Phases, Barbican &amp; LSO St Luke's, London<img src="http://www.independent.co.uk/template/ver/gfx/fourstar.gif"></img >

Keith Potter
Sunday 15 October 2006 19:00 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Between the switching on of the equipment for the pioneering tape piece It's Gonna Rain on Saturday morning, and Steve Reich and Musicians' exhilarating account of the evergreen Music for Eighteen Musicians on Sunday night, the Phases festival's final weekend offered eight concerts, plus several other free events, of often glorious music.

If not everything about the planning and execution of this jamboree was perfect, it surely clarified that Reich is, at 70, not only one of the seminal creative figures of our time but also writing some of his best music yet.

The brand-new Daniel Variations, given its world premiere in that final concert, sets words by and relating to the American reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002. Its tolling metallophones and four pianos take off from the fresh harmonic and timbral territory already charted by Reich in the past few years, not least in the recent You Are (Variations), and takes it to yet newer regions of lyrical intensity and rich darkness. Daniel Variations was given a fine first outing by the Steve Reich Ensemble and Synergy Vocals under Brad Lubman.

Standards of performance over the weekend were, indeed, astonishingly high, as not only the composer's own group, often working with Synergy Vocals, but also the Kronos Quartet, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Theatre of Voices, Icebreaker, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia and a whole raft of soloists performed both many of Reich's own major scores and also music by composers close to him in a variety of ways.

Both the late-afternoon programmes bombed: whoever thought it was a good idea to get the BBC SO to play some Bartok in the dry-as-dust acoustic of the Barbican Theatre, causing a logjam of stage resetting that was merely the most spectacular example of a phenomenon endured over the whole two days?

The remixing encounters involving DJ Spooky and Coldcut were disappointingly dull revisitings of their contributions to the Reich Remixed album. And while a Glenn Branca premiere revealed his feisty, ear-splitting best, the new vocal work by Gavin Bryars, set amid another shambles of technical hitches, was drearily conventional.

But I will not easily forget the performance of Drumming on Saturday night by Reich's own crack team: a lot older, perhaps dropping a stitch or two, but mesmerising in their loving celebration of this complex, absorbing ritual that is Reich at his very, very finest.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in