The Judge RAVES!

Date: 16/10/10

Review: Steve Reich - "Double Sextet"/"2x5" (Nonesuch 7559-79786-4)

You may recall that in July last year I had the privilege of being present for the world première of Steve Reich's latest work, 2x5. 'May recall', that is, in the sense that I've hardly shut up about it since.

I was wondering how long it would be before I would be able to hear an official release of a recording of the piece. I need wonder no more (and neither need you), as last month Nonesuch Records issued a recording of it (performed - as in the première - by Bang On A Can), along with a piece which was new to me - Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet of 2008.

At the time of hearing 2x5 at the Manchester Velodrome, I remarked that I knew too little of Reich's work to be able to give any worthwhile description of them. I have since remedied this to some extent by buying Nonesuch's five-CD retrospective Phases, which I can heartily recommend (it's also surprisingly cheap for a five-disc set). Some of the pieces on that set I had already heard - 1988's seminal Different Trains, and part of the guitar lines from Electric Counterpoint as sampled on The Orb's classic Little Fluffy Clouds - but the rest were all new to me, such as the fascinating (and at times disturbing) phase-shifting of Come Out (the more famous It's Gonna Rain is mystifyingly absent from the collection) and the sublime Music For 18 Musicians.

I do not claim as a result of my short, if broad, education however to have any ability to dissect technically any of this. Musicology, like most criticism, always seems to me to be concerned with mystifying with terminology when it should use less opaque language to clarify for any potential listener. So, I have to make do with impressions and instincts, with which I may succeed in enlightening the reader.

The pairing of these two works - each at around or just over twenty minutes in length - is not merely fortuitous, in that they combine to give a CD of reasonable length and are also of the composer's two most recent works; it is also highly appropriate in that they have a great deal in common between them.

Each piece is divided into three sections: fast, slow and fast (although the two fast sections in each case have a few bars of minimal playing in them as a sort of breathing point); each piece can be played by a full ensemble (two flutes, two clarinets, two violins, two cellos, two vibraphones and two pianos in the case of the Sextet; four electric guitars, two electric basses, two sets of kit drums and two pianos in the case of 2x5) or by a group half the size accompanying a recording of themselves, which is what we have here - a technique which Reich first used for solo instruments in 1967's Violin Phase, and for ensembles in Different Trains.

So we come to the pieces themselves. Double Sextet, with the instrumentation as described in the previous paragraph provided by the American ensemble eighth blackbird, maintains the dense interplay and interlocking of percussive rhythms but, being Reich, is carried as much by the piano (which, technically, is of course a percussion instrument) as the vibes. There is an insistency about this rhythm in the first fast section which drives the whole work forward with both determination and ease; there's no sense of haste here. There is, however, a sense of street hustle and bustle; this is a very urban sounding piece. The strings come in very early, but the woodwind doesn't come totally to the front until about halfway through the section.

The slow section introduces an ambience of slight menace into the work; indeed at one point a slight mis-match of phase makes the doubled violins sound like brass. Slow sections by composers of Reich's stamp can be tricky for musicians to pull off, especially with small groupings. However, it isn't necessary for a composer to have sixteen violinists, eight violas, four cellos and a couple of lost-looking double-bassists to create a dense texture. eighth blackbird (note fashionable all-lower-case name) provide that density via the compactness of the scoring and their deftness of touch.

The air of unease created by the slow section carries forward into the early stages of the final fast section, but is ultimately replaced by bright and pleasing harmonies, until the percussive bass of the piano returns to stamp (or possibly stomp) its mark on the performance, building up to a climax of the rhythm carried to the end of the piece by the treble instruments.

The piece is an unalloyed delight, and may be the best which Reich has produced for some twenty years. Although to win the Pulitzer Prize for this rather than the majestic Music For 18 Musicians may be simply the prize-givers realising that the accolade was long overdue, Double Sextet would be a worthy winner in any year.

The recording - produced in Chicago by Judith Sherman and mixed in New York by Sherman, John Kilgore and Steve Reich himself - is of the highest quality. It is clear, clean, bright and dynamic, and brings out the best in the piece...

...and in the performance. I had never heard (or even heard of) eighth blackbird before this, but I am hugely impressed by not only the technical excellence of their playing (which, with this type of music, can't be easy even for the most experienced and talented musicians; I've often wondered how the Philip Glass Ensemble manage it, for example), but by the verve and enthusiasm which is obvious in spades throughout, another difficult trick with such tightly-defined works.

2x5 (and I've been calling it "two by five" all along whereas it seems, from the mouth of the composer itself, it should be called "two times five") marks Steve Reich's first foray into rock instrumentation (although one could make the claim for Electric Counterpoint on that score, but that was for a solo instrument rather than a group). As with the première, it is played on this recording by Bang On A Can.

As with the Double Sextet, the piece begins with the same dense, insistent rhythm. This is again carried by the piano(s), but here augmented by the doubled electric bass, an instrument which Reich finds attractive for his style in the sense that - as opposed to its acoustic counterpart - you can play very crisp, well-defined notes on it. When I reported to you after the Velodrome gig that it seemed to me that the piano and bass were carrying the beat rather than the drums, I feared I may have been talking out of my ignorance (or, more likely, out of my arse), but I'm glad to read from the sleeve notes of this recording that that is what the composer intended all along. During this first section there is a pleasing density of interplay between each of the doubled basses and between them and the pianos.

What Reich also tells us is how the guitars ended up playing the notes that they did. Some strange interaction between his software programs made the guitar sounds come out an octave higher than he had intended. It seems to have been one of those happy accidents out of which great moments of art can come, as the high treble of the guitars in the finished version chime beautifully, counterpoised as they are with the driving bass rhythms. Indeed, at times they sound something like harpsichords. The kit drums, however, sound rather less coherent, although their rôle here is more to play around the main rhythm rather than within it.

The second, slow, section causes a problem. It seems to suffer from a lack of cohesion and drive, from a jerkiness which is uncharacteristic of the composer, and which may be down to a lack of focus in the performance itself which overall, I have to say, doesn't seem to be on a par with that of the live performance I witnessed. In the light of this, it is probably just as well that this section is a short one (scarcely over three minutes).

The final section seems at first to be little more than a recapitulation of the first, but it garners interest by the fact that one set of guitars now augments the rhythm line still being driven by the pianos and basses, whereas the other set plays a pleasing melody line over and around it. One is inevitably reminded of Pat Metheny's work on Electric Counterpoint, but I also heard echoes of some of Frank Zappa's compositional style in there as well. Again, as in the Sextet, the piece ends with the rhythm being played at the treble end.

Although the piece is still a pleasing one, it suffers not only from comparison with its companion piece on this disc, but also from a rather lifeless production (done in New York with the same producer and mixers, but a different sound engineer), and possibly from a less proficient and rather too loose performance. Reich's works, as with those of his confrère Glass, require a very tight ensemble, especially when that group is doubling a recording of themselves. This does not always happen in this recording, which is a shame.

So, overall then. Worth getting? Yes, particularly for the Double Sextet, this recording of which may already have earned 'definitive' status. As for 2x5, one can only hope that at some point a performance and production will come out which will realise the full potential of the piece and buff out its more obvious deficiencies, especially in the slow section.

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