The 80th anniversary of minimalist pioneer Steve Reich's birth in 2016 has resulted in strong recordings of his music. This one by New York-based Ensemble Signal, which already had a successful recording of the classic Music for 18 Musicians under its belt, is especially nice. Here the group takes up little-known and more recent Reich works and makes a very strong case for them. The Double Sextet of 2007 was composed for a single sextet of strings, winds, and vibraphone performing with a tape of itself (as in Violin Phase), ...
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The 80th anniversary of minimalist pioneer Steve Reich's birth in 2016 has resulted in strong recordings of his music. This one by New York-based Ensemble Signal, which already had a successful recording of the classic Music for 18 Musicians under its belt, is especially nice. Here the group takes up little-known and more recent Reich works and makes a very strong case for them. The Double Sextet of 2007 was composed for a single sextet of strings, winds, and vibraphone performing with a tape of itself (as in Violin Phase), but here it is convincingly realized by 12 live musicians. The work is not more colored by jazz than other music by Reich, but from the sheer rhythmic energy with which the Ensemble Signal carries this off, it almost seems like a jazz work. Radio Rewrite (2013), one of the composer's newest pieces as of its recording here, is a bit off the beaten Reich track. The work is for 11 instruments, close to the ensemble heard in the Double Sextet. It resulted from the composer's friendship...
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