Different Trains

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Different Trains is a work by Steve Reich for String Quartet and pre-recorded performance tape. The basic idea of this way of composing is that selected recordings of speech generate the musical materials for the instruments of the quartet. 

086: ‘Different Trains’, Steve Reich (Kronos Quartet ...
Album cover for Different Trains
Image source

Listen to it here: 




To put things into context, this was composed in 1988 and premiered by the Kronos Quartet on 2 November at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the same year. To put such a thing together and coordinate its performance was significantly more difficult then that it would be now with modern technology and yet the work is still considered to be novel compared to the vast majority of works performed today. 

Reich's parents separated when he was just one year old, which meant that he would frequently travel back and forth: his mother lived in Los Angeles and his father in New York. He was accompanied by his governess, who was called Virginia. This took place in the years 1939 - 1942. Meanwhile in Europe during this period, World War II was taking place. Whilst the trips that the young Steve Reich was taking at the time were "exciting and romantic", had he been in Europe, as a Jew, he would have had to ride very different trains. These thoughts stimulated the creation of the piece that reflect the whole situation. 

Fifty Years Of Steve Reich's 'It's Gonna Rain' | WBUR News
Steve Reich (b. 1936)
Image source

The process of composition involved recording his governess Virginia (then in her seventies) reminiscing about their trains trips together as well as recording interviews of a Pullman porter and   Holocaust survivors and taking recordings of American and European trains sounds of the '30s and '40s.

Reich then took small speech samples (more or less clearly pitched) and then notated them as close as possibly in musical, equal temperament notation. The strings then imitate that "speech melody" note for note.  The speech samples and train sounds were transferred to tape with the use of sampling keyboard and a computer. Three separate string quartets are also added to the pre-recorded tape and the final live quartet part is added in performance. The three movements are played without pauses.  

"The piece...begins a new musical direction. It is a direction that I expect will lead to a new kind of documentary music video theatre in the not too distant future."
- Steve Reich

Was Reich correct in his prediction? 




This blog is intended to be educational and to share knowledge about music. Daily Hit of Music does not claim to own anything contained in this post and declares its sources openly. 
The following sources were used for this blog post: Steve Reich - Boosey & Hawkes, Wikipedia
Image sources can be found in the image captions. 
Recordings can be found on YouTube by clicking the 'DHM YouTube Playlist' links.

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