I’ve never been to America. Who knows now when I’ll get there? In the meantime, I’ll keep on imagining that America’s city life – or at least New York’s – is exactly the way Minimalist composer Steve Reich paints it. Countless lives moving in and out of sync, the whole teetering on the edge of cacophony but somehow harmonious. The music of the street buzzing around a single heartbeat. That’s why releases like the present one are always welcome. Especially when they offer a first recording, and a chronological survey.

Steve Reich

The nine jazz chords of 1965’s Music for Two or More Pianos provide a framework for freedom of choice, pianists Klaus Simon and Jörg Schweinbenz in this world premiere recording playing with different rhythms and textures, tempos and amplitudes, hammered and plucked sounds.

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