Track Listing

1. Different Trains
2. Electric Counterpoint

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8810 in Music
• Released on: 1989-03-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 42 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Different Trains (1988) will probably go down in history as Reich's masterpiece. And deservedly so. Reich's phase-shifting minimalism is made dazzlingly entertaining in Different Trains, which is scored for string quartet and digitally sampled voices that repeat bits of speech concerning trains and Reich's experience with them growing up. The sinister part here is than some trains carried Jews to death camps. That's here as well. The Kronos Quartet has also never sounded better. Electric Counterpoint (1987) has one guitar--Pat Metheny in this case-- playing to 10 pre-recorded motifs, also on guitar. You absolutely need this. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews

A surprising fusion
The two works on this disc are essential listening for anyone with even the slightest interest in Steve Reich. For those who don't know the composer, there are perhaps easier places to start - the Music for Mallet Instruments, Octet, Music for 18 Musicians, for instance.

It's now nearly 20 years since these pieces were recorded. Different Trains juxtaposes the Kronos Quartet with taped railway announcements, words overheard on trains, lines relating to train journeys etc. Throughout, there's a true integration of the form, since the strings pick up rhythmic and melodic lines from the spoken words, develop them, amplify them.

Electric Counterpoint is performed on an electric guitar. Pat Metheney plays against pre-recorded tapes to create something like a complex - but surprisingly easy on the ear - fugue (well, canon).

I have one criticism of the disc in that I have always found the recording quality of Different Trains just too much "in the face". It's too close for my liking, but the problem isn't great enough to detract from the playing or the piece.

A key work of 20th Century classical music
I saw the Kronos Quartet perform the British premier of this piece many years ago now, and it was an experience I'll never forget. At the time it seemed to be a radical step for Reich to collaborate in this way, especially on such a sensitive and intensely autobiographical subject, but the end result remains an incredibly powerful work, and one which I am convinced will come to be seen as a high point of late 20th Century classical music.
It is a pity the accompanying piece written for guitarist Pat Metheny (and I speak as a big fan of his own work) is relatively lightweight in comparison, and that's why I've knocked one star off this review.

Superb
Musicians have always had a fascination with trains - something about them seems to inspire composers to try and capture the sounds and rhythms of a train journey. Different trains starts in this innocuous sort of vein - dubbed over the percussive railway noises and ubiquitous steam whistle effects are what appear to be wistful, nostalgic reminiscences of train journeys of the past. However, some 6-7 minutes into the piece, the listener is jolted out of this gentle reverie. The tempo is subtly raised, and the dates mentioned by the voices - 1940 - 1941 - suddenly take on a new and chilling resonance.

Before we realise it, we are in Germany of the early 1940's, and we are aware that there is nothing innocent about this ride. Through this section, the sound effects - so simple, just a siren and a whistle - are used with devastating effect. The whistle, raised to a progressively higher note as the intensity rises, ends up almost off the scale. It sounds as if the sound equipment used had trouble reproducing the whistle at such a high pitch, and the resulting tortured, screaming effect creates the indescribable quality that such a narrative demands.

After such an episode, the work's conclusion cannot really help its anti climax. There is really nowhere for it to go, though naturally there is a dead, empty ring to some of the descriptions of postwar America.

This was a dangerous work to write - the risk of trivialising the historical events with melodrama or of being afraid to tackle such a subject head on were immense. Reich rises to the challenge masterfully, and I'm sure that 'Different Trains' will be remembered for many many years to come.