Steve Reich: Reich/Richter

by George Jackson, Ensemble InterContemporain

Overview

The work recorded here had a long and interesting genesis as composer Steve Reich and visual artist Gerhard Richter discussed an evolving digital work of Richter's over some years, as it turned into a film by director Corinna Belz. Reich had worked several times before with visual artists and filmmakers, and art galleries were an important home for minimalist music in general, but Reich/Richter marks a new development. The Richter work, as shown in the film, begins with a series of horizontal stripes (depicted in the album graphics here), which are subdivided by factors of two down to the pixel level and then slowly return to stripes. Reich's music depicts this process, which is hardly alien to the general conception of his music, but what is interesting is that the music is not an exact mirror. Reich's work is four movements, and the two central ones, "Patterns & scales" and "Cross fades," seem to step out of Richter's progression. This work has been widely performed even by Reich's standards; it ran for some months at The Shed in New York and has been realized at various European venues, always with the film except for the current instance. Reich insists that it can also serve as a concert work. Listeners will have to decide for themselves about this, but the live performance here by the Ensemble Intercontemporain (a group that once upon a time would have had little to do with Reich) is sharp, and the Salle Boulez at the Philharmonie de Paris serves the work well acoustically. This is, at the very least, a testimony to Reich's continuing vitality as a composer and to his audience appeal; the album hit classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2022. ~ James Manheim

Product Details

Release Date:	08/05/2022
Label:	Nonesuch
UPC:	0075597911886
Rank:	72718

Album Credits

Performance Credits

George Jackson   Primary Artist,Conductor
Ensemble InterContemporain   Primary Artist,Ensemble,Orchestra

Technical Credits

Steve Reich   Composer,Liner Notes
Bob Ludwig   Mastering
Ben Tousley   Design
Vincent Villetard   Engineer,Artistic Director
Jean-Claude Mullet   Production Manager
Gerhard Richter   Cover Image
Jean Radel   Stage Manager
Stephane Foulon   Sound Director
Luc Hossepied   Photography
Michel Gacic   Sound Director
George Jackson   Liner Notes
Kerriann Otano   Liner Note Assistant
Olivier Leroux   Sound Director
France Musique   Producer
Laurent Cesard   Sound Director
Nicolas Berteloot   Sound Manager
Samuel Ferrand   Stage Manager