All the stars were aligned at Peckham’s Multi-Storey Car Park on Saturday night, when Colin Currie Group arrived in town to perform Steve Reich’s Drumming (1970-71). It seemed especially fitting that one of the most significant works of the 20th century by America’s greatest living composer should receive a truly memorable performance on Independence Day.
This year also marks Reich’s 90th anniversary and 20 years since Currie’s ensemble first performed his music. In the ensuing decades, the Scottish percussionist and conductor's all-star cast of talented players have established themselves as arguably the most accomplished interpreters of Reich's music since the composer's own ensemble – Steve Reich and Musicians – ceased touring and performing.
This sense of occasion was heightened by the venue’s unique setting and acoustics (as was the case with guitarist Sean Shibe’s performance of Electric Counterpoint at the Aldeburgh Festival last month), with Currie informing a packed audience at the start of the concert that this was indeed a perfect time and place to experience Reich’s minimalist classic.
These factors became immediately apparent during the opening of Drumming’s Part I, where loud unison downward strokes on tuned bongos – stand-mounted and played with sticks – echoed throughout the depths of Bold Tendencies’ multistorey building: an elemental sound that resonated with the ages!
There was no holding back during the work’s opening exchanges, with the four percussionists, Currie amongst them, sculpting Reich’s African-inspired rhythms and trademark phasing technique with gritty finesse, each sequence dovetailing effortlessly with the next. The resulting patterns – melodic fragments that naturally emerge from the kaleidoscopic interplay of repeating figures – zoomed in and out with Doppler-effect frequency, imbuing the performance with a palpable sense of ebb and flow. These sweeping curves and contours have always characterised Colin Currie Group’s interpretations of Reich’s music, imparting a strong sense of goal-direction and multidimensionality.
If Part I projected a visceral ceremonial power, Part II was soft and restrained, offering a moment’s reflection amongst the music’s ceaseless flow. Mellow-sounding marimbas drifted in and out of view. Textural changes and contrasts were introduced subtly, sopranos Alison Ponsford-Hill and Katy Hill blending with the instruments’ resonant timbres to add splashes of vocal colour. A sense of buildup was nevertheless maintained, with all nine percussionists – three each on each marimba – at one point navigating a route through Reich’s interweaving patterns.
The music’s timbral axis shifted once again in Part III. Composed for three glockenspiels played by four players along with a whistling voice and piccolo, it’s a movement that listeners have struggled with in the past due to the piercing nature of the glockenspiels’ relentlessly high range. As if aware of this issue, Colin Currie Group dialled down the dynamic levels slightly, resulting in a floating, shimmering sound that generated a halo-like effect. Currie himself took on the responsibility of whistling the glockenspiel’s patterns, as Reich had done in early performances and recordings of the work. Rowland Sutherland’s filigree piccolo lines were executed with equal precision.
With Part III gradually disappearing into a shimmering musical haze, Part IV built a head of steam toward a grand finale with a similar sense of conviction heard in Part I. With bongos, marimbas, glockenspiels, voices and piccolo now all in play, the effect was far greater than the sum of its parts, and more multilayered, evoking a ritualistic symphonic sound. Each pattern faded in and out with an increased sense of drama and anticipation. The ending thus sounded sudden yet, at the same time, keenly expected, like a crashing wave against the shore.
And in that brief silence between the final chord and ensuing rapturous applause, one realized that Colin Currie and his ensemble had woven their magic upon Reich's music once more, bringing magic and mystique to Drumming’s richly coloured surfaces.
