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Carnegie Hall - Steve Reich @ 70
Different Trains sounds as fresh, disturbing and personal as it did when it was written. Steve opened a huge door with Different Trains, unlocking many rooms full of possibilities.” —David Harrington, Kronos Quartet
Photo: Sketch for Different Trains
MUSICAL LANGUAGES:
SPEECH AS SOURCE MATERIAL
NEXT: Interactive Demonstration

Reich in His Own Words

On the use of speech as a musical element and its role in Different Trains (3:42)
 

Background

Reich’s 1988 work for string quartet and tape, Different Trains, is perhaps the most personally political and also the most quietly affecting. The piece recalls the composer’s regular childhood cross-country train journeys between his divorced parents—his mother in California and his father in New York. Later in life he began to look back and reflect that, as a Jew, if he had been living in Europe at that time, he would likely have embarked on a train journey of a very different sort.

Listen:

Different Trains
1. America—Before the war


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