Steve Reich: The String Quartets

All three of the string quartets here were composed for the , which has been strongly identified with them. However, several things may be said in favor of this 2023 release by the . The first and most important is that this is the first recording of all three quartets together, and it is quite interesting to hear them this way. said for many years that he could not imagine himself writing a string quartet, and the repetition-based structure of his music seemed incompatible with the medium. His solution, precipitated by his juxtaposition of his own childhood train journeys with recollections of Holocaust survivors on trains to concentration camps, was applied first in (1988); the string quartet here acts as a discrete unit, introducing and commenting on taped voices. 's general idea is applied in different ways in the other two quartets: again pairs the quartet with prerecorded voices on the day of the disaster and in later interviews, while the is entirely instrumental and has the live string quartet answer its own taped material. A second interesting feature here is that the 's readings differ from those of the ; himself suggested that the instrumentalists might match the contours of the spoken words in and as they saw fit. (Moreover, approved of the idea of recording all the quartets together.) Finally, the 's performance of , in particular, is unusually intense, doing justice to this work that has been numbered among the few successful artistic responses to the Holocaust. This album explores the way one of the modern era's greatest innovators worked within the most conventional of classical genres, and it is enthusiastically recommended. This album appeared on classical best-seller lists in early 2023. ~ James Manheim