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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231954302
Steve Reich's Different Trains
ARTICLE FEBRUARY 1990
DOI: 10.1017/S0040298200061076
CITATION
1
READS
416
1 AUTHOR:
Christopher Fox
Brunel University London
14PUBLICATIONS 14CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Available from: Christopher Fox
Retrieved on: 22 February 2016
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Fox8?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_7https://www.researchgate.net/institution/Brunel_University_London?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_6https://www.researchgate.net/?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_1https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Fox8?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_7https://www.researchgate.net/institution/Brunel_University_London?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_6https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Fox8?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_5https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Fox8?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_4https://www.researchgate.net/?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_1https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231954302_Steve_Reich%27s_%27Different_Trains%27?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_3https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231954302_Steve_Reich%27s_%27Different_Trains%27?enrichId=rgreq-b38ca215-93a1-4402-8200-d05434c6a02b&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMTk1NDMwMjtBUzoyMjQyNTAyMDkyODAwMDBAMTQzMDQ3NjgyNDA2NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_27/24/2019 Steve Reich's 'Different Trains'
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Steve Reich's 'Different Trains'Author(s): Christopher FoxReviewed work(s):Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 172 (Mar., 1990), pp. 2-8Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/945403.
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Christopher
ox
Steve Reich's'DifferentTrains'
Steve
Reich's
Different
Trains is
a
27-minute
work
for
string
quartet
and
tape,
written in
I988
to a
commission
from
the
Kronos
Quartet.
It
has
already
enjoyed
a
wide
circulation:
the
Kronos
have toured it
extensively
(in
Britain
they premiered
it in the
Queen
Elizabeth
Hall,
a
performance
that was
recorded for
a
subsequent
television
broadcast)
and
recorded it
for
Nonesuch.'
Reich's
reputation
has
never
been
confined to
'serious'
new
music circles
and
the
combination of
his
(so-called)
'crossover'
credentials
with
those of
the
Kronos
(and
the
pairing
on
record of
Diferent
Trainswith
Reich's
Electric
Counterpoint,
written
for
the
equally
cultish
Pat
Metheny)
is
the
stuff of
record
company
executives'
wilder
dreams. If
one
assumes that the meaning of any musical work
owes
as much
to the
means of
its
production
and
dissemination as
to the
sounds
themselves,
then
Diferent
Trains s a
contemporary
cultural
phenomenon
whose
significance
is
quite
differ-
ent from
that of
most
new
music
and almost
certainly
unique
amongst
new works
for
string
quartet.
The
present
article is an
attempt
to
explicate
that
significance,
not so
much
through
a
note-to-note
analysis
of
the music as
through
an
analysis
of
the ideas
the
music
articulates.
To any listener, whether Reich aficianado r
not,
the
most
immediately
striking
aspect
of
Dffereiit
Trains s the
contribution
made
by
the
tape part.
To
the sound of
the live
string quartet,
the
tape
adds
another
three
layers
of
string
quartet
sound,
the
sounds of
trains
(engines,
whistles,
etc),
sirens and
bells,
and a
sequence
of short
extracts of
recorded
speech.
It is this
last element
that is the
most
remarkablefeature of
the work.
Reich
has
linked
the voices of
his former
governess,
Virginia,
of a
retired
American
railway steward, LawrenceDavis, and of three
survivors
of
the
Nazi
holocaust,
Rachel,
Paul
and
Rachella,
all
reminiscing
about their ex-
periences
during
the
Second
World War.
Inevitably
these
experiences
were
radically
different. As
Reich
says:
'Stcvc
Reich,
Dit
ircnt
TrainIslElectric
Counterpoint,
onesuch
979176-2,
1989.
I
travelled ack
and orth
between
New York
andLos
Angeles
from
.I939
to
1942
accompanied by
my
governess.
While these
trips
were
exciting
and
romantic t the
time,
I
now look
back
and hink
hat,
if I
hadbeen n
Europe
during
his
period,
as
aJew
I
wouldhavehad o rideverydifferentrains.
Reich
uses
just
46
spoken
phrases
during
the
courseof the
piece,
grouped
n
three
movements,
as
shown in
Table
I.
As can
be
seen,
through
them
Reich is
attempting
nothing
less than
a
brief
history
of
perhaps
the
most
appallingly
systematic
onslaught,
in
this
or
any
other
century,
by
a
government
on the
lives of
millions
of
people. By
focussing
on
the
personal
histories
of a
few
individuals he
is able to
emphasize
the
inhumanity
of the Nazis'
invasion
of so
many
people's
lives; the
juxtaposition
of the two
Americans
with their
European
contemporaries
establishes the
contrast
between
normality
and
the
Europeans' experiences.
Thus when
the
Pullman
porter,
Lawrence
Davis,
says
in
the
third
movement,
'But
today,
they're
all
gone',
he is
recalling
the
luxurious
transcontinental
trains on
which
he
worked; however,
for
the
listener,
these
words
can also become
an
elegy
for
the
millions of
people
who died
between
1933
and
I945.
Such a project is, like any which seeks to
make art out
of other
people's
suffering,
fraught
with
danger;
and Reich
courts this
danger
with
his
decision to
attempt
some
sort of
resolution
within
the work.
The evolution
of
the
music,
from
the brisk
confidence of
the start of
the
first
movement
to the silence
which follows
the
wailing
sirens and
the
words,
'Flames
going
up
to the
sky
- it was
smoking'
at
the end of
the
second,
is
totally
convincing.
But
by
writing
a
third movement
in
which
the voices
from the
first movement, together with some of the
musical
deas associated
with
them,
return,
Reich
risks
devaluing
the
impact
of what has
gone
before with
some
pat
recapitulatory
onclusion.
Indeed,
the
bustling
opening
of the
last
movement - as a series
of entries
unfolds
around
figures
(a)
and
(b)
(see
Example
I)
-
suggests
Reich
may
be about to
do
just
that.
However,
these
fears
prove groundless:
the
optimism
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Steve Reich's
Different
Trains'
3
TABLE 1
1
America
-
Before the war
'from
Chicago
to
New
York'
(Virginia)
'one
of
the
fastest trains'
(Virginia)
'the
crack
train from New York'
(Lawrence Davis)
'from
New
York to Los
Angeles'
(Lawrence
Davis)
'different trains
every
time'
(Virginia)
'from
Chicago
to New York'
(Virginia)
'in
1939'
(Virginia)
'1939'
(Lawrence Davis)
'1940'
(Lawrence Davis)
'1941' (LawrenceDavis)
'19411
guess
it must've been'
(Virginia)
2
Europe
-
During
the war
'1940'
(Rachella)
'on
my
birthday'
(Rachella)
'The
Gerlans
walked
in'
(Rachella)
'walked into Holland'
(Rachella)
'Geimans invaded
Hmingpry'
(Paul)
'I
was
in
second
grade'
(Paul)
'I had a teacher' (Paul)
'a
very
tall
man,
his hair was
concretely plastered
smooth'
(Paul)
'He
said,
'Black crows invaded our
country many years ago'
(Paul)
'and
he
pointed right
at me'
(Paul)
'No more school'
(Rachel)
'You must
go
away'
(Rachel)
'and she said
'Quick, go ' (Rachella)
'and he
said,
'Don't
breathe '
'
(Rachella)
'into those cattle
wagons'
(Rachella)
'for
4
days
and 4
nights' (Rachella)
'and then
we went
through
these
strange
sounding
names'
(Rachella)
'Polish
names'
(Rachella)
'Lots of cattle wagons there' (Rachella)
'They
were
loaded with
people' (Rachella)
'They
shaved us'
(Rachella)
'They
tattooed a
number on our arms'
(Rachella)
'Flames
going up
to the
sky
-
it was
smoking'
(Rachella)
3
After the
war
'and
the
war was over'
(Paul)
'Are
you
sure?'
(Rachella)
'The war is
over'
(Rachella)
'going
to
America'
(Rachella)
'to Los
Angeles'
(Rachella)
'to New York'
(Rachella)
'from New York
to Los
Angeles'
(Lawrence
Davis)
'one
of the
fastest trains'
(Virginia)
'but
today they're
all
gone'
(Lawrence
Davis)
'There
was one
girl
who had a
beautiful voice'
(Rachella)
'and
they
loved to
listen
to
her
singing,
the
Germans'
(Rachella)
'and when she
stopped singing they
said,
'More,
more' and
they
applauded' (Rachella)
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4
Steve Reich's
Different
Trains'
Ex.1
a)
b)
mp
implicit
in
the
figures
and
their association with
the
phrase,
'The war is
over',
is
surely
expressing
the
immediate
personal response
of Holocaust
survivors to their arrival in
America,
rather
than a more
general
historical assessment of the
world
in
the
post-war
years.
As the
movement
continues,
interweaving
Rachella's
voice with
those of Reich's
governess
and
Mr
Davis,
and
particularly
as it concludes in the
extraordinarily
poignant
music
that
accompanies
Rachella's inal
reminiscence,
Reich
would seem to be
suggest-
ing
that while America
provided
a
new
world
in
which to
escape
the external reminders of Nazi
oppression,
the
internal
wounds of the
Holocaust
are not so
easily
resolved.
In
retrospect,
Reich's
career as
a
composer
can be seen as a
quest
for
the
techniques
that
would allow
him
to confront the
expressive
challenge
of
Different
Trains.
This is
not the
place
for a
summary
of that
career
others,
most
notably
K. Robert
Schwartz
in his
extended
article 'Steve Reich: Music as a
GradualProcess'
in
Perspectives f
New
Music,2
have
successfully
accomplished that - but it is useful to consider
the
ways
in
which Reich has
employed
voices
in
his work and also to
compare
Reich's
conception
of
form
in
Different
Trains with that of
earlier
works.
During
the
1970s
the
voice seemed to
hold little interest
for
Reich,
at
least
in
its
traditional role
as
a carrier
of
texts.
Whilst
women
singers
appeared
as
regular
members of
his
ensemble,
Steve Reich and
Musicians,
and
featured
in works
such
as
Drumming
197I),
Musicfor
Mallet
Instruments,
Voices
and
Organ
(1973) and Musicfor Eighteen Musicians (1974-6),
they
were there to
provide
another instrumental
timbre
-
in
particular,
Reich used women's
voices for their
ability
to
act both
as
sustaining
instruments and as
highly
mobile
treble instru-
2
K.
Robert
Schwartz,
'Steve Reich: Music as a
Gradual
Process',
Perspectives
n New
Music
(Fall-Winter
I98o/Spring
Sulmmerr
96),
pp.373-394
(Part i)
and
(Fall-Winter
1981/
Spring-
Suimmer
1982),
pp.226-286
(Part 2).
ments
capable,
through
the
use of different con-
sonants,
of a
wide
range
of
percussive
attacks.
However the
very
processes underlying
all
Reich's
instrumental
music of the
I970s
had
first
appeared
n
his
work in
two
tape pieces
of
the
mid-sixties,
It'sGonnaRain
(1965)
and Come
Out
(1966),
both of which take
as
their source
materialrich
examples
of
utterly
authenticvocal
behaviour. Schwartz
gives
an extended
account
of
both these
pieces;
suffice it to
say
here
that,
in
each,
Reich takes a
tape recording
of a live
speaker against
which he
sets one
or
more
identical
recordings
which
gradually
shift out
of
phase
with
one another. Thus
what
begins
as
documentary
evidence
of a
particular peaker
(a
black revivalist
preacher
n It'sGonna
Rain,
for
example)
is
slowly
transformed into
a dense
canonic texture in which the
rhythms
and
intonationof the
originalperformance
become
at
least as
important
as the sense
of what was said.
In his
book,
Writings
bout
Music,
Reich has
described how he
began
to
explore
ways
of
developing
his
use of the
'phase
shifting'
technique,
discovered
n
these
tape
works,
with-
in
live
instrumentalmusic.
Although
the musical
traces of this
exploration
are to
be heard most
readily
in works such as ViolinPhaseand Piano
Phase
(both I967)
and
Drumming,
he
legacy
of
phase
shifting
is
present
in
even the most
recent
music.
Reich's
players
are
no
longer required
o
imitate the mechanical
process
of
tape
machines
slowly
moving
out of
synchronization;
but the
musical
product
of
that
process
-
the
gradual
appearance
of
a second version of a musical
figure
at a
rhythmically
discernible
distance rom
its first
appearance
-
remains Reich's
primary
means
of
achieving proliferation
within
a
musical texture. At its simplest this can be old-
fashioned
canon,
as
in
the
vocal
entries at
the
start of
Tehillim
(1981),
or
old-fashioned
imitation,
as
in the
instrumental
imitations
of
the
speakers
n
Different
Trains,
a device
which
I
shall discuss later.
In
the more
complex
textures
of Electric
Counterpoint
1987)
one is aware not
so
much of
the
workings
of
voice
against
voice
as of the
elaborate
cross-rhythms
that result
from
their
combination.
In
the
early
I98os
Reich
createdtwo works in
which live voices were given texts to articulate:
in
Tehillim our
women's
voices,
accompanied
by
chamber
orchestra,
ing settings
of the
psalms
in the
original
Hebrew;
in
The
Desert
Music
(1984)
a chorus
of
27
voices,
with
orchestral
accompaniment, sing settings
of
poetry by
William
Carlos Williams.
However inventive
they
are,
either
vocally
or
instrumentally
-
and
Tehillim
is,
I
believe,
one of
Reich's
finest
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Steve
Reich's
Different
Trains'
5
achievements
-
neither work can be said to
break
new
ground
in their combination
of words and
music.
Perhaps
because
text-setting
itself
was
new
to
Reich
(with
the
exception
of student
works)
when
he came
to
write
Tehillim,
and
setting
an
English
text
was new to him when
he
wrote The
Desert
Music,
he
adopts
a
straight-
forward,
predominantly
syllabic
approach
in
both
pieces.
As Keith
Potter observed
soon after
the
premiere
of The
DesertMusic:
The use
of an
English-language
text
is
entirely
new
in Reich's
mature,
"repetitive"
music and...
he sets the
words
in
a
manner
resembling
the Western
traditional
notion
of the term
"setting"
'.3
Only
in
Different
Trains
is the
significance
of the re-
introduction
of
words into Reich's
music
through
Tehillim
nd
The
DesertMusic onfirmed.
It
might
appear
that
the
problems presented
by
texts
were
ignored
in the
years
between It's
Gonna
Rain and Tehillim
until the
potential
of
the
phase
shifting
technique
discovered
in the
early
tape
pieces
had been refined.
It is neverthe-
less
important
to note that
throughout
this
period
Reich
returned
from time to time to
a
'work in
progress'
that did involve
words. This
was
My
Name Is: Ensemble
Portrait,
begun
in
1967
and
only
provisionally
completed
in
1980.
Ian Gardiner
has described
it as
dating
back
to a
loosely
structured
piece
of
1967,
where he
namesof the
audience,
aped
s
they
entered
the hall and
then edited onto
tape loops,
were
improvised
on
by
Reich,
crossing
phase
elationships
across hree
portable
ape
recorders.
n
1980
he visited
IRCAM
n Pariswith the aimof
discovering
he tech-
nological
means o
reapply
his
concept
n real
ime,
using
he
nameof the
performers
f hisown
ensemble,
andwith the
phase elationshipsrganized
n
advance.
At its firstperformance,nNew YorkonJanuary ,
198
,
the
eight performers
f
Octet
tepped
orward
to the
microphones
nd
ntroducedhemselves...
he
tapephased
ach
name,
one at a time.4
Schwartz
quotes
Reich as
insisting
that
My
Name
Is: EnsemblePortrait
is
just
a sketch... because
the
important
part
of it is to
introduce... instru-
ments' so that 'one would end
up
with a
tape
and a live
score'.5
Schwartz
also
reports
that,
in
the
work for which
My
Name Is
was the
sketch,
Reich
hoped
also to add
real-time treatments
of
voices from
history,
such asHitler or Roosevelt
perhaps.
As
Ian
Gardiner has
observed,
these
intentions
'would seem to
indicate a renewed
3
Keith
Potter,
The
RecentPhases
f
Steve
Reich',
Contact
9
(Spring
1985),
p.3
1.
4
lan
Gardiner,
Music was
a
gradualprocess:
he
rediscovery f
tradition n the music
of
Steve Reich since
I976,
(MA
Thesis,
Keele
University,
1983),
pp.37-8.
s
Schwartz,
op
cit.,
p.263.
interest
n
the
political
mplications
of
his
music,
last
in evidence
in the benefit
concert
that
premiered
Come Out
in
April
I967,
for the
re-
trial
of the
"Harlem
Six"
of which
Daniel
Hamm,
the
voice
on the
tape,
was a member'.6
Different
Trains
s
certainly
a
triumphant
fulfil-
ment
of
those
intentions.
Perhaps
the
most
obvious
difference
between
Reich's
plans
for the successor
to
My
Name
Is
and
Different
Trains
s the absence
of
any attempt
at
real-time
processing
of
the
voices used.
Above
all else Reich
is a
composer
with a
strong
sense
of
the
art of the
possible:
much
of his instrumental
music
in
the
I970s
evolved
around the
particular
gifts
of the musicians
with
whom he
worked,
and
the documentation
accompanying
he
recordings
of works such
as
MusicforLarge
Ensemble
1978)
and
Octet
(1978-9),
in
which
the
process
of
revision after
the first
performance
s
described,
demonstrates Reich's
determination
always
to
achieve the
most
idiomatically
successful
form
for his
ideas. Reich's
visits
to
IRCAM,
in
I980
for
work on
My
Name Is
and later while he
worked
on
Sextet
(I985),
must
surely
have convinced
him
that,
although equipment
was
available
which would
technically
e
capable
of the sort
of
live
signal
processing
he
required,
the
problems
presented
by
the use of
this
equipment
n
rehearsal
and
performance
were too
great
to
be
practicable.
In
particular
he live
integration
of
passages
of
prerecorded
peech
with the sort of instrumental
music that Reich writes
is
bedevilled
by
the fact
that few
speakers
adhere
to the
regular pulse
that
is
such a characteristic
of all
Reich's
work.
If
this
pulse
was absent
in
the vocal
material,
that material
would be felt to stand outside the
world of the live
instruments;
whereas Reich's
aim was, as Schwarts
says,
'to utilize live
instruments ... to imitate the sounds
[of
the
voices]
... as well as to
complete
the
implied
harmonic,
melodic and
rhythmic
inferences
of
the
resulting patterns'.'
(It
is worth
noting
that,
in
the initial
stages
of
planning
The
Desert
Music,
Reich
considered
using
a
tape
of
William Carlos
Williams
-
author
of
the
poetry
chosen as text
for the work
-
reading
one of his
poems.
Here
too the
rhythms
of
the
prerecorded
voice would
inevitably
have meant
that the voice was heard
at one remove from Reich's music and, perhaps
for
that
reason,
Reich abandoned
the
idea.)
Reich's solution of this
technical
problem
was
typically elegant
and
practical.
One
of
the
great
revolutions
in
commercially
manufactured
music
technology
in
the
I98os
has
been the
6
Gardiner,
op
cit.,
footnotes
p.iii.
7
Schwartz,
op
cit.,
p.262.
7/24/2019 Steve Reich's 'Different Trains'
7/9
6 Steve
Reich's
Different
Trains'
Steve
Reich
(photo:
1989
Martha
Swope
Assocs.)
development
of
digital
sampling:
Reich
used
the
Casio
FZ-I
and
FZ-IoM
samplers
to
record,
edit,
transpose
and
play
the
fragments
of
speech
that
make
up
the
vocal element
of the
tape
part.
In
this
way
he was able
to draw
his
'documentary'
material
into the
rhythmic
and
harmonic
scheme
of the
work.
By
similarly
sampling
and
editing
the
train
sounds,
sirens
and bells
also
used
in the
tape part
they
too
could be
fully incorporated
into the
structure
of
the music.
Thus the
repeated semiquavers
of
the
string
writing
are
unmistakably coupled
to
the
clatter
of
trains, while,
most
memorably,
the train-whistles
signal
tonal
shifts.
Some
might
argue
(Boulez
has
always
offered this as
a defence
of the
unwieldy
technical
requirements
of
Repons)
that
live electronics
offer a
flexibility
in
performance
that
a
preordained
ape
part
cannot
match.
In the
end
this became
an
impossible
luxury
for
Different
Trains,
as Reich
decided
to
multiply
the
Kronos
and
have three
extra
versions of them on tape, but recentexperience
would seem
to
suggest
anyway
that
younger
performers
(Kronos
themselves
or,
in
very
different
music,
the new
generation
of
Stockhausen
interpreters)
can
learn to
play
live
with
tape
in such
a
way
that their
music-making
sounds
completely
spontaneous.
(On
record,
the medium
through
which
the
majority
of
people
get
to
know
music
today,
the distinction
is of course
quite
irrelevant.)
Sampling
and the
manipulation
of
samples
have become mainstays
of a lot of
pop
music
in
the
last few
years;
but
if
sampling
offered Reich
the
technology
through
which he could
integrate
the vocal
and
ambient
sound
materials
of
Different
Trains
nto the
kinds
of
rhythmic
and
harmonic
patterns
which
now characterize
his
music,
he did
not succumb
to
the lure
of the
flashing lights
of the acid-house
party.
Whereas
House-music
favours
abruptly
edited
samples,
obsessively repeated
sound-bites
dominated
by
an
insistently
regular
tempo,
in
Different
Trains
the
speed
of
each
voice's
delivery
is
always
respected.
Consequently,
although Different
Trains
s cast
in three
distinct
movements,
there
are
many tempo-changes
within
each
move-
ment,
the
pace
of the
music
being
adjusted
to
accommodate
the
speed
of each
new
phrase
so
that
the
identity
of each voice
and of each
phrase
is
preserved.
However,
Reich
does sometimes
loop
one or two
words within a
phrase
o create
a
new
rhythm
out of
the
rhythms
already
present.
This is
particularly
he case
in the
first movement
where,
for
example,
the
second
phrase
starts
as
'one of the
fastest
trains'
(repeated
three
times),
and
then becomes
'one
of the
fastest
trains,
fastest trains'
(repeated
four
times),
and then
becomes
'one of the
fastest
trains,
fastest
trains,
one
of the fastest
trains'
(repeated
seven
times)
before
the
next
phrase
is
introduced
(see
Example
2).
Ex.2
m
n
j
L
one of the fast
-
est
trains one
of the
fast
-
est trains
fast
-
est
trains
one of
the fast
-
est
trains
fast
-
est trains
one of the
fast - est
trains
ne
of the fast
-
est trains
fast
-
est trains one of the fast
-
est trains
Music
examples
?
copyright
1989
by
Hendon Music Inc.
7/24/2019 Steve Reich's 'Different Trains'
8/9
Steve
Reich's
Different
Trains'
7
In the
sleeve-notes
for
the
recording
of The
Desert
Music,
Reich talks
about
his fascination
with
'that constant
flickering
of attention
between
what
words mean
arid
how
they
sound'.8
In
Diferent
Trains
where,
rather than
being
set
to music
as in The Desert
Music,
the
words
themselves
become
music,
that
ambiguity
is even
more evident.
Reich
says
in
the
sleeve-notes
for
Different
Trains
that
'in order to
combine
the
taped
speech
with
the
string
nstruments
selected
small
speech
samples
that
are more
or
less
clearly
pitched
and then
notated them
as
accurately
as
possible
in
musical
notation'.
As
example
he
gives
the
opening
phrase
(see
Example
3).
Yet
it
music
and text back
through
The Desert
Music,
Tehillim
and,
especially,
My
Name Is:
Ensemble
Portrait
o
Come
Out
and It's Gonna
Rain.
In
the
same
way
I think it can be demonstrated
that
the formal
sophistication
of
Different
Trains,
unprecedented
though
it is in Reich's
work,
is
nevertheless
he result
of an
evolutionary
process
that can
be traced
through
his earlier
works,
particularly
those of the
I98os.
With
the
exception
of the four-movement
Drumming,'l
each
of Reich's
works in the
I97os
was cast in a
single
movement
with
a
continuous
unchanging
pulse.
Within
these
large
structures
the
music,
though
cearly
sectionalized,
s
rhythmically
and
Ex.3
T
P4
from Chi-ca
-
go
is
important
that
the
words
are
heard and
understood,
and
to this end Reich
always assigns
an
instrument
to the task
of either
anticipating
and/or
echoing
each
phrase.
These instrumental
imitations act
both
as
indication
that a new
phrase
is
about
to
be
introduced
and
-
especially
useful
in
the
second
movement,
where some
voices are almost
submerged
in the instrumental
music
-
as
a
recurrent
impression
of
the
voice's
inflection,
enabling
the
listener
gradually
o
piece
the
phrase
together.
At the
same
time
an
in-
triguing
ambiguity
is
set
up
between the
gradual
unfolding
of
the
music's narrative and that of
the
speakers'
various stories.
Reich's sleeve-notes
for
Different
Trains
acknowledge
this
ambiguity:
he
argues
that 'the
piece
thus
presents
both a
documentary
and a
musical
reality'
and
goes
on
to claim that it also
'begins
a new musical direction'. However, as I
have
already
suggested,
the
new
direction taken
by
Different
Trains
can
also be seen
as
a
fulfilment
of
a number of ideas more
or less
explicit
in
Reich's earlier
works. In
I980,
in an
interview
with the
Christian
Science
Monitor,
Reich
said
that
'I
believe that music does not exist in
a
vacuum
...
My
work
[is]
...
moving
back...
toward a more mainstream
approach',9
and the
use and choice
of
texts
in
his work
in
the
I980s
is
a
clear indication
of his
desire to
engage
with
major contemporary themes: humanity's
relationship
to God
in
Tehillim,
to the
environ-
ment in
The
Desert
Musicand to itselfin
Different
Trains.
It
is
also
possible
to trace the roots of
Different
Trains'
approach
to
the
interaction
of
8
Steve
Reich,
The Desert
Music,
Nonesuch
797 IOI-I,
1985.
9
David
Sterritt,
'Tradition
Reseen:
Composer
Steve
Reich',
Christian Science
Monitor,
23
October
1980,
p.20.
harmonically
consistent:
as Reich said of
Music
for
Eighteen
Musicians,
The
relationship
between
the
different sections is... best understood
in
terms
of resemblances between members
of a
family.
Certain
characteristics
will be shared
but
others will be
unique'."
In
Tehillim,
however,
Reich divides the work into four
clear
movements,
characterizednot
only by
different
tempi
(in
the scheme
fast-fast-slow-fast)
but
also
by distinctly
different
melodic,
harmonic
and
rhythmic
material;
and the
majority
of
his
works from the
I980s
similarly
consist of a
number
of
separate
movements. Both
New York
Counterpoint
1985)
and
Electric
Counterpoint
adopt
a
three-movement,
fast-slow-fast outline
while The Desert Music and
Sextet
are both in
five movements.
Reich seems to'have a
particularpredilection
for
symmetrical
forms and in The DesertMusic
takes
this
to its
logical
conclusion,
organizing
the music
in
an
arch-like form
-
ABCBA
-
where
the
central movement is
itself a
tripartite
structure
-
CDC
(he
even admits to
having
first
read William Carlos Williams
because,
aged
I6,
he
was
attracted
by
the
symmetry
of the
poet's
name ).
Geometric schema
are
easily
read in
a
two-dimensional
representation,
less
easily
in
three
dimensions,
and with
great
difficulty
when
articulated
through
time,12
so
while the
symmet-
riesof TheDesertMusicmay pleasethe eye
they
'0
However
Drumming
s
perhaps
best
regarded
not
as
a work
in four movements
but
as
four
transformations
of the
same
material.
"
Steve
Reich,
MusicforEighteen
Musicians,
ECM
I
I29,
I978.
12
Reich's
Musicfor
Mallet
Instruments,
oices
nd
Organ,
where
each section
is
based
on a
process
of
gradual
durational
expansion
followed
by
contraction,
is
almost
an
exception
to
this rule
to
New
Yor
-
k
7/24/2019 Steve Reich's 'Different Trains'
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8
Steve Reich's
Different
Trains'
make rather less
sense
to
the ear. To
avoid the
stagnation
possible
in
a
structure
requiring
such
wholesale
repetition
Reich
modifies
each
repeat,
setting
a
different text when the first
movement
returns as the last
movement,
adding
an
extend-
ed
orchestral introduction
before the voices
enter,
and a
siren-like wail for the violas in
the
last
part
of
the middle movement.
Implicit
in
any
narrative,
dramatic or
musical
form
where the end
is
a return to the
beginning
is a
sense
of
existence as a
ring
of
destiny
out of
which it
is
impossible
to
progress.
For
all its
striving
to
convince
us that
Manhassurvivedhitherto
because
e
was too
ignorant o know how to realize iswishes.
Now that
he
canrealize hemhe must
either
change
hemor
perish.
The
Desert
Music,
by
arriving ultimately
at the
point
from
which we
started,
takesus no
further.
Perhaps
as a
result
of
Reich's
at
least subcon-
scious
awareness of
this,
symmetry
in
Different
Trains extends
to no
more than
a
fast-slow-fast
distinction
between the
three
movements;
indeed,
by
running
the
first
two
movements
together,
Reich
deliberately
avoids
any
emphasis
even of this symmetry. Continuity between the
first
and second
movements
is
achieved
both
verbally
-
'I941
I
guess
it
must
have been' is
fbllowed
by
'1940'
-
and
through
tempo:
Virginia's
phrase
anticipates
the
slower
speeds
of
the
following
movement.
More
subtly,
the
same
accompaniment
figure,
first
heard at the
work's
opening
(Ex.4)
and
present
throughout
Ex.4
mf
the first
movement,
continues
to
be heard
throughout
the
second
movement,
albeit much
slower. At the
start of the last
movement,
however,
this
figure disappears
to
return,
only
briefly,
when Mr Davis's
voice
returns
with the
words
'from New
York to Los
Angeles'.
Thus,
while the renewed
vigour
of
the music at the
beginning of the third movement may initially
imply
a
return to the
'America
-
Before the war'
from
which
the
work
began,
the absence of
this
accompaniment
figure
suggests something quite
different. It
is
through
the use of such
essentially
simple
musical
devices that the 'musical
reality'
of
Different
Trains
achieves its
meanings.
*
*
*
In
each of
Steve Reich's
major
works
with
text from the
I98os
there
is a
concern with
the
very
act of
making
music.
Most
straight-
forwardly,
in
the
last movement
of Tehillim
Reich
sets Psalm
150,
an
exhortation to
worship
for all
musicians:
PraiseHim with drum
and
dance,
praise
Him with
strings
ndwinds.
PraiseHim with
sounding
ymbals,
praise
Him with
clanging
ymbals.
In
The Desert
MusicReich chooses
for
the central
section of
the middle
movement
a
text that
might
almost read as
an
injunction
to his
performers:
It is a
principle
f music
to
repeat
he
theme.
Repeat
and
repeat
gain,
as the
pace
mounts.The
theme
s
difficult
but
no
moredifficult
than he
facts o be
resolved.
(William
Carlos
Williams,
The
Orchestra)
while
in
the
second and fourth movements the
text can be read
as
a
description
of the
type
of
listening
Reich's music
requires:
Well,
shallwe
thinkor listen?
s
therea sound
addressed
not
wholly
to theear?
We
half
close
our
eyes.
Wedo not
hear t
through
ur
eyes.
It
is
not
a flute
note
either,
t is
the relation
of
a
flute
note
to a drum.I am wide
awake.Themind
is
listening.
(William
Carlos
Williams,
The
Orchestra)
In
Different
Trains Reich turns to
one
of the
fundamental
question posed
by
the Holocaust:
how is it
possible
that
the
same music
can be
enjoyed by
both
oppressed
and
oppressor?
At
the
end
of the
work
the voice of the Holocaust
survivor Rachella describes how 'There was
one
girl,
who
had a beautiful
voice,
and
they
loved to listen to
the
singing,
the
Germans,
and
when she stopped singing they said, "More,
more" and
they
applauded'.
By
placing
this
text
at
the end
of
Dfferent
TrainsReich demands
that
we
recognize
that
the
people
who
carried
out
the Final
Solution
were
ordinary
men and
women,
not
just
the inhuman executioners
simplistically
conctructed
by
popular
myth;
he
also
insists that we
examine ourselves as we
in
turn
say
'more,
more' and
applaud.