Consumer Guide Album

Steve Reich: Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase [ECM, 1980]
I get shy when I write about putatively avant-garde composers like Reich--who am I to judge their compositional acuity? Somebody who knows great kitsch when he hears it, that's who. Music for 18 Musicians is damn near transcendent kitsch--what seems suspiciously lightweight at first reveals itself over countless hearings as durably ethereal. In contrast, these pieces sound dinky over the long haul--listenably dinky, but dinky. My favorite is "Violin Phase," written for a solitary instrument back in 1967, before Reich got unpretentious. B+