Alarm Will Sound, Steve Reich - Reich: Tehillim / The Desert Music

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Music reviews of Reich: Tehillim / The Desert Music

Music Review: Old Dog/New Dog
Rating: 5 Stars

Both Tehillim and The Desert Music are deeply felt personal works that reflect Reich's ongoing quest to marry music to spirituality in both religious and everyday life. Tehillim is a Hebrew setting of four Psalms while The Desert Music takes its texts--including a haunting reflection on Hiroshima--from the poet William Carlos Williams. Without sacrificing the strong rhythmic pulses that are the heart of Reich's music, Pierson draws a purity of tone from his performers that frees the texts from the somewhat secondary and muddy place they held in previous recordings. The result is a complete and satisfying musical experience--exuberant, mesmerizing and literate. These performances are labors of love and it shows through in every note.

What makes them even more remarkable is that they are performed not by some well established new music group but by Ossia, a student ensemble from the Eastman School of Music, abetted by a group of recent Eastman graduates called Alarm Will Sound--all led by Pierson, who was barely out of Pampers when the 65-year-old Reich wrote Tahillim in 1981 and The Desert Music in 1984. In fact, young Pierson, who graduated from MIT with a degree in physics, is just now wrapping up his doctoral studies in conducting at Eastman.

To say that this release completely blows away Michael Tilson Thomas' earlier versions of both works is not to diminish MTT but to simply point out how good Pierson really is. He has an innate ability to get into the mind of the composers he likes and is exceptionally adept drawing extraordinary performances out of blue collar players.

I had a first-hand preview of this recording back in May when Pierson played both these pieces with the same groups at Miller Theater. Of that performance, my partner Duane Grant, publisher of Sequenza21.com/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly wrote: "As conductor, interpreter and the re-orchestrator Pierson infused the music with spirit and energy. He knows the music and knows what he is doing. He is someone to watch... I walked away thinking that I had heard and seen something really remarkable."

To be absolutely fair to Tilson Thomas, Pierson has been studying and researching both Reich pieces for more than two years now and Ossia and Alarm Will Sound have performed them publicly on numerous occasions. In addition, dozens of hours have obviously been spent in rehearsals--a benefit of using a student ensemble whose members don't march to the beat of a musicians union time clock.

Equally important in making comparisons is the fact that Tilson Thomas premiered and recorded The Desert Music in an orchestral version. Reich quickly revised it for chamber ensemble and keyboards.

Although the orchestral version hasn't been performed since and the chamber version has become very popular, this Cantaloupe release is the premiere recording of the chamber piece. In what can only be described as new pup chutzpah, Pierson even suggested some "improvements" to Reich--more brass, no keyboards--to which the old dog agreed.

Pierson also provided some revisions--more strings and other small but significant alterations-to Music for Large Ensemble, which he conducted on the recent Triple Quartet recording. (Nonesuch - #79546)

All in all, there is a lot to admire here-the emergence of brilliant young conductor; further evidence that Cantaloupe is turning out the most provocative and exciting new music on the classical CD market today, and reaffirmation that Steve Reich is not only one of our greatest living composers but a cagey old Rover who is not ready for the canine retirement home just yet.

Description of Reich: Tehillim / The Desert Music

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