A landmark in 20th-century composition, Steve Reich’s hour-long Music for 18 Musicians (1976) cemented the place of minimalist music in the world of new music and marked a sea-change in musical composition. Scored for an ensemble of violin, cello, two clarinets alternating on bass clarinets, four pianos, three marimbas, two xylophones, vibraphone and maracas, Music for 18 Musicians is highly complex and precisely structured, and is characterised by a steady, unchanging rhythm that creates a hypnotic, even visceral effect on the listener.

An early work of Reich’s, Music for 18 Musicians is based on a cycle of eleven chords, from each of which a separate short piece of music is developed. A sequence of notes on the vibraphone signals the beginning of each new section, which seems to flow organically from the previous section because of the absence of any pause in the rhythm. To create a section, each chord is performed over several minutes and, in his notes accompanying the original ECM recording of the work (1978), Reich likens this form to the holding of a note in a cantus firmus, or the chant melody of Organum, an ecclesiastical composition by...