Steve Reich’s 1976 masterpiece, one of the landmarks of 20th-century music, has already acquired its own enduring performing tradition. Music for 18 Musicians may have started out as the exclusive preserve of Reich’s own ensemble, but more and more groups now play it, and at least four fine versions of the hour-long work are available on disc. The latest, from the New York-based Ensemble Signal, is certainly one of the best so far. Signal’s director, Brad Lubman, has been one of Reich’s regular collaborators for many years (he conducted the premiere of Reich’s video opera Three Tales, for instance), and this performance with a group of young musicians – most of whom, as the sleeve note points out, would not have been born when the piece was first performed – has the perfect combination of tightly disciplined ensemble playing and creative fantasy. There’s tremendous, unstoppable energy in this performance, an urgent edge to its textures and a surging power to its thrilling climaxes, that make the greatness of the music unmistakable.