Music for 18 Musicians

1 x CD AlbumUS 19981 - Pulses (5:26)2 - Section I (3:58)3 - Section II (5:13)4 - Section IIIA (3:55)5 - Section IIIB (3:46)6 - Section IV (6:37)7 - Section V (6:49)8 - Section VI (4:54)9 - Section VII (4:19)10 - Section VIII (3:35)11 - Section IX (5:24)12 - Section X (1:51)13 - Section XI (5:44)14 - Pulses (6:11) The pulsations of Steve Reich's landmark Music for 18 Musicians signify a New Music precipice. Where so much music after World War II explored extremes of tone, time, and register, Reich--and some of his colleagues in the 1960s and after--gravitated towards immersion in repetitions and telescoped focus on tonal areas. The combination of piano, vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, clarinets, violin, cello, and female voices is intoxicating in Reich's hands. Reich creates a middle-register, ringing vamp with burnished reed palpitations and, eventually, quick, rolling piano figures emerge in tandem with the percussion. This recording is the second-best known, next to the ECM Records version of the piece, and is warm and colorfully tingling. --Andrew Bartlett

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