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| Music for 18 Musicians | 
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| Creators: Jeanne Leblanc, Evan Ziporyn, Leslie Scott, Steve Reich, Edmund Niemann, Garry Kvistad, James Preiss, Jay Clayton, Nurit Tilles, Phillip Bush, Cheryl Bensman Rowe, Marion Beckenstein, Rebecca Armstrong, Elizabeth Lim, Bob Becker, Russ Hartenberger, Timothy Ferchen
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $16.98
Buy New: $10.97
You Save: $6.01 (35%)
Buy New/Used from $9.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  (32 reviews)
Sales Rank: 40144
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 79448
UPC: 075597944822
EAN: 0075597944822
ASIN: B000006E4C
Release Date: March 31, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
BEWARE. August 9, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
The worst question you could ever ask a music fan, one who is always searching for something more to broaden their sense of what drives this passion for music, is what their favorite album or piece of music.
Now I'm a fan of folk, indie rock, some hip-hop, country, choral music, hardcore, and other classical artists, but it wasn't until I heard 'Music For 18 Musicians' during my sophomore year in college during a semester abroad in Oxford, England that I could settle on one album for that top spot. No more sifting through Kid A, Pet Sounds, Rites Of Spring, or Heartbreaker...No this was the mathematically perfect piece of music that you've been looking for all your life.
I originally heard the ECM recording (only through the first 5 chords) and normally the first version I hear tends to be my favorite, but the Nonesuch recording is so rich, longer, better recorded, and it's divided into separate tracks as everyone has already pointed out.
The way '18' weaves in and out of it's chords is not an ambient minimalist piece that you can enjoy as mere background music like an Eno record but this is more for concentrated listens. Not to say that it can't be enjoyed in the passive form, but I definitely get more from the concentrated full-run sessions.
Beware though; this piece can often turn you against all other music for long periods of time. Also it made me realize I would never be a musician. You'll just want to write something this perfect, and I knew that I couldn't. My talents lie elsewhere.
A masterwork July 21, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Whether you prefer the original ECM recording or you own the Nonesuch version, this work will blow your mind if you possess the patience. The first time I heard "18" I was a freshman in college, listening to it with my composition major friend who swore by it. I thought it was complete garbage. Today, I will not only tell you that it is THE MOST influential piece of music in my life, but that it rewards me with something new everytime I listen to it. If you own a set of those Bose noise cancelling headphone, this is the piece for which to use them. This piece is intoxicating with its velvety and shimmering textures. If you want to scan through it first, try Sections IIIA and VI. Like all good "ambient" music, this piece is fine background music, but its real rewards come from an intense listening session.
A Stillness in Motion - by David Bronczyk March 30, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the late 70's I enthusiastically took my recording of "18" home from college and played it for my father on my new stereo; his first-listen gut reaction was to cringe and grouse at his perceived needle-stuck-in-a-groove monotony of the piece. Somehow, that indictment never has tarnished my perception of "18"; after a quarter century of listening, I still find myself mining riches from this utterly beautiful, labyrinthine work. It's ambitious and challenging, harmonically as well as in terms of the instrumental settings/juxtapositions.
The first "movement", Pulses, is a tightly encapsulated microcosm of the entire piece, with each following section developing and expanding the themes stated therein. The cumulative effect is much like watching a chrysalis metamorphose into a butterfly. I've watched PBS science shows that used "18" as audio backdrop to footage of cells dividing, stars forming in nebulae, etc., and I just marvel at the elemental qualities of "18".
 Great music... April 16, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
...but I still like the ECM recording better. I only wish it were tracked.
The Ravishing Textures of Life February 3, 2004
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
When a work of this stature invokes a level of profound and richly rewarding response from a listener, its difficult to know, or to offer any explanation for, just what it is that separates a work of this magnitude from music, even excellent music, which just doesn't reach this level of expression. And this isn't music that's likely to turn everybody's crank, either, as by any standard that considers the vast range of kinds and qualities of music available in the world today, its unique, unusual, and insistently individualistic in almost every way.This music is capable of functioning on any number of different levels, as the many Amazon reviews show. On a less complex level of response its ravishing surface textures can be accepted as simple ravishment, its simple harmonic structure can be enjoyed for its simplicity, and its flowing tempos can absorb a listener in the sheer sense of encompassing flow. Yet for many listeners the amazingly rich washes of sound arising from the intricate interlacing of simply repeated but subtly shifting motifs engender a complex, suffusing experience that somehow transcends any attempt to limit the listening response to individual elements or individual emotional responses. Like any great musical work this piece offers a more encompassing, synthesized representation of a way of looking at, responding to, and understanding the world, and any listener fortunate enough to have their synapses firing along the same lines is apt to experience a truly involving and powerful response. This music offers a powerful metaphor of life itself. Not literal, not representational, not discursive, but cogent, coherent, and rich with the depth and involving flow of life. And not just a slice of life, but a whole, urgently encompassing sense of life's textures, and moods, and endless flowing depths and dynamics. It's really a glorious thing that music can do this, and Reich's stunning achievement with "Music For 18 Musicians" was to accomplish this with his own new vocabulary, which he brought to fully realized maturity in this piece, and which so clearly and simply reduces commentary about movements and styles to insignificance in the face of such patiently and potently mesmerizing expression, unfolding its layers of sound, meaning, and complexity out of such basic tools. But it's also just simply a gorgeous example of sonic manipulation, with seemingly endless textures flowing in and out with the carefully modulated interplay of repeated tones and motifs. There's no need to invoke aesthetic theory, or to listen to this piece only when a totally involving musical symbolism is needed to reaffirm one's connection to the world, because its rich textural flow functions just fine as simple ravishment, and its simplicity of structure can soothe and involve simultaneously, and that flow - that glorious, by turns gentle and then insistent flow, can just carry a listener away in rapture. A seminal work like "Music For 18 Musicians" occupies a rare space, and accomplishes with seeming ease what lesser works are unable to do, and in doing so demonstrates the function and the power of truly great music to organize sound into a coherent symbolic representation of life's endless flowing textures. And that's a wonderful thing.
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