Steve Reich Post

A very poignant part of our world’s history is, without question, the Holocaust in Europe during WWII.  A piece of music that is truly inspiring about this time is ‘Different Trains’, composed by Steve Reich.  Reich was born in New York on October 3, 1936 in New York.  When he was just 1 year old, his parents divorced and his mother moved to Los Angeles.  Because they settled on joint custody, Reich spent much of his early childhood with a governess Virginia on a train travelling back and forth between the two.  As an adult looking back on this experience, he realized that, if he were a Jew living in Europe when he was taking these train rides, it would have been different trains and very different destinations.  The structure of this piece is separated into 3 parts.  The first is tape of his governess Virginia reminiscing about the train trips between Los Angeles and New York with Reich.  The second part is tape of 3 Holocaust survivors who had moved to America speaking about their experiences in concentrations camps.  The third is using both tapes together.

Today we will be listening to 3 different moments in the work that are interesting to listen to and think about in context to the subject.  In the first movement, we are listening to Virginia talk, and the music being played is symbolizing the chugging of the train.  She says things like “From Chicago to New York” and “one of the fastest trains.”  At 6:22 of this movement, her words change and are no longer about this trip.  Instead, she starts stating dates, saying “in 1939”, “1939”, “1940”, 1941”, “1941 I guess it must have been.”  As the words change to these dates, the music changes as well.  It speeds up quite dramatically here, and it feels like we’re racing towards a different place than New York or Chicago; we’re moving towards the war.

In the first minute of the 2^nd movement, the mood of the music has become much more scary.  There are sirens going on, and there is more a sense of urgency.  The words are “1940” (Rachella), “on my birthday”, “The Germans walked in”, “walked into Holland”.  At 0:55, however, things change again.  The narration says “Germans invaded Hungary” (Paul) and the music changes with it.  The rhythms slow down a little, and the tone of the siren becomes lower in pitch.  The sense of urgency becomes less as the Germans take over Hungary.  The train feeling of the strings aren’t as fast as the first movement either.  The need to get their passengers to their destination becomes less, because it is no longer paying customers, but Jews.

The last moment of the work we’ll be listening to is in the 3^rd movement.  The last part of the whole work is very interesting.  The music of the strings has a more hopeful feel to it.  At 7:29, the words are “There was one girl, who had a beautiful voice” (Rachella), “and they loved to listen to the singing, the Germans” “and when she stopped singing they said, ‘More, more’ and they applauded.”  The words and the music give an idea of hope, until the words stop and the instruments end.  At the very end of the piece, the strings slow down, fade in and out, and then fade out completely, much like a train does as it stops.  Where has the train stopped?  It is in Los Angeles to see Steve Reich’s mother?  Or is it at the concentration camp that Rachella, Paul, or Rachel lived?  What does it say that Reich is comparing his train trips to those of the concentration camp survivors?  Is it politically correct for him to do so?  In the end, the work creates a lot of questions, and is an excellent piece of work about the Holocaust.