Different Trains · Triple Quartet · The Four Sections

In Naive's Reich: «Different Trains» - «Triple Quartet» - «The Four Sections» the orchestral music of American composer Steve Reich is performed by the Orchestre National de Lyon under conductor David Robertson. The first two works are new to the orchestral format; in the case of Different Trains, Reich's string quartet and tape original is expanded to a rank of 48 strings, and the «Triple Quartet» is performed in its third original performance option of three groups of 12 musicians. «The Four Sections», of course, is an orchestral work to begin with, but the arrangement of «Different Trains» dates only from 2001 and the «Triple Quartet» from 1999, so in a sense these works are newly minted.

Robertson's handling of this music is without fuss, but also without flair - «The Four Sections» is performed with accuracy but minus inspiration and spark, and tends to just plod along. Some of the acoustical phenomena typically present in large-scale Reich works, such as the beating of slightly differing harmonic tones in the air, are captured only dimly by Naive's rather shallow and distant recording. Most of this difficulty can be somewhat alleviated by simply kicking up the volume a notch, but the pre-recorded voices in Different Trains are quite loud in relation to the orchestral parts, rendering this performance almost unlistenable.

It is not often that new orchestral works by American composers of any reputation get such prompt attention from record companies, and this aspect of the project deserves praise. Otherwise this disc is only workable for hardcore devotees of the music of Reich, and even then only those with a lot of patience and a good equalizer.