Steve Reich
Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint

THE REVIEW

The two pieces featured on this CD date back to the late '80s. The first, "Different Trains", uses the classic ensemble of the string quartet in a very original way, accompanied by a pre-recorded tape containing phrases and fragments of speech repeated several times. These fragments were collected by Steve Reich as a testimony of a personal experience, when as a child he traveled by train from New York to Los Angeles, accompanied by his governess, to visit his mother who had recently separated. Many years later, Reich thought that during the same period, in Europe, other trains, different trains, were taking Jews to extermination, and if he had been there, it might have been his fate, a Jew born in New York by chance.

Thus, the phrasing of the string quartet is nervous and fragmentary, marked by frequent changes of tempo. Punctuating the three movements in which the piece is divided (lasting 27 minutes) are the phrases collected by Reich during the piece's creation and transferred onto tape: those of his former governess, a conductor on the New York - Los Angeles line, and of three Holocaust survivors; along with train noises from the '30s and '40s.

The tape also contains three additional string quartets that are added to the part played live by the musicians, thus creating a dense and labyrinthine polyphony typical of this composer's usual style, a leading figure of minimalism.

However, the music is pleasantly listenable, flowing as decisively as lightly. The same applies to "Electric Counterpoint", a spectacular piece written for the guitar of the great Pat Metheny (here generous with advice and technical suggestions to Reich himself). Of a shorter duration, 15 minutes, it is divided into three movements: fast-slow-fast. Particularly striking is the fact that the electric guitar, as we know it, is entirely transformed according to Reich's intentions. The timbre is always clear and crystalline, and once again, a tape is used, on which 10 guitar parts and 2 electric bass parts are recorded, while the guitarist plays the eleventh guitar part live.

It all seems very complicated, and perhaps it is: yet it remains admirable, the skill with which Steve Reich makes this music full of lightness, rhythm, and engaging ability.