Reich's interest in variation has not been confined to music alone; he also employs linguistic variation to examine the relationship between sound and sense, and even uses language to frame wider moral, philosophical and religious concerns. This is heard in the Daniel Variations.
Composed in response to the futile killing of the American reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, and premiered in October 2006 at the highly successful 'Phases' retrospective at London's Barbican Centre, the work combines short biblical excerpts with contemporary textual commentary to create a dark and often unsettling sound world. Much of this is derived from Reich's juxtaposition of block-like structures with a set of harmonic axes which emphasise the most traditionally unstable of all intervals – the augmented fourth (or tritone).
In contrast, the Variations for Vibes, Piano &Strings displays Reich's musical inventiveness at its ebullient and infectious best. Given a topnotch workout by Alan Pierson and members of the London Sinfonietta, the Variations alternately powers and glides throughout a tautly structured three-movement design – by way of a series of simultaneously unfolding canonic layers – which zigzag their way inexorably towards a quite thrilling close. Critics often lament Reich's shift away from the strict processes of his early minimalist style but all the techniques discovered along the way are still present here: rhythmic goal-orientation, harmonic clusters rich in overtones and upper partials, and a complex but audible polyphonic weave. And all underpinned by those variations, no less.

The circumstances that gave rise to Steve Reich’s Daniel Variations – the brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002 – could not be more horrific. Small consolation to say that it has inspired some fine works of art. But this is a very special piece, with Reich trying to make sense of the horror by juxtaposing Pearl’s statements with biblical readings.

Critics often lament Reich's shift away from the strict processes of his early minimalist style but all the techniques discovered along the way are still present here: rhythmic goal-orientation, harmonic clusters rich in overtones and upper partials, and a complex but audible polyphonic weave. And all underpinned by those variations, no less.

These pieces are as good an example as any of the jogging, jaunty repetition Reich has made his own, and suggest that bold departures from the style are unlikely. The 22-minute Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings goes through the wonted motions and modulations with Reichian rigour, but without the gripping, if awful, power of sheer insistency that marks his 55-minute Music for 18 Musicians...The half-hour Daniel Variations, a memorial for the murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, puts tiny slivers of text (Pearl’s own words and some from the biblical book of Daniel) through the repetition mill – but to what purpose?