Music For 18 Musiciens

Description

"Music for 18 Musicians" is probably the most renowned – and appreciated – work of the most popular composer of the American minimalist movement. Steve Reich (1934-), trained by both jazzman Hall Overton and avant-gardist Luciano Berio as well as classical composer Darius Milhaud, is much more receptive to modal jazz than to serialism, and his involvement in the creation of Terry Riley's "In C" sets him on the path of minimalist music. He experiments with various writing techniques (gradual phasing, additive and subtractive repetition…) and his curiosity leads him to African percussion, then to Balinese gamelans, during which time he composes "Music for 18 Musicians," enriching the stable pulse and rhythmic energy characteristic of his earlier works with a new instrumentation in both number and distribution, as well as a double and simultaneous rhythmic time: the successive waves of human breath, voices, and winds crash against the almost motionless pulsatile beat of the pianos and percussion (in concert, the relay of musicians results in a true choreography). The Links Ensemble, a duo of piano and percussion formed by the Durupt brothers, which has expanded for this project, funded by crowdfunding and honed on stages, primarily in France, for eight years, delivers a fluid and elegant interpretation here. (Bernard Vincken)