Reich, Steve: 1936

[Belgrove]

An opportunity to discuss Reich’s music.

Music For 18 Musicians was this week’s Zoom music club piece, listened to by advocates of ‘classical’, rock, pop and jazz (I’ve been subjected to more 70’s prog rock than I really need). This is the one piece in about 26 weeks of Zooming that has united everyone in admiration, which is interesting, for it a work which appears to be musical marmite. I’ve detected elsewhere (albeit unscientifically) that those expressing a strong dislike tend to be happiest listening to music of the late 18th century and early romantic era. The version we listened to was the 1994 Nonesuch (my personal preference) rather than the original MCA. The transitions in the Nonesuch are smoother and more measured, reinforcing the slow evolutionary nature of the piece. I have yet to see it performed live, and hope the opportunity will come someday.

So, does 18 Musicians quicken your pulse, or induce unpleasant palpitations and migraine?

Apart from ‘It’s Gonna Rain’, I’m pretty much a sucker for all of Reich’s work (but can’t endure Glass - but that’s for another tread).

[Pulcinella]

An opportunity to discuss Reich’s music.

Music For 18 Musicians was this week’s Zoom music club piece, listened to by advocates of ‘classical’, rock, pop and jazz (I’ve been subjected to more 70’s prog rock than I really need). This is the one piece in about 26 weeks of Zooming that has united everyone in admiration, which is interesting, for it a work which appears to be musical marmite. I’ve detected elsewhere (albeit unscientifically) that those expressing a strong dislike tend to be happiest listening to music of the late 18th century and early romantic era. The version we listened to was the 1994 Nonesuch (my personal preference) rather than the original MCA. The transitions in the Nonesuch are smoother and more measured, reinforcing the slow evolutionary nature of the piece. I have yet to see it performed live, and hope the opportunity will come someday.

So, does 18 Musicians quicken your pulse, or induce unpleasant palpitations and migraine?

Apart from ‘It’s Gonna Rain’, I’m pretty much a sucker for all of Reich’s work (but can’t endure Glass - but that’s for another tread).

I'm not sure that those are the Marmite options: quickening the pulse might lead to unpleasant palpitations.

I find Music for 18 Musicians soothing in general, rather than stimulating, but it might depend on the mood I'm in, and I certainly know people who can't bear it.
I have the Nonesuch (Steve Reich and Musicians) and the RCA Ensemble Modern versions.

Of other pieces I have, it's Variations for winds, strings and keyboards (San Francisco Symphony/de Waart) and Different trains (Kronos Quartet) that probably appeal most.

[Flay]

I've found that Music for Mallet Instruments, voices and Organ is a suitably soothing soporific for the grandson:

https://youtu.be/rCiGDdEdrks

(I rather like this version)

[Pulcinella]

I've found that Music for Mallet Instruments, voices and Organ is a suitably soothing soporific for the grandson:

https://youtu.be/rCiGDdEdrks

(I rather like this version)

Are the players members of Aurora (standing up, and playing from memory)?

I see that the singers have music in front of them, though.

That and Six pianos are the other pieces on my Variations CD:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7924698--variations

(though I have it in a different incarnation, an Italian DG Klassikon release).

[HighlandDougie]

An opportunity to discuss Reich’s music.

Music For 18 Musicians was this week’s Zoom music club piece, listened to by advocates of ‘classical’, rock, pop and jazz (I’ve been subjected to more 70’s prog rock than I really need). This is the one piece in about 26 weeks of Zooming that has united everyone in admiration, which is interesting, for it a work which appears to be musical marmite. I’ve detected elsewhere (albeit unscientifically) that those expressing a strong dislike tend to be happiest listening to music of the late 18th century and early romantic era. The version we listened to was the 1994 Nonesuch (my personal preference) rather than the original MCA. The transitions in the Nonesuch are smoother and more measured, reinforcing the slow evolutionary nature of the piece. I have yet to see it performed live, and hope the opportunity will come someday.

So, does 18 Musicians quicken your pulse, or induce unpleasant palpitations and migraine?

Apart from ‘It’s Gonna Rain’, I’m pretty much a sucker for all of Reich’s work (but can’t endure Glass - but that’s for another tread).

I went to an LPO concert in the RFH three/four years ago featuring Gavin Bryars in the first half and 'Music for 18 Musicians' in the second. At the end, there was a spontaneous rather than spasmodic standing ovation from virtually the whole hall, as much for the skill and choreography of the performers, I suspect, as for the music but it was a wonderful musical experience. Seeing and hearing it live was thrilling. I have a number of recordings with that by Ensemble Signal on Harmonia Mundi just edging the 1994 Nonesuch. I, too, cannot abide Philip Glass's non-stage works but will happily listen to anything written by Steve Reich with a lot of pleasure.

[Flay]

As an aside, because I have searched for Steve Reich a good few times on YouTube, I now get inundated with Hitler and other 3rd Reich videos.

I enjoy Nagoya Marimbas, and Clapping (for its simple originality).

[Serial_Apologist]

The early Reich (eg Drumming) is fine with me, offering as it did a genuinely new and soul-enriching experience as one was invited in the most pleasant of ways to follow the gradual shifting patterns, rather than any unfolding drama, as one would when listening to a classical symphony or romantic tone poem. In other words a way to achieve a "high" state of consciousness without resort to possibly damaging narcotics. And in the process new (to Western ears) rhythmic configurations were being revealed which told the listener something about how musics are, or once were perceived in some non-European/Western cultures, particularly in Africa and SE Asia. The later Reich tended to subordinate such processes within derivative harmonic structures, thereby negating the innate "immediacy facticity" potential of the original concept.

[Bryn]

My introduction to Reich's work was the 1967 Piano Phase, though I did not hear it until 1969. I well recall Christopher Hobbs practicing it on the piano in the then Holst Room at Morley College in the run-up to the Experimental Music Class there. Despite trying to keep up with his output, I somehow missed out on early opportunities to hear Music for 18 Musicians. Indeed, it was only on a visit to an old Scratch Orchestra friend in Rhandirmwyn in 1978 that I learned of its existence (I was pretty much out of action for most of 1977 due to a nasty motorcycle crash on my way to the same friend in early March of that year). Some time after that return visit I heard a performance from the Round House on Radio 3. It fell apart temporarily, about half way through. The cassette recording I made of that had to do until the ECM recording was released. Since then I have accumulated more recordings than I can be bothered to count and attended several performances. After Drumming, I think it the best of his output.

[Serial_Apologist]

I well recall Christopher Hobbs practicing it on the piano in the then Holst Room at Morley College in the run-up to the Experimental Music Class there.

By way of a lighthearted aside, Holst was himself not averse to thinking outside the Western musical traditions when he wanted to encapsulate something of the immediate through stasis in his music, however oddly he might on occasion have gone about doing so - eg the lengthy build-up passage that comes halfway through The Mystic Trumpeter, built on a single harmonic ostinato over a military march beat ! Holst was interested in and strongly sympathetic to Eastern thought; he learned Sanscrit and translated a number of poems from The Upanishads, some of which he set for The St Pauls Girls' school choir, where he also taught before WWI, as well as for larger forces. I have a BBC broadcast tape of elderly St Pauls ex-pupils reminiscing about him, and can imagine him smiling down on Christopher from his portrait at Morley!

[Bryn]

By way of a lighthearted aside, Holst was himself not averse to thinking outside the Western musical traditions when he wanted to encapsulate something of the immediate through stasis in his music, however oddly he might on occasion have gone about doing so - eg the lengthy build-up passage that comes halfway through The Mystic Trumpeter, built on a single harmonic ostinato over a military march beat ! Holst was interested in and strongly sympathetic to Eastern thought; he learned Sanscrit and translated a number of poems from The Upanishads, some of which he set for The St Pauls Girls' school choir, where he also taught before WWI, as well as for larger forces. I have a BBC broadcast tape of elderly St Pauls ex-pupils reminiscing about him, and can imagine him smiling down on Christopher from his portrait at Morley!

On our first village tour (Cornwall) we included Mars as a "Popular Classic" (cf "A Scratch Orchestra: Draft Constitution). The "particle" chosen to represent its essence was the basic rhythm. Holst was held in high esteem within the Scratch Orchestra, and one of its later members, Dave Smith, made a very pianistic solo piano arrangement of The Planets. I suppose that these days Holst would be accused of 'cultural appropriation' regarding The Mystic Trumpeter.

[jayne lee wilson]

Huge Reich fan here, have been for years, alongside all the other baroque/classical/neoclassical/postwar/20thC Other.....
I do love a strong inventive rhythmic content, in any of those genres/performance styles....

A favourites list might have:

Desert Music
Music for a Large Ensemble
Octet
The Four Sections
Triple Quartet (any version, but especially string orchestra)
Violin Phase

and the 18 Musicians..... probably others I've forgotten...

[Bryn]

Huge Reich fan here, have been for years, alongside all the other baroque/classical/neoclassical/postwar/20thC Other.....
I do love a strong inventive rhythmic content, in any of those genres/performance styles....

A favourites list might have:

Desert Music
Music for a Large Ensemble
Octet
The Four Sections
Triple Quartet
Violin Phase

and the 18 Musicians..... probably others I've forgotten...

With a bit of luck, I might just still have a cassette recording of an early version of Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ from before he decided to expand the instrumentation of it, much as he did Octet as Eight Lines.

[muzzer]

Another Reich fan here. I go back regularly to nearly all of his works that I’ve heard. I really think he’s the real deal, no doubt at all. Different Trains never lets me go. Legend has it that an early performance of Music for Mallet etc ‘inspired’ Bowie’s track Wailing Wall.

[Richard Barrett]

When I first heard the 3 LP set of Drumming et al - when did it come out, 1974 or so? - I hadn't heard any music remotely like that before, and I found it quite fascinating and still do. Subsequently I thought of Music for 18 Musicians as a high point after which his music gradually became a more commercially palatable, shortwinded version of itself (a bit like Glass but obviously not to the same degree).

[ScotOp69]

For some reason both Drumming & Music for 18 Musicians are the two which are programmed ad infinitum, whilst his true masterworks like the Variations for Winds Strings & Keyboards & most certainly Music for a Large Ensemble are never performed. To Bryn if you ever read this I'd love to hear that early version of Music for Mallet Instruments Voices & Organ.