Track List

1. Proverb

2. Nagoya Marimbas

3. "Check it Out" from City Life

4. Pile driver / alarms from City Life

5. "It''s been a honeymoon-Can't take no mo" from City Life

6. Heartbeats / boats & bouys from City Life

7. "Heavy smoke" from City Life

Proverb, a composition for voices, electric organs, and vibraphones, shows the influence of medieval French composer Perotin. It contains only one phrase of text—"How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life"—from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Paul Hillier conducts his group, Theatre of Voices, together with members of Steve Reich’s Ensemble, for this Nonesuch recording. Proverb was co-commissioned by the BBC Proms and the Utrecht Early Music Festival. It premiered as a work-in-progress in London, September 1995; the completed piece debuted in New York, February 1996. The Village Voice said of Proverb: “This was the piece you might have hoped would be written 20 years later by the same person who penned the gorgeous Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ.”