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Piano Counterpoint (1973). Steve Reich #q2 #alarmwillsound

Q2 is streaming a live concert of Steve Reich music played by Alarm Will Sound from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And here's a version by Vicky Chow on SoundCloud.

A description of the work: 

Piano Counterpoint is an arrangement of Six Pianos (1973) for solo pianist and tape made by Vincent Corver in 2011. Four of the six piano parts are pre-recorded and the last two are combined into a more virtuosic single part played live.

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Six Pianos (1973). Steve Reich

Via Bruce Umbaugh, episode 2463 of WNYC's New Sounds has Steve Reich's You Are (Variations), Six Pianos, and an excerpt from Cello Counterpoint. I just tuned in and it's Six Pianos which means I missed You Are (Variations). John Schaefer goes on to suggest Cello Counterpoint may be the most difficult to play of Reich's Counterpoint series. Hard to tell from the minute or so actually streamed.

The Rambler relates how minimalism in general is best live (and how his mum couldn't drive and listen to Six Pianos):

In this respect Six Pianos shares something with the work of Brian Ferneyhough - an awareness of the potency of live performance.

I can't really comment since, despite hearing and owning pretty much all of Reich's work, I've never seen any of it performed live. I've tried to remedy this situation several times but to no avail (yet). Maybe next year at the Minimalist Jukebox series by the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall, curated by John Adams (and as advertised in the Doctor Atomic program). Unfortunately, the Reich-only concert has Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards, Three Movements, and Tehillim -- nothing for me there. Better, a couple of days later, Gloria Cheng et al play Four Organs, Cage's In a Landscape, and music by Riley, (Colin) McPhee, Pärt, Glass, (David) Lang, and Andreesen. The last night is Adams conducting selections from Glass' Akhnaten and also his own Harmonielehre. Those concerts coupled with a trip to the world's best Amoeba Records and maybe the marionnette theatre again. Hmm...

Update: MP3 stream of yesterday's New Sounds program on the "confluence" of Steve Reich releases here. Schaefer suggests You Are (Variations) "is already being received as one of Steve Reich's masterpieces in a career..."

rgable: aworks consciousness revolution era reich: aworks del.icio.us i love music pick only ten wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish the steve reich killed in afghanistan six pianos: wikipedia la scena musicale tehillim: the standing room current listening: eric owazen sinfonia for strings

Six Pianos (1973). Steve Reich

Originating as an experiment at a New York music store, Six Pianos is in fact scored for six simultaneous pianos (and has also been adapted for six marimbas).  It's an exercise in "drumming on the keyboard" as well as Steve Reich's experiments in phase shifting.

I'm listening to the Piano Circus performance on Argo (currently out of print), which while monochromatic to say the least, is also fast-paced, accented and sometimes exciting. Its companion piece on the CD, Terry Riley's In C also in an all piano version, in contrast sounds mechanical and rigid.