It took Steve Reich some time to appreciate that the near riot provoked by a performance of his work Four Organs at Carnegie Hall in 1973 was, on balance, good for his career. Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, had programmed the work for a Sunday afternoon subscription concert, which guaranteed attendance by "the most conservative audience of old ladies and romantic music lovers", Reich recalls. It soon dawned on the crowd that this apparently unchanging 
music really wasn't going to change. "It's very complicated to play," Reich explains. "The players have to count to stick together. Even though it was amplified, Michael had to scream 'one, two, three, four' at us because there was so much noise from the audience. There was some clapping, but mostly people were stamping on the floor and booing."The New Yorker music writer Alex Ross has described it as "the last great musical scandal of the 20th century". Reich says: "With hindsight, I realised Michael had been totally provocative and had set me up like a pair of loaded dice. I was as white as a sheet, and all he kept saying was 'this is history'. But he was right, and of course it's been played since and people seem to like it. Time makes things that were once outrageous, if not into standard warhorses, then at least standard parts of the repertoire."Reich has been composing for more than 40 years. In that time, he has seen the music he is most closely associated with - generally if restrictively defined as minimalism - seemingly emerge from nowhere to become one of the dominant musical forms of the age. From his early work with tape loops in the mid-1960s, his music has embraced classical and non-western traditions, popular culture, history, sacred texts and, more recently, video. This year, he won a Pulitzer prize for a new work, Double Sextet, and his latest piece, 2x5, premieres next week at the Manchester International Music festival on the same bill as Kraftwerk.
music really wasn't going to change. "It's very complicated to play," Reich explains. "The players have to count to stick together. Even though it was amplified, Michael had to scream 'one, two, three, four' at us because there was so much noise from the audience. There was some clapping, but mostly people were stamping on the floor and booing."The New Yorker music writer Alex Ross has described it as "the last great musical scandal of the 20th century". Reich says: "With hindsight, I realised Michael had been totally provocative and had set me up like a pair of loaded dice. I was as white as a sheet, and all he kept saying was 'this is history'. But he was right, and of course it's been played since and people seem to like it. Time makes things that were once outrageous, if not into standard warhorses, then at least standard parts of the repertoire."Reich has been composing for more than 40 years. In that time, he has seen the music he is most closely associated with - generally if restrictively defined as minimalism - seemingly emerge from nowhere to become one of the dominant musical forms of the age. From his early work with tape loops in the mid-1960s, his music has embraced classical and non-western traditions, popular culture, history, sacred texts and, more recently, video. This year, he won a Pulitzer prize for a new work, Double Sextet, and his latest piece, 2x5, premieres next week at the Manchester International Music festival on the same bill as Kraftwerk.For further details visit at:www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jun/27/steve-reich-life-in-music
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