Colin Currie Group review – Steve Reich’s music is still bedazzling

Barbican Hall, LondonFor this celebration of the composer in his 90th year, the Colin Currie Group focused on works written in the last two decades, including the brand new In All Your Ways

There have been a fair few 90th birthday concerts celebrating Steve Reich this year, but the Colin Currie Group came up with something a little different. Eschewing the signature works of the 1970s and 80s, and with the exception of 1972’s still mind-expanding Clapping Music, everything here was written by a composer over the age of 71. Furthermore, the London premiere of In All Your Ways featured the work of a man entering into his tenth decade.

After a bitty start, the group got into its stride with a series of four masterworks back-to-back. Radio Rewrite is Reich at his coolest, five continuous movements that riff on a pair of classic Radiohead songs; those in the know can just about perceive them in the harmonic atmosphere of the slow sections and the faster music’s lyrical outlines. Currie conducted a nicely chilled reading, the playing as tight as a drum.

It was followed by the Pulitzer prize-winning Double Sextet, an elaborate work that throws up intricate resultant patterns – to use Reich’s own term – as the twin ensembles slip in and out of lockstep. Again, the discipline and spirit were spotless, though greater physical space between the two sextets would have helped the sonic differentiation.

The second half opened with a luminous account of Quartet. Stripped back to just four instruments, it’s Reich at his purest, and was performed with a panther-like grace by Currie and Owen Gunnell on duelling vibraphones.

But the best turned out to have been saved until last. Written for 16 instruments, In All Your Ways is a bedazzling song without words, where the title – taken from Proverbs 3:5-6 – supplies a rhythmic pattern that is made to turn cartwheels around the ensemble. The motor is provided by two each of Reich’s trusty pianos, vibraphones and marimbas. Nevertheless, there was a sense of freedom – surprise, even – as the music morphed, reflected, insisted and proclaimed all at once.

This was joyous stuff, exhibiting the rhythmic vigour and powers of invention of a man half his age. Reich might be 90, but he’s clearly not out.