Search - Steve Reich :: Music for 18 Musicians

Music for 18 Musicians
Steve Reich
Music for 18 Musicians
Genres: Jazz, Pop, Classical
 
  •  Track Listings (1) - Disc #1

This has to be Steve Reich's most difficult work to perform; but he's done it. Several times. Music for 18 Musicians is for violin, cello, 2 clarinets doubling bass clarinet, 4 women's voices, 4 pianos, 3 marimbas, 2 xyl...  more »

     
?

Larger Image

CD Details

All Artists: Steve Reich
Title: Music for 18 Musicians
Members Wishing: 4
Total Copies: 0
Label: ECM Records
Release Date: 3/15/1994
Genres: Jazz, Pop, Classical
Styles: Vocal Jazz, Vocal Pop
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 781182112926

Synopsis

Amazon.com
This has to be Steve Reich's most difficult work to perform; but he's done it. Several times. Music for 18 Musicians is for violin, cello, 2 clarinets doubling bass clarinet, 4 women's voices, 4 pianos, 3 marimbas, 2 xylophones and a metallophone (vibraphone with no motor). It's a 1974 composition that focuses entirely on the rich staccato that gives Minimalism its unique sound. However, Reich turns all of this into actual music by adding the richness of the metallophone and the women's voices. Whatever else people may have said about minimalism, pro or con, a work such as Music for 18 Musicians demonstrates its genuine legitimacy. --Paul Cook
 

CD Reviews

TUNE IN, TURN ON, DROP OUT, BABY
08/19/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hey you acidheads: this is the bomb. In all seriousness, if any one record has the power to induce an altered and higher state of consciousness, it is Reich's seminal 1978 release on ECM. I spent days with this disc on repeat holed up in a desert apartment when it debuted, and it's amazing how 20 years later it still hold the power to transform and enchant. Indelible!"
The first time around still stays with me...
04/29/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the one! One of ten or so pieces that changed my life (in the way of listening and influences, along with "The Rite of Spring", "Take Five," Webern en masse, and "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" (seriously!)). I even had the pleasure of meeting Steve Reich a few years ago after a concert, asking him to autograph my copy of this disc, and thanking him for writing this (he greatly appreciated it). How this piece changed my life was that it got me listening to music in yet another way (hitting me similarly like Stravinsky, Brubeck, Webern, and Zappa, amongst a host of others). I came across this piece (via LP) almost nine years ago (as of this writing), and I can say without exaggeration that I have been listening to this at least once a week since then. What is it about this piece that often sends me into such a passionate frenzy? To be honest I really cannot say, perhaps it was the timing, a setting, I cannot tell. What I do know though is that this is still by far the best recording of "18" that I have heard (not to take away from the other two that have followed) and it still sounds fresh to my ears as it did then and will still many weeks from now (as of this reading)."