The three Steve Reich compositions featured here span the period from 1967, when he was still exploring and developing his compositional approach, to 1979 and 1980 when he was confidently writing for large and medium-sized ensembles in a fully confident style. Music for a Large Ensemble is among his most accessible and attractive works, one that successfully juxtaposes pulsing repetition and lush harmonic textures. Violin Phase is an early work that finds him experimenting with repeated short melodies prerecorded and played out of phase with each other, and Octet, although an instrumental work for winds and strings, reflects his interest in Hebrew cantillation. This is one of the loveliest recordings of Reich’s music available.

– Rick Anderson