Today’s ensembles handle minimalist repertoire cornerstones with unprecedented rhythmic exactitude and precision, as borne out in the New York-based Ensemble Signal’s recording of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, led by their founding co-artistic director and current music director Bradley Lubman. In fact, this is Lubman’s second recording of the work. His first version featured Ensemble Modern in a performance that abounded with surface sheen for the most part, yet was ice-cold.
Here Lubman and musicians bring more palpable “swing” to Reich’s rhythmic hocketing, such as in Section VI’s vocal lines and throughout the mallet-dominated Section XI. Lubman also demarcates certain sections with ever-so-slight tempo adjustments that add character and contrast, while the wordless sopranos raise the bar for intonation. Yet the close-up recording sacrifices textural shimmer and organic ensemble interaction for clarity of lines (the voices and woodwinds are forward to a fault). As a consequence, I miss the assiduous transitions and washes of color of less clinically precise yet more musically satisfying versions by Bill Ryan and the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble and, of course, the original 1978 ECM recording with Reich’s own ensemble. Still, it says a lot for this extraordinary composition’s staying power that it continues to evolve a life of its own outside of the composer’s performing orbit, and can absorb a variety of valid interpretations, including this one.