Steve Reich’s Latest Captures Tragedy and Reveals Life
Reich’s tribute to Daniel Pearl ranks among the composer’s most brooding and discordant work, but it’s also lush, owing to his rare use of strings — a poignant nod to the reporter’s fiddling hobby. In the second movement, the L.A. Master Chorale chants some of Pearl’s last words (“I’m a Jewish American from Encino, California”), but the album ends with a reference to a Stuff Smith & His Onyx Club Boys song that Pearl loved — evidence of Reich’s fascination with Pearl’s character, rather than his death.

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