Music for 18 Musicians
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Music CD Cover Composer: Steve Reich Performer: Grand Valley State University New Music Edition: Music CD Audio: English (Unknown) Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD CD Release Date: 2007-10-16 Music Label: Innova Soundtracks:
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Free Music Notes for Music for 18 Musicians Album
Free Music Review: A wonderful birthday present
Hit: 5 Stars
I can't imagine a lovelier gift for Steve Reich's 70th birthday than when this group from an obscure Allendale, Michigan school showed up at the New York City Bang on a Can Marathon in June 2007 & gave a warmly idiomatic, accomplished sunrise performance of "Music for 18 Musicians." True, the "conductor" & several of the students had consulted with members of the Steve Reich Ensemble & met the composer. But Reich probably never expected they'd do this well. Yet, for all the sophistication of Reich's music & his international reputation, he must have dreamed of it from time to time, hearing a reassuring echo from the provinces, that his music had made such a successful journey out & back. These aren't virtuoso conservatory kids; they're fine musicians from a large academic music department who likely had to give up some other projects & activities to make the committment. The students are joined by a few faculty & outsiders, but it's their gig. They had to live inside the score for a year to bring it to this level.
You don't have to be a virtuoso to perform "Music for 18 Musicians." You do have to be part of a virtuoso ensemble perfomance, & have great stamina. Back in 1974, Reich brought a few of his musicians out to Ramapo College of New Jersey for a workshop. I was a student. He was working on music like this, perhaps not this particular piece. His "scores" were fragments, phrases, no single phrase was really difficult, & you learned the phrases one after the other. To that point it resembled gamelan. Except it wasn't gamelan. The difficulty was jumping from one phrase to next, while listening to others, & feeling the pulse of the music. Once you started the music, you had to keep going. Our traditional backgrounds had not prepared us, & Reich himself asked which of us had played in rock or jazz groups because he felt that experience was more valuable for what the music required. Still, it wasn't something you just stepped up, read through, & played. Had you asked me then what it would take for a bunch of state college student musicians to master "Music for 18 Musicians," I probably would have replied that it would take months of living with it. So that's what they did at 30 years later at Grand Valley State University.
If you have Reich's original recording on ECM or the 1998 version on Nonesuch & want another take, this one is very worthy, & different. The best of the rest, in my opinion, with natural, live sound.