ECM released “Steve Reich: Recordings on ECM” on 2 October, a three-LP box that brings together the three records the composer made for the label: “Music for 18 Musicians”, “Octet · Music for a Large Ensemble · Violin Phase” and “Tehilim”. The catalogue number is ECM 2890.
All three are reproduced in facsimile, inside a cardboard box with a booklet holding photographs from the label’s archive, manuscript pages and a text by Paul Griffiths. The audio comes from the original analogue master tapes. The label dates the recordings between 1976 and 1981.
“Music for 18 Musicians” takes up a whole disc, split into “Pulse – Sections I-IV” and “Sections V-X – Pulse”. The second has “Music for a Large Ensemble” and “Violin Phase” on one side and “Octet” on the other. “Tehilim” fills the third, two parts a side.
“Music for 18 Musicians”, the first of the three, came out on ECM in 1978. Reich turned ninety on 3 October, the day after the box was released.
Text by Enric Vilaplana