Steve Reich Works

If Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is simply described in terms of its materials and organization – 11 chords followed by 11 pieces built on those chords – then it might seem utterly dry and monotonous. The actual music, though, is far from lackluster. When this recording was released in 1978, the impact on the new music scene was immediate and overwhelming. Anyone who saw potential in minimalism and had hoped for a major breakthrough piece found it here. The beauty of its pulsing added-note harmonies and the sustained power and precision of the performance were the music's salient features; and instead of the sterile, electronic sound usually associated with minimalism, the music's warm resonance was a welcome change. Yet repeated listening brought out a subtle and important shift in Reich's conception: the patterns were no longer static repetitions moving in and out of phase with each other, but were now flexible units that grew organically and changed incrementally over the course of the work.

Steve Reich - Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective (2006) {5-CD Set Nonesuch 7559-79962-2}
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© 2006 Nonesuch Records | 7559-79962-2
Classical / Modern Classical / Contemporary / Minimal / Post-Modern

Steve Reich has a remarkable arrangement for a composer in that he is an exclusive artist for Nonesuch and has been so for more than two decades. Back in 1996, when Reich celebrated his 60th birthday, Nonesuch issued a 10-CD box set of "everything" – all of the works in the Warner Classics vaults that he had recorded, including some new at the time, such as Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995. With Reich's 70th birthday afoot, the earlier set still in print and Nonesuch belonging to a classical music division that is operating on one lung, it has decided on a more modest approach to the newer observance with Steve Reich: Phases – A Nonesuch Retrospective, a collection consisting of five discs.

The SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart is one of the few choirs enjoying an international reputation. Their latest recording has “America” as its subject - and presents a tremendously wide range of forms and expressions, from music written under the influence of European masters to works that boldly explore experiments in aesthetic reorientation. The big names of the U.S. composers are of course represented, including Leonard Bernstein with his single a cappella work, the “Missa Brevis”, Steve Reich with his minimalist “Proverb” and John Cage with some of his late “Number Pieces”. Everything is presented at the highest artistic level, with ravishing sonics that cannot be beat.

Nonesuch Records releases the first recording of Steve Reich’s Reich/Richter, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain and conducted by George Jackson, on June 10, 2022, with the vinyl due August 5. The composition was originally written to be performed with German visual artist Gerhard Richter and Corinna Belz’s film Moving Picture (946-3).

So much of Steve Reich’s music depends on shifting tensions and sonorities. The slightest harmonic tweak in the upper strings must be as committed as the most grounding and predictable left-handed piano thuds. Consequently, performing his works requires an almost telepathic connection between musicians and expert marshalling, perhaps even more so than any other contemporary composer. This new recording of Reich’s Desert Music and his Three Movements fortunately adheres to this maxim, presenting unpretentiously but effectively these effervescent, atmospheric works.