Steve Reich: Jacob's Ladder / Traveler's Prayer

1. Jacob's Ladder, I. Genesis
2. Jacob's Ladder, II. Vayachalom (And he dreamed)
3. Jacob's Ladder, III. V'hinei, sulam mutzav artza (And behold, a ladder set up on the Earth)
4. Jacob's Ladder, IV. V’rosho magia hashamayima (And its top reached heaven)
5. Jacob’s Ladder, V. V’hinei, malachei Elokim olim v’yordim bo (And behold, messengers of G-d ascending and descending on it)
6. Traveler's Prayer

Nonesuch Records releases an album comprising the first recordings of Steve Reich’s two latest works—Jacob’s Ladder (2023) and Traveler’s Prayer (2020) —on July 11, 2025. Jacob’s Ladder, performed by the New York Philharmonic led by Jaap van Zweden with Synergy Vocals, was made during its October 2023 world premiere at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. The premiere recording of Traveler’s Prayer, performed by Colin Currie Group and Synergy Vocals, was made at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, also in 2023. The two pieces were first released earlier this year as part of Steve Reich Collected Works, a twenty-seven-disc box set featuring music recorded during the composer’s forty years on the label.

Jacob’s Ladder interprets, and draws text from, the Biblical book of Genesis, 28:12:

And he dreamed

And behold, a ladder set up on the Earth

And its top reached Heaven

 And behold, messengers of G-d ascending and descending on it.

The composer explains, “Any melodic movement—up, down, or held—can find its analogy on a ladder. Sometimes one only goes up a few rungs to reach something and then descends, or perhaps climbs higher, pauses, and then descends pausing at each rung on the way down.

“There are four short sections—exposition, if you like—on each of the four lines of text then four longer sections elaborating on and developing those first four,” he continues. “What’s particularly interesting to me in these much longer sections is that they are mostly instrumental music. The instrumental music interprets the movement of messenger/angels going up, down, or pausing on a ladder (or ladders) between heaven and earth: a musical interpretation without words.”

Traveler’s Prayer was composed before and during the 2020 pandemic. “The virus shifted the gravity of the words I was setting … three short excerpts from Genesis, Exodus and Psalms,” Reich says. “These excerpts are usually added to the full Traveler’s Prayer found in Hebrew prayer books,” he continues. “While these verses can certainly apply to travels by air, car, or boat, they can also be applied to travel from this world to the next.

“The first melody is from Biblical Hebrew chant in America and parts of Europe while the second is a more ornate style from Italy …The third melody I composed since, outside of Yemen, there is no existing tradition for chanting Psalms. As to structure, there are extremely free canons throughout.”

In its 10/10 Reissue of the Month review of Steve Reich Collected Works, the UK’s Uncut said, “Travelling across the entire sweep of this extraordinary boxset, you’re joyously reminded of Reich’s diversity and invention over 60 years, while all the time retaining an audible stamp that is instantly recognizable. It’s a lovingly prepared and curated collection. A musical evolutionary leap housed in a discographic treat.”  The Washington Post said, “One thing I learned spending an entire week listening to a big box of Steve Reich’s music is that there’s no box big enough for Steve Reich’s music. … Renowned for (and often reduced to) its alleged minimalism, Reich’s music  [in] … Collected Works is best explored the way you might wander an impossibly vast museum, each record a wing, each track a gallery, with one’s attention guided by one’s intuition.”

Nonesuch made its first record with Reich in 1985. He was signed exclusively to the label that year, and since then the company has released twenty-two all-Reich albums, three retrospectives, and two remix releases. Among his many honors, two of Reich’s Nonesuch records, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians, won Grammy Awards and his Double Sextet recording for the label won a Pulitzer Prize.

Steve Reich has been called “the most original musical thinker of our time” (New Yorker) and “among the great composers of the century” (New York Times). The Guardian said of him, “There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them.” Starting in the 1960s, his pieces It’s Gonna Rain, Drumming, Music for 18 Musicians, Tehillim, Different Trains, and many others helped shift the aesthetic center of musical composition worldwide away from extreme complexity and towards rethinking pulsation and tonal attraction in new ways. He continues to influence younger generations of composers and mainstream musicians and artists all over the world.

In addition to his Grammy Awards and Pulitzer Prize, Reich received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge award in Madrid, the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, and the Gold Medal in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, the Juilliard School in New York, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others.

One of the most frequently choreographed composers, several noted choreographers have created dances to his music, including Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jirí Kylián, Jerome Robbins, Justin Peck, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, and Christopher Wheeldon.

Reich’s documentary video opera works—The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot—opened new directions for music theater and have been performed on four continents. His work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint, followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians.