Minimal Maximal Marimbas
Synergy Percussion put on a program of Steve Reich compositions at the City Recital Hall tonight, including Part 1 of "Drumming", one of my favorites, and a new piece, "Mallet Quartet". The highlight of the evening, however, was "Sextet", a piece involving four different marimbas, two of which were, over the course of the piece, played with violin bows. I attended on the mistaken impression that Reich's "Double Sextet" would be performed, the one he got the Pulitzer for last year, confusing it with the "Mallet Quartet", due to my usual vagueness, but that hardly matters, as it was a highly enjoyable evening. The one non-Reich piece, "Kalabash", by Nigel Westlake, was very funky, as advertised, but put me in mind of nothing quite so much as music from "West Side Story", whereas the Reich pieces, for all the staccato sections' resemblance to newsflash dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, really sounded like nothing but themselves, unique compositions finally, not lacking in any way any complexity for all their "minimalism". An excellent evening worth staying up for.