Steve Reich: Works, 1965-1995 Steve Reich and Musicians; various other performers (Nonesuch, 10-disc set)
For weeks I have been happily delving into Nonesuch’s massive anthology/tribute to composer Steve Reich on his 60th birthday season. The 10 discs document three decades of the composer’s creative life, from his earliest tape-loop pieces (including “Come Out,” “Piano Phase,” “It’s Gonna Rain”) to recent multimedia works that incorporate the spoken word and sounds from everyday life (“Different Trains,” “The Cave”). Most of the contents are culled from recordings previously released by Nonesuch, augmented by new recordings of four central pieces: “Music for 18 Musicians,” “Eight Lines,” “Four Organs” and “New York Counterpoint.”
Reviewing this set, some critics have made extravagant comparisons between Reich and such revolutionaries as Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Visionary, perhaps; revolutionary, no. His central achievement has been to alter our expectations of musical time in works based on pulsing rhythmic repetition. A typical Reich piece moves through kaleidoscopic transformations of scoring and duration, producing some of today’s most vital new music.
The new recordings of “Music for 18 Musicians” and the three other Reich works are less edgy, more laid-back, than the versions that appeared on ECM. I wish I had space to discuss the others; still, if you already own some of them in their original Nonesuch incarnations, you know what to expect. Reich can be an uneven composer, and the limitations of his jogging-in-place early style are readily apparent here. But absorbing scores like “Music for 18 Musicians,” “Different Trains” and “The Cave” show why Reich has managed to be both “popular” and challenging at the same time.
Nonesuch has done its star composer proud with its handsome packaging and illustrated booklet, which contains background information, an interview and essays. Record companies almost never honor living composers in so lavish or thoughtful a manner.
