Blog: Doklands

Steve Reich - Different Trains (America - before the war)

Sep 7, 2009, 8:25pm

I still remember the thrill of hearing Different Trains for the first time. The sublime opening, with the string quartet imitating the rhythms of the the train in motion, the field recordings of the train whistles, the way individual instruments add short melody lines that then reveal themselves to be musical transcriptions of fragments of speech... It's just a magnificent accomplishment. Here's the opening section, from the famous Kronos Quartet recording, before the piece takes a darker turn to consider the different plights of American and European Jewish train passengers. There are a [...]

Bonus MP3: Ronnie Fauss -- "Night Before The War"So Percussion (but not Dan Deacon) tonight, Steve Reich's Double Sextet, Bang on a Can benefits, street band & more Newspeak playing w/ Fiery Furnaces (and a Matt Friedberger piece), played the Bang on a Can benefit (pics) ++ 2nd Steve Reich 'Double Sextet' show added The War On Drugs in America An interview with The War On Drugs

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