Steve Reich turns 90 this year and New York is awash with performances of his music. But I doubt any will be close to the grandeur, clarity and entertainment value of the show at the Park Avenue Armory. It featured three generations of musicians – the original Steve Reich Ensemble, new-music ensemble Alarm Will Sound and young musicians from the Manhattan School of Music performing as Tactus – in consecutive performances of Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, with interstitial music by 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw. The players, at least in two of the groups, moved about the hall and audience, sometimes dancing, sometimes galloping, which involved the listeners interactively; we could hear the music as well as seeing the manner in which it is composed, with emphasis on individual instruments changing, and in so doing, inviting us into the creative process. We watched as a trying piano part was handed off from one player to another, seamlessly.
Conceived by Alan Pierson and called Staged Variations, one might think that an hour-long work played three times might try the patience but, on the contrary, it was composed as a gradual process, with the usual minimalist, hypnotic harmonic and textural changes more vivid than ever. For long periods, little happened melodically or harmonically; when it did in this setting, we could almost feel it, and the fact that the work ended with the same eleven chords as it begins, head-to-tail performances offered great continuity.
Reich and Philip Glass, coincidentally 90 next January, changed the language and discussion of 20th-century music, taking over from the atonalist vs. tonalist works and theories by the likes of Messiaen and Ligeti. They didn’t negate, they gave us a different way of listening. The Armory’s cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall, with seats on the floor as well as the stands, allowed plenty of room for the musicians’ movements. It proved ideal for such a show with Mark Grey’s sound design mixing live and amplified sounds flawlessly and Urs Schönebaum’s subtly dramatic ever-changing lighting filling the space while feeding another one of our senses. One could do little but bathe in the experience.
Marimbas, xylophones, maracas, vibraphone, pianos, clarinets, strings, voices and percussion were in a constant state of forward propulsion. The three performances were referred to as ‘Musicians at the Center’, ‘Musicians Moving’ and ‘Listeners at the Center’: and that’s precisely what we got. The Steve Reich Ensemble was placed in a small circle in the middle of a larger circle and their deliberate, strongly accented playing had a sturdy, masculine feel to it. Tactus expanded the space and many of the players and singers glided quietly around with deliberate but mellow movement as was befitting their softer, lovelier reading. As they moved, perspectives changed – having the bass clarinet directly in front of you gives you a new sense of balance – and altered our consciousness of the relentless xylophone.
The performance by Alarm Will Sound (in colorful capes) was the fastest – a full ten minutes quicker – and many of the players were placed on the periphery of the large circle, close to the audience, again altering our previous sound world. In addition, the singers, clarinettists and a cellist who strolled while he played (!) performed in the stands.
Shaw’s brief Viaduct was played during the interlude between the first and second Reich performances. A gentle piece featuring a solo singer and looping and overdubbing of others, plus a solo violin based on one of Reich’s repetitive melodies, it hit the spot.
An experiment, to be sure, but a successful one. Rehearsed within an inch of its life, no one group was better than the other. I’m not sure a three hour evening of the same music would work all the time, but the audience here know what they were getting into. Like Reich’s work itself, the repetitiveness underlined the differences as well. The crowd, many of whom lay on the floor and several of whom danced, loved it.
