Steve Reich - Tehillim

ECM - LP

Germany, 1982

Not a common record on ECM and a not-so-well known piece by Steve Reich, Tehillim is nonetheless as extraordinarily uplifting as the composer's most celebrated work.  Highly recommended.

In the shadow of his groundbreaking masterpiece on ECM, Music For 18 Musicians, lies a couple of excellent, lesser-known releases for the Munich label: Octet - Music For A Large Ensemble and this one, Tehillim. With Tehillim, Steve Reich notably leaves the mathematic abstraction of his 1970's / 1980's pieces - Drumming, Violin Phase or Six Pianos - for divine inquiries, as the piece revolves around 4 of King David's Psalms.

Far from the expected asceticism one may expect from this serious-looking record, the four parts of Tehillim composes in fact a surprisingly warm piece: the squawks of soprano and high soprano voices and the crackling of percussions are balanced by deep, earthy chords of electric organ. The psalms, sung in hebrew set a meditative tone Steve Reich knows very well how to set, but the composition embraces a scope as broad as that of film scores and projects the mind onto vast - possibly infinite - landscapes. A soul-filling theological exploration by one of the greatest living composers. (VG+/VG+)