The second ECM Reich LP. Three pieces representing three different scales of ensemble. Music for a Large Ensemble (1978), Side A, is Reich’s first major work for genuinely orchestral forces (mallet instruments, brass, strings, voice, around thirty players), a step toward the chamber-orchestra writing that would define the eighties Reich. Octet (1979), Side B opener, scored for two pianos, string quartet, two clarinets and two flutes: more contrapuntal and chamber-music-like than its predecessors. Violin Phase (1967), Side B closer, Shem Guibbory plays all four violin parts (three pre-recorded against one live), the canonical recording of one of the early phase pieces.
Recorded August 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, the same West German facility ECM…
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