With this vinyl edition, the Xenakis Trio refocuses on two major pillars of it's repertoire: Iannis Xenakis and Steve Reich. Two distinct visions of contemporary percussion, brought together in a dialogue of materials, rhythms and resonances. Taken from their first album Alliages, these works take on a new dimension here: the warmth of vinyl restores all the density of the instrumental gesture, the grain of the timbre, the raw pulsation of the percussive sound. This edition is a field of resonance - a space where the tectonic forces of twentieth-century music combine with the artistic demands of a trio in search of the limits of sound.

Making their harmonia mundi d�but, New York-based Ensemble Signal performs Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76), a seminal work by a pioneering composer who changed the course of 20th Century music. Steve Reich says, "Signal has made an extraordinary recording of Music for 18 Musicians. Fast moving, spot on and emotionally charged. Take a listen."

ECM RECORDINGS

Katia Labèque/Marielle Labèque/David Chalmin/Bryce Dessner -"Sonic Wires"

Founded in 2018, the Dream House Quartet is bringing classical and contemporary music into completely new forms as a matter of course. The members draw on decades of expertise: the two piano sisters, Katia and Marielle Labèque, are joined by Bryce Dessner (Grammy-winning guitarist, composer and founding member of The National), and composer, musician and producer David Chalmin. Together they perform radical commissions from visionary composers and key contemporary works from the past half century.

Kuniko’s fifth studio recording sees the hugely talented percussionist return to the music of Steve Reich, a composer she has championed since her debut recording in 2011. In Drumming Kuniko delivers a tour-de-force performance of the work which is widely considered minimalism’s first masterpiece. Performing all thirteen parts herself, and adopting the same multi-track approach which was so successful on kuniko plays reich, Kuniko once again displays the technical virtuosity and flawless musicianship for which she is renowned. This seminal work employs Reich’s trademark phasing technique; subtle changes in timing and timbre cause the soundscape to build through a series of rhythmic loops which gradually evolve to create a wholly immersive experience. After hearing her performance on Drumming Reich commented: “The result is like a microscopic close up of the piece where all the finest details are heard with amazing clarity.” Drumming sees the award-winning percussionist once again demonstrate the musical intelligence and flair which makes such a captivating performer.

REVIEW:

This recording is a virtuosic tour de force, one in which Kuniko proves that there is a different way of looking at things, a way that led Reich to say “The result is like a microscopic close up of the piece where all the details are heard with amazing clarity. I found it a remarkable pleasure to hear. Bravo!” This clarity comes partly due to the tempo, Kuniko’s version is nearly a quarter of an hour longer than Reich’s own recording and partly due to the wonderful performance. Despite the length of the recording it in no way drags, rather it is a well-paced and well executed performance. By the nature of how this version was recorded, it does lack a little spontaneity, but as she says in her notes, an ensemble recording, no matter who records it, can be affected by individuals losing or gaining pace during a performance of the piece, whereas here every part is beautifully paced and in line with every other part. This is a highly focussed performance where every detail of each phase is minutely captured with clarity and accuracy, the way Kuniko manages to capture and exploit every ebb and flow of the music is quite mesmerising, even more so than Reich’s own performance. If I miss something from the Reich performance it is the more ethereal vocalisations of Pamela Wood Ambush and Jay Clayton, but this is more than made up for by the perfection of her playing. Yes, it might not be as spontaneous and exciting a performance as Reich and friends, but the way that Kuniko manages to emphasise each, and every, phase shift is wonderful.

The recorded sound is wonderfully clear, something that helps the performance, it has been recorded over three sessions so being able to maintain the clarity and dynamic over the months that it took to record this work is a credit to the engineers and to Kuniko. The booklet notes are excellent, not only do we get Kuniko’s own notes in which she discusses the piece and her approach to it, but you also get three pages of notes on the work by Steve Reich himself. Yes, there is more than one way in which a work can be performed and Kuniko’s incredibly nuanced performance shows this. And there is certainly space on a shelf for when the performance is as compelling as this is.

– MusicWeb International (Stuart Sillitoe)

Classical Music

Third Coast Percussion has been saluted by the Washington Post for its “virtuosity and precisely timed wit”, and was called by the New York Times a “commandingly elegant” ensemble. The group, which is ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre Dame, teaches and performs a concert series in Chicago, and has commissioned dozens of new works.; This album is the ensemble’s Cedille label debut, and is an 80th birthday acknowledgement to American composer Steve Reich, the founding father of musical minimalism. This CD features four of Reich’s most notable percussion works.

Review:

It’s above all a sensual approach to tone color that comes through in Third Coast’s take on classic works, whether it’s the relaxed warmth of the Mallet Quartet or the glistening brightness of “Music for Pieces of Wood.” Joined by the pianists David Friend and Oliver Hagen, the ensemble also finds full-blooded drama in the Sextet, which contains within its five movements a world of expressions from impish charm to almost oppressive darkness.

– New York Times

"What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing"(Steve Reich, 1968). Minimal music, which numbers Steve Reich among its founders and as one of its most significant representatives, existed for hardly more than ten years. The Ensemble Avantgarde presents a wonderful survey of Reich's minimal music-compositions. The conceptional concentration in the musical work on the structurally simple means of its creation is seen especially in Reich's "Pendulum Music", which is presented here in three different versions. Strict minimal music ended with "Phase Patterns" of 1970. The Ensemble Avantgarde is an association of musicians in Leipzig who are dedicated to the performance of 20th-century music. Since its founding in 1989, the ensemble has worked with a variable membership under the artistic and organizational direction of Steffen Schleiermacher. Concert tours have taken the group through many European countries, East Asia, and South America. Numerous radio productions and CDs document the work of the ensemble. They have been specially recognized through a grant from the Ernst von Siemens Foundation and the Schneider-Schott Prize given by the city of Mainz.

The American composer Steve Reich pioneered the style of minimalism in music. He has been hugely influential on contemporary composers such as John Adams, but also on the progressive rock movement of the 80s with bands such as King Crimson and rock musicians such as Brian Eno. The Guardian has described him as one of 'a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history'. The Desert Music is perhaps Reich's most ambitious orchestral score to date - a setting of texts by the American poet William Carlos Williams (1886 - 1963) for chorus and large orchestra. It is a highly symphonic piece which is inspired by Reich's own travels in California's Mojave Desert, the White Sands - and perhaps in particular the Alamagordo in New Mexico, which carries sinister associations with secret weapons of mass destruction and suggests a geographical link with the poet's somber warning to mankind in the work's central movement. Another opportunity to write for large orchestra came when the St Louis Symphony Orchestra commissioned Reich to write his Three Movements. This work was premiered in St Louis under Leonard Slatkin in April 1986. As in The Desert Music, the sizeable string section is divided, here into two subsections which are placed to the left and right of the conductor to create the alternating antiphonal effect that is so characteristic of Reich's style. Hearing these performances, Steve Reich described them as 'Incisive, focused, and intense' and continued 'this recording of Three Movements is the best I have ever heard. The Desert Music is full, rich, yet full of detail. Kristjan Järvi, the Tonkünstler-Orchester, and Sine Nomine perform with a relaxed rhythmic precision that perfectly fits the music. Bravo and thanks to all.' This is the third SACD recording on Chandos by the Vienna-based Tonkünstler-Orchester, Niederösterreich under Kristjan Jarvi, its Chief Conductor and Music Director from 2004 - 2009. They are joined by Chorus Sine Nomine, one of Austria's leading vocal ensembles and winner of numerous awards and prizes.

The young, New York-based Cantaloupe Music (affiliated with the founders of Bang on a Can) is quickly building quite a discography. The catalogue traverses both premiere recordings, such as Evan Ziporyn's stunning This is not a Clarinet--a disc that ranks as an absolute must-hear and one of the most exciting releases of recent years--and items very familiar to contemporary music fans (Terry Riley's In C). Although any record company venture is an inherent gamble, there's a particular risk for such a tyro label to issue already-recorded works. Take as an example de Leeuw's Tehillim for Nonesuch, or Steve Reich's own 1982 reading for ECM, which has been the standard-bearer for a generation. Why go at this same work yet another time?


Well, in the case of Alan Pierson's version with the ensemble Ossia, the answer is simple. Not only does he have a new perspective to offer, but he and his forces better Reich's recording. (It's worth noting as well that Pierson made a change to Reich's original instrumental arrangement; it is the same as the composer's chamber version of the piece, but adds a second string quartet.) Pierson's comfort and self-assuredness in these works are obvious. The vocals (featuring high soprano Elizabeth Phillips and lyric sopranos Akiko Fujimoto and Carolyn Dorey) are more confident and sure-footed--an achievement considering all the leaps Reich demands. Cantaloupe's brashly forward, bright sound also is miles above ECM's comparative dimness. The rhythms are vigorous and yet never sound mechanical (as in de Leew's version). Perhaps the most interesting result of all of these changes is a shift in the overall mood of the piece: whereas the ECM recording conjures a hypnotic feeling, this is pure ebullience--entirely fitting for the Biblical texts of praise used in Tehillim ("Psalms").


The Desert Music also is transformed. As with Tehillim, this piece exists in two versions, one for a chamber-sized ensemble, the other for symphonic forces. Unlike Tehillim, which is best known in its smaller arrangement (but can be heard in its orchestral form in a flat and disappointing performance with Zubin Mehta on the New York Philharmonic's 10-disc "American Celebrations" set), The Desert Music probably is most familiar in its larger setting, on a recording with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Brooklyn Philharmonic (Nonesuch). With Reich's permission, Pierson prepared his own edition of the piece that combines elements of Reich's two versions--in short, it's Reich's chamber arrangement with seven brass players added--and Reich is happy enough with it to declare this the new standard chamber version. Played by Alarm Will Sound and Ossia, Pierson's arrangement is broadly textured yet retains a certain intimacy that fits well with the William Carlos Williams poetry used here. As with Tehillim, the tautness, freshness, and enthusiasm in this recording casts a new light; here, the piece's vibrancy and lightness is remarkable. All around, it's a superb release, one in which Cantaloupe's gamble has paid off handsomely.
--Anastasia Tsioulcas, ClassicsToday.com

Guitarist Daniel Lippel releases a new version of Steve Reich’s iconic Electric Counterpoint. In collaboration with South African born ethnomusicologist Martin Scherzinger, Lippel approached the piece through the lens of its roots in Central Africa, specifically the traditional music of the Banda-Linda tribe, from which Reich borrowed material for the canonic theme of the opening movement. Guitarist Daniel Lippel, called an “exciting soloist” (New York Times), “precise and sensitive” (Boston Globe) has carved out a unique and diverse career that ranges through solo and chamber music performances, innovative commissioning and recording projects, and performances in diverse contexts. He has premiered more than fifty new solo and chamber works, many written for him, recording several on the independent label he co-founded and directs, New Focus Recordings. Lippel has been a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) since 2006 and Flexible Music since 2003 and has been a guest with many other ensembles including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New York New Music Ensemble, New York City Opera, Either/Or Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, and counter)induction.

Following the tremendous success of her 2011 album Kuniko Plays Reich, and subsequent recordings of works by the pioneering composer, percussionist Kuniko has established a reputation as one of the foremost interpreters of Steve Reich. Here she has recorded Kuniko Plays Reich II, a bold programme of innovative works which span Reich’s artistic career and showcase some of his groundbreaking techniques. Composed in his early thirties, Piano Phase is performed in Kuniko’s own mesmerising arrangement for two vibraphones; characteristically Kuniko plays both parts. While Nagoya Marimbas uses some composition tools which Reich popularised in Piano Phase, Four Organs draws its inspiration from the Middle Ages. Closing this riveting recital, Mallet Quartet sees Reich in a more melodically expansive mood, albeit with his trademark tight rhythmic drive and canonic textures.

REVIEWS:

Before Steve Reich's minimalist structures come to life and become a sensual listening pleasure and adventure, there is a lot of intellectual hard work to do, because the constant rhythmic shifts and overlays are challengingly complex—especially in the American's percussion works. The minimal music guru has primarily written pieces for at least two instrumentalists or percussionists, which doesn't make the task any easier if you want to do everything alone, as a soloist. However, the Japanese drummer Kunino has already shown that she has mastered the art of reacting precisely to her own pre-recorded parts in 2018, with her recording of Reich's cult piece “Drumming”. Now she is following up with Episode II and – under the composer’s supervision – has selected four works, some of them arranged and all of them masterfully recorded. The program ranges from “Four Organs” from 1970, in which a simple interaction between maracas and organ develops an incredible pulling power, to “Mallet Quartet” (2009) for two vibraphones and two marimbas. And in the vibraphone version of “Piano Phase” as well as in the Asian-inspired “Nagoya Marimbas” (1994), the fine motorist Kuniko succeeds in generating a colorful flow of particularly attractive beauty from Reich's sophisticated, repetition constructions.

-- Rondo Magazine

This release couples two of Reich’s “sextets” for the first time: the Sextet of 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet of 2007, which also makes its first appearance on LP. A striking difference between the two pieces is that the rhythmic world of Sextet mostly consists of a single-meter grooving, while Double Sextet works in the angular, off-kilter shifting meters reminiscent of Reich’s Tehillim (also of Stravinsky). Ekkozone impart a uniquely chamber music feel and color to these works while maintaining their propulsive character. Liner notes by Adam Sliwinski. LP lacquers and mastering by veteran Scott Hull at Masterdisk. Plated and pressed by RTI, California. Danish percussionist and conductor Mathias Reumert lives and breathes contemporary classical music. An in-demand soloist, he explores new percussive territory while remaining a committed interpreter of yesterday’s masterworks. As creator and leader of the acclaimed ensemble Ekkozone, he explores the bounderies between classical, world and experimental music in performances at rock and jazz festivals. Ekkozone is a Danish crossover ensemble that masterfully explores the lines between classical, world and experimental music. Formed by Mathias Reumert in 2013, the ensemble enjoys a special connection with Reich’s music and has performed a large part of his oeuvre, including several performances of Music for 18 Musicians.

REVIEW:

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and there is always more than one way to perform good music. Steve Reich’s Sextet is a long way past being ‘minimalist’, even though there are ostinato elements that recall that particular phase in Western music’s evolution. The first movement and other sections recall Reich’s The Desert Music, while the groovy low piano notes in the final Fast section have something of the finale of New York Counterpoint about them. Multi-layered percussion makes all of this a feast for the ear, and Ekkozone and their hyper-reality studio recording play the piece with a swing and uplifting sense of fun that is very infectious indeed. The bass drums on the second Moderate section are played with musical subtlety but have been balanced in such a way that you’ll enjoy seeing your woofers moving about at reasonable volume. Stereo spread is also a good feature of this recording for all but the piano sound, which is kept very much to the centre channel.

There are numerous recordings of Sextet around. Third Coast Percussion (review) is good, with marginally more measured tempi than Ekkozone and a close-miked balance that reveals superb playing while at the same time being less fun and involving. Steve Reich and Musicians on the Nonesuch label is a classic of course, but uses a rather heavy sounding organ in the opening – this first movement being a little faster than Ekkozone while the remaining movements are as close in timing as makes no difference. The LSO Percussion Ensemble is ok (review), but in this case is too light on the sustained organ notes in the first movement, and there are a couple of moments of imprecision in the ensemble playing elsewhere that dampened my enthusiasm somewhat – understandable for a live performance, but less desirable in repeated listening. Go back to the impact of Ekkozone’s opening after living the LSO for a while and you’ll be hooked straight away.

Double Sextet is also a fine piece, though to my ears not quite the masterpiece that is Sextet. Ekkozone put plenty of dramatic urgency into the first of its three movements, and once again the recording is full of detail and presence. The slow middle movement is soulfully melancholic and atmospheric – a cinematic scene of nocturnal regret, while the finale is even more of a bustling city street than the first.

I greatly enjoyed Ensemble Signal’s recording of the Double Sextet on the Harmonia Mundi label (review). The timings are a little shorter on this version, though not by enough to change the character of the music by a great deal. Ekkozone’s Slow movement has more emotional impact to my ears, their instruments more natural sounding in general, and the vibrato in the string sound adds an extra few ounces of heartstring tug to the cooler sound of Ensemble Signal.

All of these comparative notes are very marginal, and I haven’t come across any recordings of either of these works that are complete duds. As Adam Sliwinski writes in the booklet note for this release, Steve Reich’s music is “like a native language” to percussionists these days, and the chances are that if you walk down the corridor of any decently sized music academy’s percussion department you will hear one or other of his pieces being perfected. Ekkozone’s recordings of both works on this CD are second to none, and should be placed on your wish list forthwith.

-- MusicWeb International

Also available on Blu-ray

A DVD of a stunning 2014 performance choreographed by Belgian modern great Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, performed by members of the Paris Opera Ballet and set to Music for Eighteen Musicians, Steve Reich's major score composed in 1976. In tandem with the score rendered here by Ensemble Ictus and the Synergy Vocals ensemble, ‘Rain’ draws its spatial polyphony which manifests on the stage in a glorious pastiche of dancers and rhythm. Created by De Keersmaeker’s company, Rosas in 2001, “Rain” entered the Paris Opera Ballet's repertoire ten years later and reinforces her key role not just in the world of modern dance but in the worlds of contemporary art.

This release couples two of Reich’s “sextets” for the first time: the Sextet of 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet of 2007, which also makes its first appearance on LP. A striking difference between the two pieces is that the rhythmic world of Sextet mostly consists of a single-meter grooving, while Double Sextet works in the angular, off-kilter shifting meters reminiscent of Reich’s Tehillim (also of Stravinsky). Ekkozone impart a uniquely chamber music feel and color to these works while maintaining their propulsive character. Liner notes by Adam Sliwinski. LP lacquers and mastering by veteran Scott Hull at Masterdisk. Plated and pressed by RTI, California. Danish percussionist and conductor Mathias Reumert lives and breathes contemporary classical music. An in-demand soloist, he explores new percussive territory while remaining a committed interpreter of yesterday’s masterworks. As creator and leader of the acclaimed ensemble Ekkozone, he explores the bounderies between classical, world and experimental music in performances at rock and jazz festivals. Ekkozone is a Danish crossover ensemble that masterfully explores the lines between classical, world and experimental music. Formed by Mathias Reumert in 2013, the ensemble enjoys a special connection with Reich’s music and has performed a large part of his oeuvre, including several performances of Music for 18 Musicians.