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Six Pianos, etc.

Here's another classical album with a title which simply concatenates the names of the featured pieces: Six Pianos / Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ / Variations For Winds, Strings And Keyboards. This was another of the CDs I bought from MVC in Cardiff in the late '90s. I was already a big fan of Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, and was fond of Drumming too (especially its final movement), so I was keen to hear more.

I like the first work on the disc; am indifferent to the second; but love the third. 'Six Pianos' is absorbing and enjoyable, with the composite sound from the half-dozen keyboards conjuring up the illusion that instruments other than pianos are joining in. But does it really need to be over twenty-four minutes long? 'Music For Mallet Instruments' is my least favourite part of the album - to me it's a less interesting cousin to 'Music for 18 Musicians'.

The closing 'Variations for Wind, Strings and Keyboards', however, is a great favourite of mine. It's one of only a few of Reich's compositions for orchestra - and, on this evidence, I wish he'd done more. I especially love the way the brass section comes into it. Reich himself, however, apparently said in a 2006 interview:"I am not very fond of that piece; it's not something I have a great deal of affection for" - but what does he know?


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