Different Trains
Different Trains is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988.
Different Trains
Background[edit]
During World War II, Reich made train journeys between New York and Los Angeles to visit his parents, who had separated. Years later, he pondered the fact that, as a Jew, had he been in Europe instead of the United States at that time, he might have been traveling in Holocaust trains.[1]
Steve Reich's earlier work had frequently used tape, looped and played back at different speeds. However, Different Trains was a novel experiment, using recorded speech as a source for melodies.
Reception[edit]
The world premiere was performed by the Kronos Quartet at the First Presbyterian Church in Miami, during the 1988 New Music America festival.
Its original recording, also performed by the Kronos Quartet, won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1989.[5]