Steve Reich (b. 1936)
Music for 18 Musicians (1974-6)
Synergy Vocals
Colin Currie Group/Colin Currie
rec. 2022, Abbey Road Studios, London
Colin Currie Records CCR0006 SACD [64]
By common consent, Music for 18, as it’s now generally known, is Reich’s finest work and a showpiece for minimalism, as Berg’s Violin Concerto is for serialism. It is one of a group of works which Reich wrote after his early experiments in phase shifting and the like, and which for me have a glow and radiance which I do not find so much in his later works.
Minimalism, although a convenient term, is slightly misleading, as there is nothing unsophisticated about this idiom, which was developed in the USA by Steve Reich and Philip Glass and afterwards taken up by John Adams and various other composers. (There was also an equivalent movement in Europe, best typified by Arvo Pärt and John Tavener.) Minimalism developed in reaction to serialism and drew from ideas which go back to some medieval music, to Stravinsky and Messiaen among recent composers and to Javanese gamelan and West African drumming among non-Western music, among other influences. Characteristic of the idiom is regular rhythms, slowly changing consonant harmonies, plentiful use of ostinatos – phrases repeated without change – and also non-standard ensembles. At first, Reich and Glass wrote for ensembles they formed to play their own works, which they then toured, rather in the manner of rock groups, and although they later turned to writing for regular orchestras, something of their non-traditional start always remains. The ensemble here consists of two clarinets doubling bass clarinets, four pianos, six percussionists mainly playing marimbas and xylophones, violin, cello and four wordless female voices. This does involve some doubling, particularly of pianists also playing percussion, and in some performances more than eighteen players are employed, but not here. All instruments and voices need to be amplified.
The structure of the work is complex and is explained by Reich in a note included in the booklet for this recording on which I draw. Briefly, it is based on a cycle of eleven chords played at the beginning and end of the work. The intervening eleven sections are each based on one of these chords, which may last for about five minutes. As well as the regular pulse set up by the pianos and mallet instruments there are also pulses set by the wind instruments and voices, which are governed by the length of their breaths. There is no conductor. Changes are cued usually by the vibraphone, which is in this work used without the fan. Another feature, which I have appreciated more in this performance than in others I have heard, is that there is a very gradual increase in tension up to section X, after which there is a rather quicker relaxation.
The work must be ferociously difficult to perform, as it requires absolute precision and the slightest slip by any player is immediately noticeable and wrecks the performance. However, the virtuoso percussionist Colin Currie formed his ensemble in 2006 specifically to play the works of Reich, and they have been playing Music for 18 for years. Their previous recording, of Reich’s Drumming, was highly praised (review review), This recording deserves to be equally well received: I found the playing quite fabulous. Many of the interpretive decisions have to be made pre-performance: the exact timbre of the marimbas, the tone specifically of the bass clarinets, the tempi; once these have been decided then the execution has to be exact. The result is radiant and joyous. The work holds the attention and is never boring. I was listening in ordinary two-channel stereo, in which the balance and the sound seemed fine to me. However, this is a SACD, and I imagine it would sound even better on that equipment.
Reich originally reserved Music for 18 to his own ensemble, and no one else could play it as the score was not published. His original 1978 recording on ECM is now available in a three disc set of Reich’s earlier works (review). However, in 1990 he released the score, and since then there have been several other recordings, including a second one by Reich’s own ensemble in 1998, on Nonesuch 79448-2. The booklet for this version contains Reich’s encomium on Colin Currie’s performances as being ‘the best I’ve ever heard,’ presumably even including his own performances. I can well believe it: this is a superb disc.
Stephen Barber
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