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Steve Reich: The Four Sections / Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & Organ
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| List Price: | $16.98 |
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Average customer review:
Track Listing
- No.1, Strings (With Winds and Brass)
- No.2, Percussion
- No.3, Winds and Brass (With Strings)
- No.4, Full Orchestra
- Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ - Steve Reich, Reich, Steve
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #105777 in Music
- Released on: 1990-09-24
- Number of discs: 1
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Steve Reich's music is based around the phase shifting of percussion instruments. Even when he uses a larger ensemble--or a whole orchestra--you can still make out the percussion underneath. It's always there. In The Four Sections he takes a simple theme on the strings, then punctuates the flow with precise, percussive effects. It is very engaging music, some of the best this composer has written. Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ is a tour de force. Once again the percussion rules. Here the organ and voices provide the undercarriage for all sorts of wondrous mallet instruments to flow over the top. --Paul Cook
Customer Reviews
An audience-pleaser
A CD intended as an audience-pleaser. Both pieces are Steve Reich saying "Thank you" to his fans & trying to win over a few more, while also advancing his ideas. Four Sections was composed for Michael Tilson Thomas, so this performace will always be the root definitive. That the London Symphony Orchestra performed it so beautifully, as part of a Reich retrospective in 1988 was also a statement.
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & Organ (1973), composed for Reich's own popular ensemble, casts an exotic spell; African drumming through the sort of gamelan some imaginary Pythagoreans might have played if they had those kinds of bands. Wonderful, delicate music.
In both works the changes happen fast enough & the music is over almost before you can say "minimalism."
EXTREMELY MOVING
It is state of the art avante-garde classical music. The first four tracks, (The Four Sections) were written for orchestra. They are not in the traditional Steven Reich instrumentation, i,e, mallets and percussion, but they are super modern, highly emotionally charged pieces that are my favorites by this composer.
Not his best
This CD is a mixed bag. FOUR SECTIONS is Reich's least sucessfull piece. The orchestral writing is uninspired. On the other hand, the Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ - represents the composer at his best. Recorded sound on the latter work is super.
