Customer Reviews

Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians

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Many other reviews comment generally on the beauty of this piece. Here are my concise views and recommendations:

-This recording is sonically precise, but slow and less organic than others available (e.g. the ECM recording). The sense of the overall tapestry of the work is diminished by the close miking one hears throughout. Certain little blips or phrases are artificially highlighted for too long. Too bad, because re-recordings of other works (such as Music for Mallets, Voices, and Organ) also seem to ephasize individual instruments above an overall wash from the ensemble without picking up on little bits of phrases from one instrument too much.

Recommendations: --For a first listen, the ECM recording is essential. It preserves the sense of this piece occurring in a performance space. Having heard the piece live twice, the role of reverb and the concert hall is considerable. Only the ECM recording comes close to hearing this piece live.

--If you want a dead-on reading, with maximum clarity of each line, I recommend the Ensemble Modern recording. Their performance is closer to what seems the natural tempo. Their mixing establishes the interplay between the parts very clearly without "artifically" highlighting certain parts too much, as seems to happen in Reich's second recording.

I own all three recordings of Music For 18 Musicians; I suggest that for anyone who is truly interested in the work, owning all three is a must.

In order of preference for me, the recordings go ECM, RCA, and Nonesuch.

No recording of 18 quite captures the piece as it sounds live. (I've had the luck to see it twice with Steve Reich & Musicians at the San Francisco Symphony.) However, the ECM version comes close to duplicating the timbre of the real thing. To my ears, it sounds the most "live".

The RCA/Ensemble Modern recording is perhaps the best performed. Ensemble Modern emphasizes Reich's earlier philosophies about music as a process; they clearly delineate the various instruments and lines in the recording, and they properly accentuate the lead mallet lines. (I say "proper" because that's what it sounded like when I saw 18 performed live.) What this recording lacks in lush beauty, it gains in near-academic perfection.

The new Nonesuch recording was designed from the ground up to be a recording, not a live performance. Most instruments are close-mic'd, which gives the odd feeling of standing next to all of the instruments at the same time. I love it for its open spaces, surprising tempo, and stunning imaging of the mallet instruments. It is as lush and beautiful as the ECM recording, but I prefer the subtleties and pacing of the ECM more.

Composed in 1976 by Reich, this is a piece that goes down as a classic in my view. Although some of his earlier work with tape manipulations now sounds a bit dated and simply doesn't hold up as well, the beauty of Music For 18 Musicians still sounds as fresh to me now as anything that I've heard lately. This particular release on Nonesuch, recorded in 1996 is actually about 11 minutes longer than the original composition, but that length really only adds to the bliss of the piece. At 14 tracks and almost 67 minutes of music, it's just over an hourlong excursion into what feels like a safer place.

Performed by musicians, just as the title states, it actually might fall into what many would consider 'trance' music. It's highly repetitive, and while it bears no relation to the crap being pedalled as trance music these days, it's nearly as hypnotic as any music you'll find. With vocals, stringed instruments, lots of percussive elements (vibraphone, gamelan, marimba, maracas), pianos, and clarinets, it's one of those pieces of music that you can trace back to as a starting point for not only individual artists, but genres as well. It blends non-western, classical, and even a touch of jazz for something that was original at the time, and still stands solidly on that ground.

With all this praise I'm heaping on this piece, I must warn that if you don't enjoy repetitive music, you probably won't appreciate this release quite as much. While it is repetitive, though, it's far from minimal (although it's grouped into that category often). Unfurling over the course of 11 different parts, as well as phasing pieces that lead into and end the overall composition, it breathes like something real and organic as each instrument and voice take their place with the harmony and again blend back down into the mix. It's constantly moving and shifting, and while there are moments of quieter transition, there are also ones of breathtaking splendor as melodies overlap and change speed while different instruments come into and out of focus. It's like taking several different minimal paintings printed on transparencies and subtely shifting them over one another to create new pieces as you see colors blend into one another and fold into something new each time.

Considering that the piece is one that's performed by actual people, the juxtaposition of the different elements is quite amazing (of course, imagining how you would program something like this electronically also staggers the mind), and as mentioned before, you can hear little bits of everyone from Tortoise to different electronic artists like Vladislav Delay and Gas (Mike Ink) having developed parts from it. While their were groundbreaking pieces both before and after it, it's one of those recordings that will envelope you if you allow it to. So, if you're a fan of modern electronic music or even post rock, you should probably hunt down this release and hear it at least once. If you can, simply stop doing everything else, pop it in the CD player and relax with it on a pair of headphones for the entirety of the release. You'll come to just under 70 minutes later when the CD stops spinning, and chances are you'll want to do it again sometime. I certainly do.

(from almost cool music reviews)

When a work of this stature invokes a level of profound and richly rewarding response from a listener, its difficult to know, or to offer any explanation for, just what it is that separates a work of this magnitude from music, even excellent music, which just doesn't reach this level of expression. And this isn't music that's likely to turn everybody's crank, either, as by any standard that considers the vast range of kinds and qualities of music available in the world today, its unique, unusual, and insistently individualistic in almost every way.

This music is capable of functioning on any number of different levels, as the many Amazon reviews show. On a less complex level of response its ravishing surface textures can be accepted as simple ravishment, its simple harmonic structure can be enjoyed for its simplicity, and its flowing tempos can absorb a listener in the sheer sense of encompassing flow. Yet for many listeners the amazingly rich washes of sound arising from the intricate interlacing of simply repeated but subtly shifting motifs engender a complex, suffusing experience that somehow transcends any attempt to limit the listening response to individual elements or individual emotional responses. Like any great musical work this piece offers a more encompassing, synthesized representation of a way of looking at, responding to, and understanding the world, and any listener fortunate enough to have their synapses firing along the same lines is apt to experience a truly involving and powerful response.

This music offers a powerful metaphor of life itself. Not literal, not representational, not discursive, but cogent, coherent, and rich with the depth and involving flow of life. And not just a slice of life, but a whole, urgently encompassing sense of life's textures, and moods, and endless flowing depths and dynamics. It's really a glorious thing that music can do this, and Reich's stunning achievement with "Music For 18 Musicians" was to accomplish this with his own new vocabulary, which he brought to fully realized maturity in this piece, and which so clearly and simply reduces commentary about movements and styles to insignificance in the face of such patiently and potently mesmerizing expression, unfolding its layers of sound, meaning, and complexity out of such basic tools.

But it's also just simply a gorgeous example of sonic manipulation, with seemingly endless textures flowing in and out with the carefully modulated interplay of repeated tones and motifs. There's no need to invoke aesthetic theory, or to listen to this piece only when a totally involving musical symbolism is needed to reaffirm one's connection to the world, because its rich textural flow functions just fine as simple ravishment, and its simplicity of structure can soothe and involve simultaneously, and that flow - that glorious, by turns gentle and then insistent flow, can just carry a listener away in rapture.

A seminal work like "Music For 18 Musicians" occupies a rare space, and accomplishes with seeming ease what lesser works are unable to do, and in doing so demonstrates the function and the power of truly great music to organize sound into a coherent symbolic representation of life's endless flowing textures. And that's a wonderful thing.

The worst question you could ever ask a music fan, one who is always searching for something more to broaden their sense of what drives this passion for music, is what their favorite album or piece of music.

Now I'm a fan of folk, indie rock, some hip-hop, country, choral music, hardcore, and other classical artists, but it wasn't until I heard 'Music For 18 Musicians' during my sophomore year in college during a semester abroad in Oxford, England that I could settle on one album for that top spot. No more sifting through Kid A, Pet Sounds, Rites Of Spring, or Heartbreaker...No this was the mathematically perfect piece of music that you've been looking for all your life.

I originally heard the ECM recording (only through the first 5 chords) and normally the first version I hear tends to be my favorite, but the Nonesuch recording is so rich, longer, better recorded, and it's divided into separate tracks as everyone has already pointed out.

The way '18' weaves in and out of it's chords is not an ambient minimalist piece that you can enjoy as mere background music like an Eno record but this is more for concentrated listens. Not to say that it can't be enjoyed in the passive form, but I definitely get more from the concentrated full-run sessions.

Beware though; this piece can often turn you against all other music for long periods of time. Also it made me realize I would never be a musician. You'll just want to write something this perfect, and I knew that I couldn't. My talents lie elsewhere.

If I had to cite one piece of music that stood out as monumental landmark in the music somewhat problematically known as "minimalism", then Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians' would be it. A beautiful, lush, shimmering piece which sounds as fresh now as it did when it was written about 25 years ago. The experience of listening to this piece never seems to diminish, even with frequent listenings.

That said, the Nonesuch recording overall isn't nearly as well-balanced as the original ECM one. The all-important bass clarinets have been mixed lower. The Nonesuch recording also introduces index points for easy access to sections of the pieces, but the only way to really experience this piece is from start to finish, without a break.

In short, I would recommend the ECM recording over this one for overall sound. (It also has a beautifully apt cover design, featuring artwork by Reich's wife, Beryl Korot).

As a professional, conservatory-trained violinist, I was raised in the world of "common practice" classical music, and have always been wary of anything that's been labeled "avante-garde." (In my undergraduate years, I admit I was a bit scared off by a casual listening of Reich's "Come Out.") But recently I thought I'd give this piece a try, and my appreciation of music--in general!--has been completely transformed. The rich, tonal sonorities cannot be compared with any previous works of his generation.

This is not background music, nor is it intended to be hypnotizing. It should be listened to with concentration, to fully enjoy the richness of the harmonies, and to sort out the vertical layers of sound Reich so masterfully constructs with the simplest of materials. Reich wrote his music so that the music itself becomes a process of unfolding melodic and rhythmic patterns, and listening to this piece becomes a process of discovering them. You would never believe that listening to almost 68 minutes of "repeated notes" could be so fascinating.

When you mention minimalist music, a lot of people close their minds, anticipating dull, repetitive, emotionless sounds (read: Phillip Glass). That is not the case with this piece, nor with any other Reich composition that I've heard. I was exposed to "Music for 18 Musicians" for the first time several years ago, when I was in college, and my attitude toward minimalism was forever changed. You can listen to this in a couple of ways: just sit and let it wash over you, or focus on the rhythms, the continual building of phrases, the patterns, the layers of patterns, and the greater patterns created by the layers. It is an astonishing work, and I was privileged enough to see it performed live a few nights ago, by Reich and his colleagues. The musicians frequently move around the stage, taking over for each other, I assume to avoid exhaustion, but it becomes an astonishing dance and display of teamwork. They received a standing ovation and three curtain calls. My mother loved it, and she's 79! If your mind is open to new things, and you appreciate the emotional impact of music, listen to this.

Minimulist music is impossible to explain to someone who doesn't understand it or appreciate it. It's not about repetition. If you've ever heard a Philip Glass piece, you'll know what I mean. But, unlike Glass, Reich takes the music to another level of juxtaposed chords and melodies. His ground-breaking work, Music For 18 Musicians, has broken the mold of standardized chords and harmonies to create a living, breathing work of art. Perhaps that would be the best way to describe it. His music is not music, in the larger sense of the word. It is art. Think of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings as a piece of music, and you'll get the idea. But, don't think Mozart or Bach. It's not standard, melodic notes that can be played as a tune in your head. It's a complex structure of subtly balanced tones, in this case, each note falling into place while added to another. It's a difficult piece to listen to, certainly not something you can put on your player and not think about. Add that to the fact that it's an hour-long continual piece of music. But, this is its magnificence. It's a compelling, vibrant, powerful work of astonishing mastery. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for the musicians to play such a complicated piece. It's remarkable. Be sure to get it on CD, as opposed to cassette. The cassette version divides the piece between sides. Plus, the CD sound quality is infinitely better for this piece. If you like this one, you must also try Violin Phase/Octet by Reich.

Whether you prefer the original ECM recording or you own the Nonesuch version, this work will blow your mind if you possess the patience. The first time I heard "18" I was a freshman in college, listening to it with my composition major friend who swore by it. I thought it was complete garbage. Today, I will not only tell you that it is THE MOST influential piece of music in my life, but that it rewards me with something new everytime I listen to it. If you own a set of those Bose noise cancelling headphone, this is the piece for which to use them. This piece is intoxicating with its velvety and shimmering textures. If you want to scan through it first, try Sections IIIA and VI. Like all good "ambient" music, this piece is fine background music, but its real rewards come from an intense listening session.