All hail Reich: East Meets West by LSO Percussion Ensemble
East Meets West
LSO Percussion Ensemble
LSO St Luke’s
Unreserved, £15
2 March 2018
Barbican page
Programme:
Chick Corea arr. Simon Carrington Duet Suite
Joe Locke Her Sanctuary
John Adams Roll Over Beethoven
Makoto Ozone arr. Simon Carrington Kato's Revenge
Steve Reich Music for Pieces of Wood
Steve Reich Sextet
Is there any weather through which it would not be worth travelling to hear Reich’s Sextet? Well, yes, obviously, but nevertheless the piece and its stunning execution by the LSO Percussion Ensemble felt like excessive reward for our wretched slog through the modest-excessive sprinkling of March snow. Though there were some other pieces to sit through first.
The appeal of a lot of jazz remains a closed book to me, so far, which I think was the main barrier to my appreciating the Locke and the Carrington arrangements as anything more than overlong displays of breathtaking virtuosity. There’s no question that the four percussionists of the ensemble rock vibraphones and all vibraphone-related equipment. If I were them I think I would reserve my powers for music a little further from the muzack side of the spectrum – but then I’m sure they would protest against that characterization.
The two pianists briefly took centre stage for the London premiere of Adam’s Roll Over Beethoven. I have a lot of time for Adams but after enjoying the first snigger over his modernist Beethoven mashup thing I found myself totally over the piece and yearning for it to just end already. This it did, eventually, making me wonder again if such smug doodling deserved the attention of these players.
It was all worth it for the payload. I’ve never heard Music for Pieces of Wood live before and can’t decide if I prefer it with or without the percussive aural pain that attended this performance. Unalloyed pleasure, on the other hand, was brought by Sextet. I love this piece for its complexity, its integrity, its wanderer character through which everything is yet interrelated and harmoniously balanced – and that its beauty rests entirely in the hands of the concentration and skill of its performers. That beauty could not have been better served than by the LSO Percussion Ensemble.
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