill as Branca's 'Lesson for Electric Guitar no.1'

Massive reception for the performance of '18' at the Barbican last night BTW.

― avery keen-gardner (avery keen-gardner), Monday, 9 October 2006 08:18 (nineteen years ago)

Daniel Variations is OK

Would you care to expand, toby? What's the set up, instrumentation etc? Does Reich try any new ideas out?

― Jeff W (zebedee), Monday, 9 October 2006 09:49 (nineteen years ago)

I think toby's understating a bit - I thought Danical Variations was really good (and I'm usually not keen on Reich's vocal works). It's scored for 4 voices (2M, 2F I think), 4x strings (may have been a normal quartet, although I actually seem to remember it being 3x violin + 1x cello), 2x clarinet, 4x piano, 4x vibes, plus a gong and a bass drum (or maybe two bass drums). There are four movements, which all run into each other. 1 and 3 are based around a handful of minor dominant chords, while 2 and 4 are based around their relative major dominants. 1 and 3 use texts from the book of daniel, 2 and 4 use quotations from daniel pearl (the second an indirect one, also referencing Stuff Smith). And it works really nicely.

Actually, instead of trying to describe this from memory, maybe I should dig out the programme and post the notes from there.

― JimD (JimD), Monday, 9 October 2006 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

Here you go:

About Daniel Variations, the composer writes:

The piece is in four movements using texts 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 Islamist extremists in Pakistan in 2002, for the second and fourth movements.

The first text, from the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, is spoken by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (modern-day Iraq). He is asking Daniel to interpret his dream of terror Right now it is unfortunately possible to feel a chill of identification with these words.

The second text was spoken by Daniel Pearl while his captors videotaped him: 'My name is Daniel Pearl. I'm a Jewish American from Encino California.' I use only the first five words in the music itself since the statement is so emblematic of this remarkable person. In Jewish tradition, and in many others, names are indicative of character.

The third text is the Biblical Daniel's response to Nebuchadnezzar.

The last text is a bit of a surprise and s explained by a friend of Daniel Pearl as follows: 'Once during a two day bike trip up the Potomac River, his friend Tom Jennings asked about his belief in an afterlife. "I don't know" Danny replied. "I don't have answers, mainly just questions." Then he added. But I sure hope Gabriel likes my music." After Danny died Tom was going through his friend's vinyl collection (Dvorak, Liszt, Miles Davis, REM) and stumbled across this album: Stuff Smith and the Onyx Club Orchestra. "Danny loved Stuff Smith - a great jazz violinist" Tom says. "Here on side A, track 3, I found this: Stuff Smith playing I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music." '

I have not used any of the music or lyrics of the song and have even added to the title. I hope Danny would approve.

Musically, Daniel Variations has two related harmonic ground plans. One for the first and third movements uses four minor dominant chords a minor third apart, in E minor, G minor, B flat minor and C sharp minor. The other harmonic plan is for the second and fourth movements and uses four major dominant chords in the relative major dominant keys, G, B flat, D flat and E. This gives a darker chromatic harmony to the first and third movements and a more affirmative harmonic underpinning to the second and fourth. Since Daniel Pearl was not only reporter, but also played the fiddle - particularly jazz and blue grass - the strings take the lead melodically in the second and fourth movements, sometimes doubled by the two clarinets.

The piece is scored for two sopranos and two tenors with two B flat clarinets, four vibes, bass and kick drum, tam-tam, four pianos and string quartet. The London performance is dedicated to the 5th Daniel Pearl World Music Days, 6-15 October.

Text
1. I saw a dream. Images upon my bed and visions in my head frightened me.
2. My name is Daniel Pearl. I'm a Jewish American from Encino, California.
3. Let the dream fall back on the dreaded
4. I sure hope Gabriel likes my music, when the day is done.

― JimD (JimD), Monday, 9 October 2006 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

cheers, Jim

― Jeff W (zebedee), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 09:50 (nineteen years ago)

thanks jim, much more informative than i could have been. i don't think the second sentence of the 2nd text was sung, fwiw. this was the first reich piece with a text that i've heard, and i thought it worked quite well, but something wasn't quite right - it was maybe too beautiful, too easy?

that said, i've had the "my name is daniel pearl" part stuck in my head ever since.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 19:46 (nineteen years ago)

Anyone going to the performance on the 21st?

― roc u like a § (ex machina), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

Steve Reich special on Freak Zone this week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/freakzone/tracklisting_20061022.shtml

TWO HOUR STEVE REICH SPECIAL
Steve Reich - It's Gonna Rain
Junior Walker & The All Stars - Shotgun
John Coltrane - Africa
John Coltrane - Brass
Steve Reich - Four Organs
Steve Reich - Drumming (parts 4 and 5)
Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians
Steve Reich - Tehillim
Steve Reich - Different Trains
Steve Reich - You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are

― Koogy Yonderboy (koogs), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

I listend to some of that Freak Zone and ordered this thing called Phases which is 5 CDs' worth and cost about £12.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:27 (nineteen years ago)

11 Reich classics, plus pieces from Caleb Burhans and Michael Gordon available for download from the Whitney museum at the moment:

http://whitney.org/www/exhibition/stevereich.jsp

Some annoying commentary between tracks, but great performances. All recorded from the recent 70th birthday Reich-athon at the Whitney.

― Tim Rutherford-Johnson (Rambler), Thursday, 26 October 2006 10:49 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

This really deserves to be seen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wkVXxRf8Pw

Piano Phase pt. 1 with choreography. I'm sure it's not everyone's thing, but watching 7:50-8:15 (that smile!) after all that came before it is really moving.

― Z S, Saturday, 26 January 2008 16:01 (eighteen years ago)

There is a pt. 2 as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpURYG2F2ug

I would love a DVD of this.

― Z S, Saturday, 26 January 2008 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

that said, i've had the "my name is daniel pearl" part stuck in my head ever since.

still stuck in there! i think about this piece several times most weeks, it just randomly comes to me. really wish there was a recording so i could hear it a second time.

― toby, Saturday, 26 January 2008 16:39 (eighteen years ago)

five months pass...

Starting to think Four Organs is my favourite. I know what Toby means, I had the "From Chicago" bit of Different trains in my head for months

― I know, right?, Saturday, 12 July 2008 23:05 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

so, i entered a steve reich remix context, and NOW the voting starts:

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/32325

please check it out, and if you like, vote for mine!!

― Dominique, Wednesday, 10 November 2010 14:58 (fifteen years ago)

Skipping 100 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

i've been listening to music for 18 musicians for years (the grand valley state university new music ensemble recording), and i have NOT checked out any other steve reich pieces. in mf18m, i love the soft and human quality of the propulsion, the surreal quality of hearing what a computer could play very 'well' instead being played by 'imperfect' but beautifully alive human touch, the slow rise and fall and drift of the motifs, which are gorgeous, and just the very time-stopping, mood-capturing magnetism of the whole thing. what steve reich recordings should i look for next?

― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:04 (two years ago)

Hmm. There's a lot of good phase work he did (Drumming, Clapping, Four Organs, Phase Patterns, etc.) that are similar or related, though not always as transformative/transportative. I know it's not what you asked for, but if you haven't heard it maybe give Philip Glass's "Music With Changing Parts" a shot, it's pretty similar.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:16 (two years ago)

There's a lot of good phase work he did (Drumming, Clapping, Four Organs, Phase Patterns, etc.) that are similar or related, though not always as transformative/transportative.

yeah, those pieces are more lulling or even nullifying, but i actually like that more a lot of the time

― Deflatormouse, Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:22 (two years ago)

It's nearly all worth your time imho, but I'm especially fond of - Double Sextet, Three Movements, Music For A Large Ensemble, and Drumming.

Taking Josh's lead, give Glass' Music in Twelve Parts a try too.

― MaresNest, Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:25 (two years ago)

i'll give these a try. i was just thinking 'maybe i should check out philip glass' so that's perfect. thanks all.

― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:30 (two years ago)

Other recordings of the same piece can be illuminating too. The ECM version of mf18m (feels like a reddit thread) is generally considered definitive (the Nonesuch remake not so good). The Colin Currie Ensemble and Ensemble Signal, younger groups mentored by Reich, have done this and the CCE have also done Drumming, another trance like one. I would try mybe the original Deutsche Grammophone Drumming for a similar thing to what you get from m418m.

― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:38 (two years ago)

Phase Patterns is the one that was a couple rungs below damn near life changing for me, I like almost everything I’ve heard by him but it all ends up paling in comparison just because that was such a mind shattering event hearing it for the first time. If you’ve heard anything else by him it probably wouldn’t have the same impact though.

― Slim is an Alien, Thursday, 25 January 2024 22:24 (two years ago)

Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ & Music for a Large Ensemble were written around the same time and share a lot of the same vibe as Music for 18 musicians

― bbq, Friday, 26 January 2024 06:32 (two years ago)

"Octet / Music For A Large Ensemble / Violin Phase" on ECM is up there with M418M for me.

― Against The 80s, Friday, 26 January 2024 08:24 (two years ago)

another vote for Drumming

― budo jeru, Friday, 26 January 2024 16:07 (two years ago)

yeah Drumming is 'the one' for me also

― Deflatormouse, Friday, 26 January 2024 18:59 (two years ago)

Besides MF18M, the albums I return to are Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint (the latter is the one that the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds" samples) and Double Sextet/2x5.

― jaymc, Saturday, 27 January 2024 05:35 (two years ago)

‘eight lines’ is gorgeous

― donna rouge, Saturday, 27 January 2024 06:01 (two years ago)

Some of his pieces have a musical documentary feel about them, most of these feature a clever device in which he transcribes short clips of speech into notes to be tracked alongside with an instrument, cello, or violin usually.

You realise how much music is embedded in our everyday speech patterns, Different Trains and the startling WTC 9/11 are great examples of that method.

― MaresNest, Saturday, 27 January 2024 11:46 (two years ago)

I would like to recommend Tehillim, I feel it's where you can hear his 'human' touch the most; it's also available as the full ECM Recordings boxset with Mf18M, Octet, Violin Phase & MfLE.

― ˈʌglɪɪst preɪ, Saturday, 27 January 2024 18:48 (two years ago)

Oh Tehillim is one of my favorite pieces of music of all time, it can drive me to tears. But I think Map was looking for the more long-form trancelike world of Reich.

Anyhoo, Steve Reich is the guest of honor at this year’s Long Play Festival in Brooklyn, put on by the Bang on a Can organization. Among other works, including M418M, the Mivos Quartet will do his complete works for string quartet, including Different Trains.

― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 27 January 2024 20:03 (two years ago)

Oh and Drumming will be performs too. I’ve never seen that one performed live. (I saw a local new music group in DC perform M418M several years ago).

― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 27 January 2024 20:05 (two years ago)

A great in-depth interview with @SteveReich in @FT @FinancialTimes today, in which the composer talks about his early life, obsession with Stravinsky, and recent inspirations.
Read here: https://t.co/GX2l9XcYTO pic.twitter.com/4zD8Gjc1qg
— Steve Reich (@SteveReich) February 2, 2024

― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 4 February 2024 05:03 (two years ago)

"There is brunch-friendly soft rock music being piped in, and on the previous evening the mall hosted a live performance by an Eagles cover band. But Reich, dressed in dark tones and wearing his signature dark baseball cap, has come for the waffles, not the music."

― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 4 February 2024 05:14 (two years ago)

It would be funny if he refused to talk about anything but waffles

― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 4 February 2024 18:27 (two years ago)

Glad the article clarified that point, would have definitely expected him to be the type of guy who goes out to breakfast for the soft rock soundtrack and the lore of yesterday’s Eagles cover band

― Slim is an Alien, Sunday, 4 February 2024 18:39 (two years ago)

“What do I want? I want life, I want the music to be played, I want the music to be listened to. I want to know people have felt things,” he says. “I’m very grateful that my music has been listened to and appreciated. It’s a great source of happiness.”

Damn I guess success does bring happiness, get stuffed 'making art should be its own reward' people.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Sunday, 4 February 2024 21:53 (two years ago)

one year passes...

Ah. There's a 27 CD box set coming out soon.

― djh, Wednesday, 5 March 2025 19:19 (one year ago)

I found a nice copy of The Desert Music on vinyl last month and it sounds amazing.

― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 5 March 2025 19:23 (one year ago)

The box purports to be a Collected Works but it's actually his collected works for Nonesuch (admittedly the vast bulk of his output), plus a few pieces licensed from other labels. These do not include the stuff he recorded for ECM including the original 1976 version of Music For 18 Musicians. I can't comment on which version is better but someone upthread called the ECM version definitive.

― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram), Thursday, 6 March 2025 10:15 (one year ago)

I was hoping everyone would say "Buy it, DJH. Buy it!" I'm a bit feeble like that.

― djh, Thursday, 6 March 2025 10:53 (one year ago)

Unlike Glass, I don't know if I've never heard a purchasable recorded version of his work that didn't cut it.

Some of the modern recordings, like Eighth Blackbird's version of Double Sextet and 2x5 are amazing, pretty sure that's a Nonsuch release.

I have the 10cd Nonsuch 'Works' box set from the 90s and the revised recording of MF18M from then is great too.

― Maresn3st, Thursday, 6 March 2025 11:43 (one year ago)

*ever heard

― Maresn3st, Thursday, 6 March 2025 11:44 (one year ago)

I was hoping everyone would say "Buy it, DJH. Buy it!" I'm a bit feeble like that.

― djh, Thursday, March 6, 2025 4:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha as an owner of the 10-cd works box set and a couple other reich albums, i saw 27 and instantly noped out of there

― kendrick lamaze "to push a baby out" (m bison), Thursday, 6 March 2025 12:48 (one year ago)

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