It strikes me that the founder or most-associated-with composer of a completely new style is usually not the favorite composer of fans of that style. Schoenberg and serialism comes to mind. I find a similar situation with the most ardently minimalist minimalist, Steve Reich. His early work of 1987, Phase, as well as the 1998 Nagoya Guitars (transcribed from Reich’s original for marimbas), are here performed by the two guitarists who say Reich is one of their favorite composers and the other works are influenced in some way or other by his compositions.
Frankly, too minimalist for my taste, but the other four works were interesting – especially the final one: The Combo Song. Though only two-channel, the recording is direct to DSD using dCS converters and the Pyramix hard disk system, and captures the most subtle overtones of the two guitars in action in the Swedish church acoustics where the recordings were made without any electronic manipulation. The opening selection – Everything’s Alright Forever – created by the guitar duo themselves, was also fascinating listening. In it the duo attempts to create the complex electronic music sound worlds using just acoustic guitars. In Peter Hansen’s 12-String Noon, the two guitars are tuned entirely differently from one another, and the work features many open, resonating strings which sound almost like two harps. The work is dedicated to blues guitarist Duane Allman, who died in 1971.
– John Sunier
