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Steve Reichs Different Trains
Steve Reichs Different Trains
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Fox
Christopher
Steve Reich's 'DifferentTrains'
TABLE 1
'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)
achievements - neither work can be said to break interestin the politicalimplicationsof his music,
new ground in their combination of words and last in evidence in the benefit concert that
music. Perhaps because text-setting itself was premiered Come Out in April I967, for the re-
new to Reich (with the exception of student trial of the "Harlem Six" of which Daniel
works) when he came to write Tehillim, and Hamm, the voice on the tape, was a member'.6
setting an English text was new to him when he DifferentTrainsis certainly a triumphant fulfil-
wrote The Desert Music, he adopts a straight- ment of those intentions.
forward, predominantly syllabic approach in Perhapsthe most obvious differencebetween
both pieces. As Keith Potter observed soon after Reich's plans for the successor to My Name Is
the premiere of The DesertMusic:'The use of an and DifferentTrainsis the absenceof any attempt
English-language text is entirely new in Reich's at real-timeprocessingof the voices used. Above
mature, "repetitive" music and... he sets the all else Reich is a composer with a strong sense of
words in a manner resembling the Western the art of the possible: much of his instrumental
traditional notion of the term "setting" '.3 Only music in the I970s evolved aroundthe particular
in Different Trains is the significance of the re- gifts of the musicianswith whom he worked, and
introduction of words into Reich's music the documentationaccompanyingthe recordings
through Tehillimand TheDesertMusicconfirmed. of works such as MusicforLargeEnsemble(1978)
It might appear that the problems presented and Octet (1978-9), in which the process of
by texts were ignored in the years between It's revision after the first performanceis described,
Gonna Rain and Tehillim until the potential of demonstrates Reich's determination always to
the phase shifting technique discovered in the achieve the most idiomatically successful form
early tape pieces had been refined. It is neverthe- for his ideas. Reich'svisits to IRCAM, in I980 for
less important to note that throughout this work on My Name Is and laterwhile he worked
period Reich returned from time to time to a on Sextet (I985), must surely have convinced
'work in progress' that did involve words. This him that, although equipment was available
was My Name Is: EnsemblePortrait,begun in which would technically be capableof the sort of
1967 and only provisionally completed in 1980. live signal processing he required, the problems
Ian Gardiner has described it as presentedby the use of this equipmentin rehearsal
and performancewere too greatto be practicable.
dating back to a loosely structuredpiece of 1967, In particularthe live integrationof passagesof
wherethenamesof theaudience,tapedastheyentered
the hall and then edited onto tape loops, were prerecordedspeech with the sort of instrumental
improvisedon by Reich,crossingphaserelationships music that Reich writes is bedevilled by the fact
acrossthreeportabletaperecorders.In 1980hevisited that few speakers adhere to the regular pulse
IRCAMin Pariswith theaimof discoveringthetech- that is such a characteristicof all Reich's work.
nologicalmeansto reapplythis conceptin realtime, If this pulse was absent in the vocal material,
usingthenameof theperformers of hisown ensemble, that material would be felt to stand outside the
andwith thephaserelationships organizedin advance. world of the live instruments; whereas Reich's
At its firstperformance,in New YorkonJanuary6, aim
was, as Schwarts says, 'to utilize live
198I, the eight performersof Octetsteppedforward instruments ... to imitate the sounds
to the microphonesandintroducedthemselves...the [of the
voices] ... as well as to complete the implied
tapephasedeachname,one at a time.4
harmonic, melodic and rhythmic inferences of
Schwartz quotes Reich as insisting thatMy Name the resulting patterns'.' (It is worth noting that,
Is: EnsemblePortrait'is just a sketch... because in the initialstages of planning TheDesertMusic,
the important part of it is to introduce... instru- Reich considered using a tape of William Carlos
ments' so that 'one would end up with a tape Williams - author of the poetry chosen as text
and a live score'.5 Schwartz also reports that, in for the work - reading one of his poems. Here
the work for which My Name Is was the sketch, too the rhythms of the prerecordedvoice would
Reich hoped also to add real-time treatments of inevitably have meant that the voice was heard
voices from history, such as Hitler or Roosevelt at one remove from Reich's music and, perhaps
perhaps. As Ian Gardiner has observed, these for that reason, Reich abandoned the idea.)
intentions 'would seem to indicate a renewed Reich's solution of this technicalproblem was
3KeithPotter,'TheRecentPhasesof SteveReich',Contact
29
typically elegant and practical. One of the great
revolutions in commercially manufactured
(Spring 1985), p.3 1.
4 lan music technology in the I98os has been the
Gardiner, Music was a the
gradualprocess: rediscoveryof
traditionin the music of Steve Reich since I976, (MA Thesis,
Keele University, 1983), pp.37-8. 6
Gardiner,op cit., footnotes p.iii.
s Schwartz, op cit., 7 Schwartz, cit., p.262.
p.263. op
6 Steve Reich's'DifferentTrains'
Ex.2
.m J
one of the fast -
9 J
est trains
//' n j.
one of the fast
i.
-
J
est trains
.fast
L - est trains
/
one of the
one of fast
the fast - est trains
est trains fast
fast -- est trains
est trains one of the
one of fast
the fast - est trains
est trains
In the sleeve-notes for the recording of The music and text back through The DesertMusic,
Desert Music, Reich talks about his fascination Tehillimand, especially, My Name Is: Ensemble
with 'that constant flickering of attention Portraitto ComeOut and It's GonnaRain.
between what words mean aridhow they sound'.8 In the same way I think it can be demonstrated
In Diferent Trains where, rather than being set that the formal sophisticationof DifferentTrains,
to music as in The Desert Music, the words unprecedented though it is in Reich's work, is
themselves becomemusic, that ambiguity is even neverthelessthe resultof an evolutionary process
more evident. Reich says in the sleeve-notes for that can be traced through his earlier works,
Different Trains that 'in order to combine the particularly those of the I98os. With the
taped speech with the stringinstrumentsI selected exception of the four-movement Drumming,'l
small speech samples that are more or less clearly each of Reich's works in the I97os was cast in a
pitched and then notated them as accurately as single movement with a continuous unchanging
possible in musical notation'. As example he pulse. Within these large structures the music,
gives the opening phrase (see Example 3). Yet it though cearly sectionalized,is rhythmicallyand
Ex.3
P4
T
_
from Chi-ca - go to New Yor - k
is important that the words are heard and harmonically consistent: as Reich said of Music
understood, and to this end Reich always assigns for EighteenMusicians,'The relationshipbetween
an instrument to the task of either anticipating the different sections is... best understood in
and/or echoing each phrase. These instrumental terms of resemblances between members of a
imitations act both as indication that a new family. Certain characteristics will be shared
phrase is about to be introduced and - especially but others will be unique'." In Tehillim,
useful in the second movement, where some however, Reich divides the work into four clear
voices are almost submerged in the instrumental movements, characterizednot only by different
music - as a recurrent impression of the voice's tempi (in the scheme fast-fast-slow-fast) but
inflection, enabling the listenergraduallyto piece also by distinctly different melodic, harmonic
the phrase together. At the same time an in- and rhythmic material;and the majority of his
triguing ambiguity is set up between the gradual works from the I980s similarly consist of a
unfolding of the music's narrative and that of number of separatemovements. Both New York
the speakers' various stories. Counterpoint(1985) and Electric Counterpoint
Reich's sleeve-notes for Different Trains adopt a three-movement, fast-slow-fast outline
acknowledge this ambiguity: he argues that 'the while The Desert Music and Sextet are both in
piece thus presents both a documentary and a five movements.
musical reality' and goes on to claim that it also Reich seems to'have a particularpredilection
'begins a new musical direction'. However, as I for symmetrical forms and in The DesertMusic
have already suggested, the new direction taken takes this to its logical conclusion, organizing
by DifferentTrainscan also be seen as a fulfilment the music in an arch-like form - ABCBA -
of a number of ideas more or less explicit in where the central movement is itself a tripartite
Reich's earlier works. In I980, in an interview structure- CDC (he even admits to having first
with the Christian ScienceMonitor, Reich said read William Carlos Williams because, aged I6,
that 'I believe that music does not exist in a he was attractedby the symmetry of the poet's
vacuum ... My work [is] ... moving back... name!). Geometric schema are easily read in a
toward a more mainstream approach',9and the two-dimensional representation, less easily in
use and choice of texts in his work in the I980s is threedimensions, and with greatdifficulty when
a clear indication of his desire to engage with articulatedthrough time,12 so while the symmet-
major contemporary themes: humanity's ries of The DesertMusicmay please the eye they
relationship to God in Tehillim, to the environ-
ment in The DesertMusicand to itselfin Different '0However Drummingis perhaps best regardednot as a work
in four movements but as four transformations of the same
Trains. It is also possible to trace the roots of material.
Different Trains' approach to the interaction of " Steve Reich, Musicians,ECM I I29, I978.
MusicforEighteen
12
8 Steve Reich, The DesertMusic, Nonesuch 797 IOI-I, 1985.
Reich's MusicforMalletInstruments,
VoicesandOrgan,where
each section is based on a process of gradual durational
9 David Sterritt, 'Tradition Reseen:
Composer Steve Reich', expansion followed by contraction, is almostan exception to
Christian Science Monitor, 23 October 1980, p.20. this rule!
8 Steve Reich's'DifferentTrains'
make rather less sense to the ear. To avoid the In each of Steve Reich's major works with
stagnation possible in a structure requiring such text from the I98os there is a concern with the
wholesale repetition Reich modifies each repeat, very act of making music. Most straight-
setting a different text when the first movement forwardly, in the last movement of Tehillim
returns as the last movement, adding an extend- Reich sets Psalm 150, an exhortation to worship
ed orchestral introduction before the voices for all musicians:
enter, and a siren-like wail for the violas in the PraiseHim with drumanddance,
last part of the middle movement.
praiseHimwith stringsandwinds.
Implicit in any narrative, dramaticor musical PraiseHim with soundingcymbals,
form where the end is a return to the beginning praiseHim with clangingcymbals.
is a sense of existence as a ring of destiny out of
which it is impossible to progress. For all its In TheDesertMusicReich chooses for the central
section of the middle movement a text that
striving to convince us that
might almost read as an injunction to his
Manhassurvivedhithertobecausehe was too
performers:
ignorantto know how to realizehis wishes.
Now thathe canrealizethemhe musteither It is a principleof music
changethemor perish. to repeatthetheme.Repeat
andrepeatagain,
The Desert Music, by arriving ultimately at the as thepacemounts.The
point from which we started, takesus no further. themeis difficult
Perhaps as a result of Reich's at least subcon- butno moredifficult
scious awareness of this, symmetry in Different thanthefactsto be
Trainsextends to no more than a fast-slow-fast resolved.
distinction between the three movements; (WilliamCarlosWilliams,TheOrchestra)
indeed, by running the first two movements while in the second and fourth movements the
together, Reich deliberatelyavoids any emphasis text can be read as a description of the type of
even of this symmetry. Continuity between the
listening Reich's music requires:
first and second movements is achieved both
verbally - 'I941 I guess it must have been' is Well,shallwe
fbllowed by '1940' - and through tempo: think or listen? Is therea soundaddressed
not whollyto theear?
Virginia's phrase anticipates the slower speeds Wehalfclose
of the following movement. More subtly, the oureyes. Wedo not
same accompaniment figure, first heard at the hearit throughoureyes.
work's opening (Ex.4) and present throughout It is not
a flutenoteeither,it is therelation
Ex.4 of a flutenote
to a drum.I amwide
awake.The mind
is listening.
mf (WilliamCarlosWilliams,TheOrchestra)
In Different Trains Reich turns to one of the
the first movement, continues to be heard fundamental question posed by the Holocaust:
throughout the second movement, albeit much how is it possible that the same music can be
slower. At the start of the last movement, enjoyed by both oppressed and oppressor? At
however, this figure disappears- to return, only the end of the work the voice of the Holocaust
briefly, when Mr Davis's voice returnswith the survivor Rachella describes how 'There was
words 'from New York to Los Angeles'. Thus, one girl, who had a beautiful voice, and they
while the renewed vigour of the music at the loved to listen to the singing, the Germans, and
beginning of the third movement may initially when she stopped singing they said, "More,
imply a return to the 'America - Before the war' more" and they applauded'.By placing this text
from which the work began, the absence of this at the end of Dfferent TrainsReich demands that
accompaniment figure suggests something quite we recognize that the people who carried out
different. It is through the use of such essentially the Final Solution were ordinary men and
simple musical devices that the 'musical reality' women, not just the inhuman executioners
of DifferentTrainsachieves its meanings. simplistically conctructed by popular myth; he
also insists that we examine ourselves as we in
* * * turn say 'more, more' and applaud.