‘Epic’ barely does justice to this 6 hour concert exploring the wide ranging influence of Steve Reich. And attending just the last session meant I had the light version – some people I spoke to had been there for the entire, weekend-long programme! The evening featured 3 and a bit Reich performances, a piece by fellow New Yorker Fiona Wolfe plus full sets by Clogs, Owen Pallett and Max Richter. Things kicked off a bit later than scheduled at 6.15pm and didn’t finish until gone midnight. On a Sunday night. Phew!
A couple of Reich pieces started proceedings – first his fun Clapping Music – always enjoyable to see live, particularly when the man himself is one of the clappers – followed by You Are (Variations), performed by The Britten Sinfonia and Synergy Vocals. Not one of my favourite Reich pieces, but like with all his music it’s far richer when experienced live. To my (largely unqualified) ears this piece seems to be exploring the juxtaposition of tone and duration – something that, on a personal level, isn’t as interesting to me as his more rhythmicaly exploratative pieces. Nevertheless it was deceptively immersive and a pleasure to hear performed so well.
Next came Julia Wolfe‘s Cruel Sister. The composer herself introduced the story behind the composition – a dark tale of sibling rivalry over a mutual love interest. One sister murders the other by drowning, her body is then recovered and her rib cage and hair fashioned into a harp that is played at the surviving sister’s wedding. The music was genuinely disturbing and utterly captivating. The 2000-strong audience held a collective breath and shared many a spine-tingle as the story panned out, expertly and terrifyingly told through the voices of the orchestra. My highlight of the evening.
Owen Pallet and the Britten Sinfonia then performed Pallet’s Heartland, originally an alternative indie album of looped strings, drums and vocals. It was an ambitious performance and it took a while for the orchestra, drummer, keys, guitar and voice to find eachother, but when it worked it was soaring and satisfying.
Half way through Pallet’s set a stroppy, schoolmarmy type woman barked “we want Steve Reich!” to shocked looks all round. An outrageously selfish act that showed a lack of respect to everyone present. On the offchance that you stumble across this review, lady: shame on you.
Either way she soon got her wish as the original schedule was tweaked so that the planned finale, the London premiere of Reich’s Double Sextet was switched with Max Richter’s performance. Probably a good idea – the evening was massively overrunning and Double Sextet is what most people had come for after all. I was slightly put out as I really wanted to see Richter and by this stage I was unsure whether I’d make it to the end! Anyway, Double Sextet, peformed by Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can, sounded to me like fairly typical Reich: intricate, rhythmic, cyclical and hypnotic but perhaps more playful than some of his earlier work. It failed to blow me away like his career highlights (Drumming and Music for 18 Musicians in my opinion) but again it was a joy to experience live and the performers clearly enjoyed themselves immensely, which adds a lot to a performance.
Following this piece, people started reluctantly leaving – nobody was expecting such an epic concert and the Barbican had sold out of dinner-worthy food (I had to settle for nuts and a lolly, the hunt for which caused me to miss the ‘bonus’ performance of the first movement of Drumming!) Still, work the next day or not, I wasn’t going to be moved – there was music to be heard!
The penultimate performance was a curatorially misjudged set from folk-rock-indie experimentalists Clogs, playing with the New London Children’s Choir, which left a lot of blank faces. I was curious to see Clogs as their number features a member of The National, a band I’ve recently become a fan of, but I failed to see how such a folk-heavy performance tied in with the rest of the programme or showed clear influence from Reich.
Last but in many ways most exciting was Max Richter and his ensemble. The hardy few who stuck it out til the end (it was knocking midnight) settled in for what promised to be a special performance. Richter’s music is haunting, lilting and achingly beautiful – just the thing to end such an overwhelming evening! That they started with my absolute favourite On The Nature Of Daylight made it utterly worth staying so late. I surrendered to the swell and flow of the strings and piano for the next 40 minutes. I urge you to listen to Richter’s sublime album The Blue Notebooks – if there is beauty in sadness, this is what it sounds like.
From a programming point of view the evening was something of a mess. A warning that it would be so long would have been nice, the mid-session programme change frustrated as many people as it pleased and the inclusion of Clogs was somewhat baffling. But overall this was a stunning concert – 6 hours of music for the price of a standard show with all the composers present and a premiere of new music by a true innovator isn’t something one experiences very often.
