Steve Reich
Music for 18 Musicians

Well, today I will attempt to navigate waters that are not exactly my own. I will try to talk to you about a type of music that not many appreciate, perhaps little known (though highly esteemed by critics) and which I personally adore.

I write this review with the utmost humility and simplicity, as I am of the opinion that discussing certain music is not exactly a task for everyone, but given the great love I feel for listening to it, I will try, and perhaps I will also give you some useful information.

We are talking about Minimalism.
Minimalism originated in the sixties and stands in contrast to the avant-garde music of the Schoenberg, Webern, Berg school. Minimalist music is not, in fact, atonal like the abstractionism of the Second Viennese School; it is actually a process that makes avant-garde music itself more accessible, based on coherent compositions, but also on improvisation (we will see later what this means).
It is music that is apparently dissonant, but never lacking an implicit melody simply clouded by the repetitiveness of the sounds. So we will not find a precise format; often performers have complete freedom of choice in the repetition of each phase (as in the case of Music For 18 Musicians), or they will improvise freely according to their instincts.

The founding fathers of Minimalism are the two great composers and improvisers Terry Riley and La Monte Young, the perfectionist Steve Reich, and the eclectic Philip Glass.

All of them published various works during the sixties, containing studies and analyses on this new type of music (Riley, in particular, was already far ahead, just listen to Rainbow In Curved Air (1969). But it is with the seventies and onwards that each of the four composers will find their own path and perfect their own style.

If Riley and Young found in improvisation the peak of their musical ideology (Persian Surgery Dervishes, The Well Tuned Piano), while Glass explored more or less every field related to last century's classical music, engaging in both various Minimalist gems and sometimes moving completely away from the concept of Minimalism itself, Reich appears to be the most coherent and fossilized of the four.
It will indeed be Steve Reich who will continue to work on all the possible paths that this music offers, studying every detail of his compositions, making them increasingly meticulous and majestic.

And it is precisely with Music For 18 Musicians that Reich realizes his artistic perfection.
Just like the "ancient" Classical music, which I would personally encompass from medieval music to romanticism, even for last century's Classical music, there is the one who composes and the one who performs. In this performance published in 1978 for ECM, it is Reich himself who leads his own Ensemble (something that also happened in the past, but for obvious reasons is impossible to listen to nowadays).
Yes indeed, Ensemble is the right word, as if Reich’s early works (and Minimalism in general) included at most a handful of musicians, Music For 18 Musicians is also the first work of the American composer for large orchestras. Large by Minimalism standards, to be clear, here we still speak of, precisely, "18 Musicians," to be exact a cello, a violin, two clarinets, four pianos, three marimbas, two xylophones, a vibraphone (which also acts as the orchestra conductor), and four female voices.

The result is nothing short of astonishing; Reich is in every way an innovator in search of new musical paths that any artist, of any genre, can attempt to follow.
We are indeed talking about a truly universal work, and moreover one of the three most important works concerning all of Minimalism.

I will not dwell much on the technical or theoretical functions of the work, as I would not be capable, I simply invite you to listen.
Undoubtedly, it is not music for everyone, but if you consider that this man was composing such things in the early seventies, it is clear how he was about twenty years ahead of the rest of the competition.
And while being able to direct, I repeat, any genre, (even Noise Rock can pass through this with careful listening, does Glenn Branca ring a bell?), especially I feel obliged to mention electronics starting from the eighties. Mainstays of IDM or Ambient such as Aphex Twin or Tim Hecker have surely passed through the minimalism of Reich and company. But not only them, let's just mention the famous Baba o' Riley' (1971!) by the rebellious rockers The Who, deliberately a homage to the distinguished music of composer Terry Riley. Sign that this music, Minimalism, influences and continues to influence any artist in any field, whether it be music or other forms of art. Music that goes beyond the very concept of music and that probably says more than one might imagine on a superficial first and distracted listening.