#different trains

It was 35 years ago today: the first recording of Steve Reich's Different Trains and Electric Counterpoint, performed by Kronos Quartet and Pat Metheny, respectively, was released on Nonesuch. You can hear it and get it on vinyl here.

Reich - Different Trains

I wasn’t expecting to be taken away by this piece the first time I listened to it, but, yes this is a cliche, my breath was taken away. Using a string quartet and recorded loops of interviews, train tracks, whistles, and sirens, Reich creates an impressionist painting of trains, while telling a story. The first movement revolves around the height of US transcontinental railroads, and how people were connected like never before. While the early 20th century was the height of train travel, the second movement becomes a grotesque picture of Europe during the second world war, and the interviewees share their experiences hiding from Nazi soldiers as sirens wail like screams. Trains taking millions of people to the death camps. The third movement comes back to the US after the war, and focuses on the decline of train travel as planes and cars take over as the main motives for transportation. The piece is mostly built out of paradiddles, save for the last movement that introduces a fugato subject in the beginning, and all of the melodies come from segments of speech, the intonation of various phrases are mimicked through pitch [”From Chicago to New York”... ”Different trains everyday”... “Then he said ‘don’t breathe!”... “But today, they’re all gone”]. Something about the predictable rhythmic pattern makes this piece a hypnotic journey. And I don’t care if this is cheesy; I loved listening to this piece while taking the train downtown and back again. It felt like an anthem to the city.

Movements:

1. America - Before the War

2. Europe - During the War