Steve Reich's 'Different Trains

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Steve Reich's Different Trains

ARTICLE FEBRUARY 1990

DOI: 10.1017/S0040298200061076

CITATION

1

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416

1 AUTHOR:

Christopher Fox

Brunel University London

14PUBLICATIONS 14CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Available from: Christopher Fox

Retrieved on: 22 February 2016
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2/9

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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3/9

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


4/9

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)


5/9

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


6/9

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.


7/9

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.


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


9/9

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.

Documents

Steve Reich's 'Different Trains