Reich: You Are (Variations)

1	You Are (Variations), for
2	You Are (Variations), for
3	You Are (Variations), for
4	You Are (Variations), for
5	Cello Counterpoint, for c
Reich: You Are (Variations)
1.	You Are (Variations), for chorus & ensemble 26:58
	Composed by Steve Reich
	Performed by Steve Reich and Los Angeles Master Chorale
	Conducted by Grant Gershon
2.	Cello Counterpoint, for cello & pre-recorded tape (or 8 cellos) 11:31
	Composed by Steve Reich
	Performed by Steve Reich and Maya Beiser

Barnes & Noble

Any longtime admirer of Steve Reich's music is bound to be struck -- and delighted -- by the continuity between the two new works recorded here and some of his best-loved pieces from the 1980s. You Are (Variations) (2004), for voices and instrumental ensemble, harks back unmistakably to the sonic richness of The Desert Music and the irrepressible spiritual energy of Tehillim, while Cello Counterpoint (2003) picks up where the series of works for overdubbed soloist (most recently Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar) left off. That's not to say that Reich is simply reliving past glories, for both of these pieces bear traces of his accomplishments from the intervening years (especially the expanded emotional range that emerged from his work with speech-melodies in Different Trains), and they break new ground in their own right, too. Taking the earlier (and shorter) composition first, Cello Counterpoint combines a darkly lyrical quality -- embracing the instrument's characteristic sound -- with a vital rhythmic drive to produce one of the most compact and earnestly expressive works of Reich's career and certainly the most compelling of his Counterpoint series. The remarkable cellist Maya Beiser, for whom it was commissioned, performs all eight parts here in a marvel of technical (and technological) precision. You Are (Variations) is an even more ingenious work. Each of the four movements takes a single phrase of text in English or Hebrew -- "You are wherever your thoughts are," for example, or "Ehmor m'aht, v'ahsay harbay (Say little and do much)" -- and repeats it like a mantra, building an extended set of variations over it (as well as below and around it). If you're still tempted to call the composer a "minimalist," the musical evidence is against you, for this label has never seemed less adequate to Reich's seemingly boundless musical imagination. Scott Paulin

All Music Guide

Even if one fully comprehends Steve Reich's minimalist procedures, admires his great wealth of invention, and feels sympathy for his artistic and philosophical aims, it is sometimes difficult to settle comfortably into some of his pieces. You Are (Variations) for chorus and ensemble (2004) is multilayered, kinetic, harmonically rich, and hypnotic, like the best of his work. But it is also possible to find this four-movement work over-hyped, pretentiously overdone for its slight texts, excessively busy, and sterile in its mechanical patterns, as if dependent on the words' rhythms for its propulsion, but totally detached from their sense or meaning. The Los Angeles Master Chorale and guest musicians, directed by Grant Gershon, plainly perform to Reich's rigorously high standards, and acquit themselves technically of their demanding parts; yet the rather depersonalized, hard-edged sound of both the singers and the instrumental ensemble is an acquired taste. "Cello Counterpoint" (2000), performed here by cellist Maya Beiser along with her prerecorded tracks, is provided as filler, and like other works in Reich's Counterpoint series its interlocking parts and staggered short gestures meld into larger, slower harmonic rhythms. Nonesuch's sound is clear and vibrant, and the packaging is quite handsome, but at a running time of 38:29, this is a rather skimpy offering. Blair Sanderson

New York Times

"Cello Counterpoint," for eight cellos...is irresistibly driven and less overtly contrapuntal than earlier installments in the series. But as in "You Are," Mr. Reich explores new harmonic ground, not least an almost Romantic lushness aided by Ms. Beiser's rich tone and energetic playing. Allan Kozinn

Gramophone

The performance positively glitters; it seems quite clear that the Los Angeles Master Chorale under Grant Gershon are responding to the work's intrinsic glow, the sense of spontaneity -- the swing -- in the music that Reich has rediscovered. Ivan Moody