Steve Reich: Six Pianos; Terry Riley: In C

Piano Circus (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Piano Circus
• Audio CD (October 11, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Argo / Decca
• ASIN: B000004131
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #458,669 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sparkling, June 28, 2011

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Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Steve Reich: Six Pianos; Terry Riley: In C (Audio CD)

The ensemble made up of six (then young) pianists and called Piano Circus was formed in 1989, specifically to perform Reich's Six Pianos. The ensemble is still in existence today, although all its personnel has changed. Since the repertoire for six pianos was, obviously, fairly limited, they embarked upon numerous commissions, with a preference apparently for music of the minimalist/repetitive kind. They recorded a handful of CDs for Argo back then, among which I've reviewed Piano Circus: Fitkin: Sextet / Nyman: 1-100 / Seddon: 16 / Rackham: Which ever way your nose bends. This one, with Reich's Six Pianos and Riley's "In C", was naturally their debutante recording.

I'm not usually a great fan of the repetitive minimalism of (in order of decreasing distaste) Glass, Adams, Reich and Riley. It is not so much the repetition I mind - like everybody I love Ravel's Bolero - but what I feel to be a constant use of trite and saccharine harmonies and melodies. But these two pieces, among the most seminal compositions of repetitive minimalism ("in C" more or less created it in 1968, see my review of Terry Riley: In C), teem with energy and are hugely exciting.

Reich made the first recording of Six Pianos in 1974, on DG, Reich: Drumming; Six Pianos; Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (it is evidently the same version that is on B000025WTH and B000066I9C). There is a later version from 1977 that I haven't heard, From The Kitchen, Archives No. 2: Steve Reich and Musicians, Live 1977. Because the better sonics afford Piano Circus more clarity and sparkle, it is their recording I prefer.

Riley's in C is an open form. He leaves it to the performers to make the choices of tempo, dynamics, duration of the work, and even number of performers and instrumentation. In C can and has been played by a vast array of different ensembles. Following Riley's original version and recording that involved 11 overdubbed players performing mainly wind and brass instruments (see link above), versions were recorded with percussion (In C), voices (Riley: In C) and as far out as traditional Chinese instruments (Terry Riley: In C; Liang: Music of a Thousand Springs; Zen (Ch'an) of Water).

You'd think that 6 pianos would generate some blandness, but in fact, not at all, because Piano Circus were sensible to use not six same-sounding and timbrally homogeneous pianos, but an array of keyboard instruments: concert grand and upright piano, Rhodes piano, two harpsichords and vibraphone - which, by my count, totals seven although Piano Circus has only six players. And thanks again Wikipedia: "The Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS. As a member of the electrophone sub-group of percussion instruments, it employs a piano-like keyboard with hammers that hit small metal tines, amplified by electromagnetic pickups. A 2001 New York Times article described the instrument as "a pianistic counterpart to the electric guitar" having a "shimmering, ethereal sound".

The result is absolutely not bland, on the contrary, it is, once again, sparkling. Compared to Riley's ensemble (incidentally, they adopt exactly the same tempo, 132 beats/minute - and information I owe again to the excellent entry for "In C" on Wikipedia), the keyboard instruments also bring a more dynamic edge, and a greater clarity in the interplay of the myriad small melodic cells on which In C is built. The version by Piano Circus is hugely colorful, lively, dynamic and exciting, and when I'm hearing it, I prefer it to Riley's version.

The only drawback of this disc then is its short TT of 41:30. Another piece, say of Glass or Adams, should have been added, really.