Four Organs

Track Listings

1. Phase Patterns

2. Pendulum Music I

3. Piano Phase

4. Pendulum Music II

5. Four Organs

6. Pendulum Music III

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
With all the attention accorded Steve Reich in the wake of his 60th birthday--and the mammoth 10-CD box set--it's great to have an ensemble dip unabashedly into the composer's distant past. The four works on this set all hail from the 1968 to 1970 period and all embody a creative risk-taking that Reich has moved away from in favor of a more musically articulate, broader-spanning aesthetic. Nevertheless, Piano Phase ranks as one of Reich's great achievements, and in the hands of pianists Steffen Schleiermacher and Josef Christof, the vaunted phases of synched-up playing last longer and sound more tempered than Nurit Tilles and Edmund Niemann's recorded debut of the piece.

Four Organs and Phase Patterns have an edge that comes directly from the piercing tones of the electric keyboards used, finding fruitful ground between Reich's phase work and a more repetitive singularity of phrases that forces undivided attention on the compositional increments. Pendulum Music is the true oddity here, separated into three iterations that each lasts around five minutes. The piece is written for dangling microphones that sway like pendulums over a speaker, eliciting feedback that sounds positively like a bass or contrabass clarinet. Of course this work falls somewhere between composition and performance art, but it works brilliantly--leaving the listener convinced that the sonorities are acoustic (not to mention human) in origin. --Andrew Bartlett --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Tracks:

Phase Patterns
Pendulum Music I
Piano Phase
Pendulum Music II
Four Organs
Pendulum Music III

Amazon.com

With all the attention accorded Steve Reich in the wake of his 60th birthday--and the mammoth 10-CD box set--it's great to have an ensemble dip unabashedly into the composer's distant past. The four works on this set all hail from the 1968 to 1970 period and all embody a creative risk-taking that Reich has moved away from in favor of a more musically articulate, broader-spanning aesthetic. Nevertheless, Piano Phase ranks as one of Reich's great achievements, and in the hands of pianists Steffen Schleiermacher and Josef Christof, the vaunted phases of synched-up playing last longer and sound more tempered than Nurit Tilles and Edmund Niemann's recorded debut of the piece.

Four Organs and Phase Patterns have an edge that comes directly from the piercing tones of the electric keyboards used, finding fruitful ground between Reich's phase work and a more repetitive singularity of phrases that forces undivided attention on the compositional increments. Pendulum Music is the true oddity here, separated into three iterations that each lasts around five minutes. The piece is written for dangling microphones that sway like pendulums over a speaker, eliciting feedback that sounds positively like a bass or contrabass clarinet. Of course this work falls somewhere between composition and performance art, but it works brilliantly--leaving the listener convinced that the sonorities are acoustic (not to mention human) in origin. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews:

electric see-saw.......2002-05-17

The music on this cd feels like such a futuristic rush in its phasing & tempo & meditative keenness of process, it's great. The first piece, Phase Patterns, is, in my opinion, on of Reich's most monumental compositions. When it ends 15 minutes after it began, like a seed become a coconut-bearing palm tree while you did notice the changes, you might be surprised to discover so much time has passed. The piece weakes you up like a cup of coffee, too. Then, with an effect of keeping your attention on the music, the pendulum music piece that follows is so much slower, with so much less embellishment. Logically the Pendulum Music cuts on the cd are perfect. The music develops minutely not according to a person's understanding of sound but to physics, gravity & weight & inertia pulling microphones back & forth over speakers. & Piano Phase is just brilliant. The music in that piece, for me, summons images of purple lasers in an otherwise darkened room. So beautiful. For the 3 sections of the cd I've written about so far, 5 stars. The only problem I find in the continuity of listening is in Four Organs. It's a piece I have to be in the mood for, & I almost never am. To my understanding, every Reich fan says that most other Reich-listeners swear by the piece, but that they themselves don't like it. Seems like no one likes it. It's interesting in the way the notes fan out over 18 minutes from 2 nude notes to so much more...horizontal area (if that means anything to you), on top of constant maracas, but I don't know. The different tracks & consistencies of organs & maracas do create a very complex sense of time for the duration of the piece, while one stretches out enormously & the other stays the same. It has historical & conceptual value if it's not always enjoyable to listen to. Other than Four Organs, wonderful music! Classic avant-garde Reich for phasing & minimalistic experimentation like nothing else!

Interesting. That's about it........2001-11-10

I'm a twenty four year-old Reich fan and I'd never heard phase patterns or pendullum music before this. Having enjoyed 'Come out' and 'It's gonna rain', I was curious to hear more early works. At the risk of sounding extreme, pendullum music is a waste. Why anyone enjoys listening to four michrophones swinging over amplifiers creating rythns of feedback is beyond me.
I've always disliked 'Four Organs' even though most Reich fans swear by it. The first half is enjoyable, but how long and loud does a dominant chord have to be? To be fair, this is the best recording of it I've heard and if you're in the right mood, you can tolerate it.
So why three stars? 'Phase patterns is perhaps one of the best (and most inventive) of Reich's works I've heard. I've since heard earlier recordings (including the poorly taped premeir wih Chambers, Gibson, Murphy and Reich). Not only is this the tightest, but the production is great. Just enough reverb to create a warm ambience, but percussive enough to keep the steady paradiddle (LRLLRLRR) rythm. It's obvious the performers were comfortable with phasing.
Which brings me finally to piano phase. This version is paralell to Reich's 'Nonesuch' recording. The only difference is that this one is quite a bit faster leavin two distinct effects. The first is it's undeniable forward motion leaves the listener in forceful suspense, constantly awaiting the next pattern. The second is that the the major second intervals give the effect of trills and serve as satisfying contrast when followed (as they often are) with fourths and fifths.
In short, if you are a Reich fan who is unfamiliar with the earliest works buy this album. You may very well hate the more esoteric stuff, but it is great to hear where he came from to appreciate where he's going.

Track Listings: