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By the early 1980s, Steve Reich had won acclaim for the sensuous, almost trance-like brand of minimalism of "Music For 18 Musicians" and "Drumming". Yet "The Desert Music", from 1983, marked a new direction in his career. Setting William Carlos Williams' adaptation of the Ancient Greek poet Theocritus, the text explores the idea of deserts as places of creativity, delirious visions, love - and destruction. But more than this, Reich's work for voices and ensemble captures Cold War anxieties over nuclear armageddon - as Stephen Johnson discovers...