http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/arts/music/an-evening-of-steve-reich-at-zankel-hall.html 2014-10-31 00:33:43 An Evening of Steve Reich at Zankel Hall The percussionist Colin Currie led a performance of three works by Steve Reich, including the American premiere of Quartet. === In 1971, “Clapping Music,” a work for two pairs of hands whose rhythms start in sync and move, intriguingly, out of it, is just three or four minutes long: a charming lark, a palate cleanser. “Drumming” — even shorn of its repeats, as it was in a stirring performance led by the percussionist In the relatively intimate surroundings of Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, “Drumming” felt more immediate and immersive than it had Digging back into Mr. Reich’s body of work to find the ultimate genesis of his new Quartet, which had its American premiere on Wednesday between “Clapping Music” (performed by Mr. Currie and Mr. Reich) and “Drumming,” you might come up with this moment. The new work is full of such moments of aching, bright-eyed hopefulness expressed in a mallet instrument, though in a far more overtly melodic, even ingratiating mode than the early-career Reich of “Drumming.” Written for two vibraphones (Mr. Currie and Daniel Druckman) and two pianos (Simon Crawford-Phillips and Philip Moore), the 17-minute Quartet is Mr. Reich’s first piece for those two instruments alone, and the combination is ingenious and seductive, and deployed with subtle craftsmanship. The milky vibraphones tend to take center stage, but the pianos find ample opportunities to assert themselves. Sometimes the vibraphone lines are more liquid, and sometimes they feel percussive alongside a velvety gush in the pianos. The work has an alert, jazzy, urban character — suavely melancholy in its nocturnal slower middle section, with angular yet genial rhythms that evoke Broadway. Perhaps it was the news earlier on Wednesday that Mr. Reich and Stephen Sondheim, long mutual admirers, would be Dissonances occasionally pop out and harmonies elegantly darken, only to brighten again. This is pleasant, easy, uplifting listening. The Quartet’s placement on the program was apt: As far as nourishment, it lies somewhere between the palate cleanser that is “Clapping Music” and the feast of “Drumming.”