Music for 18 Musicians - beautiful!

I can listen to this over and over again. I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, and incredibly sensual (or is it sensuous? I can never remember). So much to listen to in it.

Saw a performance of it a couple years ago by some students from the Eastman school of music, and they kicked its ass! So impossibly difficult, but dammit, they did it!

Ahhhhhhhhh.....it's like a slice of heaven on earth.

If you don't know what it is, it's playing now on http://www.wnyc.com , until perhaps 9:20 pm NY time.

I think I will go pull out the CD. Thanks for the idea.

somehow, the DU engine was grabbing the comma as part of the URL.

I was thinking of listening to it tonight, and turned on the radio, and there it was!

It is on CD?
180

There's a couple different recordings available of it.

My favorite one is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006E4C/qid=1068085391/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-4542275-2815859

But there are others. It sounds like this is the one that the radio is playing now.

I haven't listened to my copy in a long time. Time to pull it out, also.

Which do you like best?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000026258/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1_cp/104-6164515-1694342?v=glance&s=music&n=507846&st=*


But gaaah!! But it's on vinyl!! and I haven't set up my turntable since I moved. I guess I'll listen this weekend.

This version is the only one I know about.

or get yourself the DVDs. :-)

Sad.

Now I gotta pull out the CD.

Cripes, what an impossibly difficult piece of music to perform.

On Nov. 12 and 13-15 at BAM, there will be a dance by Kiersmacher to this music, with a live performance of the music by a group called Ichthos (don't know if I spelled that right).

I highly suggest that anyone/everyone go hear this piece of music whenever you have a chance. It's an amazing experience.

Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ. This was the first Steve Reich music I ever heard-- thirty years ago, at a new music concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They played a bunch of heavy, dire, symphonic music by Germanic (maybe Scandinavian) composers. Then the orchestra left the stage, and the stagehands removed all the chairs, and brought on vibraphones and microphones and Farfisa electric organs. Then Reich's ensemble, with Michael Tilson Thomas (who'd also conducted the orchestra music), came on and did this absolutely wonderful, ethereal music unlike anything I'd ever heard before, which seemed to combine the best features of Bach, raga, and the Grateful Dead. (I prefer the original recording on Deutsche Grammophon to the Nonesuch remake.)

In C, by Terry Riley. There's only one page of written music, and one page of instructions, and together, they produce an hour of lovely texture. I've had the opportunity to perform it, and it's wonderful how well it works out.

There's some great old Philip Glass stuff too. I like Music in Changing Parts and North Star, which combine the original austerity of Soho loft minimalism with a sense of playfulness.

Some day I'd like to perform In C. been tempted many times to try to put a performance together, but just haven't done it yet.

I'd also recommend for the people who can take it, "It's Gonna Rain". Mallets, Voices, and Organ is also quite beautiful. Music for 6 Marimbas is great. Organ phase - wow! Ah, so much good Reich music. Also "clapping music" - I've performed that. That's fun! But hard. Reich's newest piece - can't remember the name, but the video/music piece he did with Beryl about Bikini Island, the Hindenberg, and something else, is now avialable on CD/DVD incuding the video.

Music in Chainging Parts - good stuff. Also love Music in 12 Parts, Einstein, and many others.

Glass was my first intro to "minimalism", and Reich followed soon after, then explored out into Riley, Adams, Andriessen, etc.

I am a total Glass fanatic, but I'm coming to appreicate Reich more.

I still like to listen to it from time to time. I was introduced to Reich and Philip Glass at the same time. I'm still kicking myself for not seeing "Einstein at the Beach" live. I did see a Philip Glass opera last week at the University of Chicago - "The Sound of a Voice". It was very nice but, except for a few moments, I wouldn't have recognized it as Glass.

Though I have almost everything else of Glass'!

I lucked out that when I moved to NYC in '92, Einstein was touring again, so I was able to catch a performance at BAM. Also got to see my very first opera at the Met Opera - i was at opening night of Glass' The Voyage! Ended up going to see it three more times during its run at the Met.

Glass' new music has been, to me, mostly uninspiring. I'm really quite disappointed with much of what he's done in the last 5 years. Naqoyqatsi was quite good, and I liked his music for Dracula. But otherwise, not so exciting.

Still, I'm always excited when I see him out about in NYC. Stood next to Glass in line in a cafeteria a couple weeks ago. That was pretty cool.

through "Einstein", but it's all on vinyl. I got most of it in the late 70s. I saw his ensemble in San Francisco about that time. If I recall correctly, the sound technician sat cross-legged in the center of the stage with the rest of the musicians.

I haven't kept up, though I was pleased to notice that my college age son and his friends have discovered him and lots of other stuff from that time period, like Brian Eno.

Now I have it in my head, without even listening to it. Lovely, pulsing music.