Steve Reich: Sextet; Clapping Music; Music for Pieces of Wood

Audio Mixer: Neil Hutchinson.
Liner Note Authors: Benjamin Picard; Neil Percy.
Recording information: LSO St. Luke's, London (10/30/2015).
Editor: Neil Hutchinson.
Contents aside, this release by the London Symphony Orchestra's LSO Live series is noteworthy for using the live-recording format intelligently: it offers a kind of concert that wouldn't really work in a studio recording. Short at less than 45 minutes, the album reproduces a rush hour concert directed at commuters; you could play these three pieces in the studio, but the light, spontaneous live energy of the present recording would be hard to reproduce. The opening Clapping Music is the best-known work here; sample it if you need convincing that the normally formally clad members of the LSO Percussion Ensemble are as comfortable with the work as any musicians from San Francisco or lower Manhattan. An added attraction here is a pair of less commonly heard Reich works: the Music for Pieces of Wood, which expands upon the cyclical ideas so concisely stated in Clapping Music, and the more expansive Sextet, a work from the early period of Reich's re-engagement with tonality. The sound, from the LSO St. Luke's church, is clear, and the venue is more suited to non-sacred music than many other churches are. A fun item that could serve to represent Reich in any collection. ~ James Manheim