Track Listing

1. Different Trains (America- Before the War) - The Kronos Quartet
2. Different Trains (Europe- During the War) - The Kronos Quartet
3. Different Trains (After the War) - The Kronos Quartet
4. Electric Counterpoint (Fast) - Pat Metheny
5. Electric Counterpoint (Slow) - Pat Metheny
6. Electric Counterpoint (Fast) - Pat Metheny

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26791 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com essential recording
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

good Steve Reich to have
Different Train is one of Steve Reich's most talked-about pieces. It was inspired by his personal memories of his experience as a child riding trains a lot all over the United States to visit each of his divorced parents, & also interviews he did with holocaust survivors about their experiences aboard European trains in WWII. The string quartet's job is mostly to match speech melody, & there are other trainy sounds mixed in, too. The music is very muscular, very compelling.

Electric Counterpoint is some of Reich's most beautiful music if you ask me. Each note is absolutely clear; the music changes gradually in increments with great awareness of keeping the listener never bored but always interested. The guitar virtuosity of Pat Metheny does a lot for the piece, too. For one thing, Reich finished his drafts of the music with Metheny telling him where the notes could go given the physical shape of guitars. For me, Electric Counterpoint is probably much more enjoyable to listen to than Different Trains. Wonderful music.

Different Trains is an important Reich piece to be familiar, but I'd even highly recommend this cd just for Electric Counterpoint. This cd is very high on the list of Steve Reich cd's to get.

A masterpiece of humanized Minimalism
Having never been a major aficionado of Minimalist music, my first real introduction to it was via Godfrey Reggio's movie Koyaanisqatsi. The soundtrack to that film, by Philip Glass, was enthralling. It made me seek out his and other composer's music. As part of that search, I picked up Steve Reich's Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint recording about ten years ago. I included it, almost as an afterthought, as part of one of those mail order "buy 10 CDs for a penny!" promotions. The last thing I wrote on the order card, I remember, was this Steve Reich CD. My thought at the time was, "Oh well, I don't know what he sounds like, but it should be interesting." Guess which recording, among all of those I got through that mail order fiasco, is the only one that I still listen to regularly? You got it, Steve Reich's Different Trains. I didn't realize what I was getting. . . . It took time to grow on me. I listened to it maybe three or four times that first year. It was typical minimalist fare; repetitive sound images flowing and changing in organic patterns. It is only now, 10 years later, that I can comprehend what is happening on this CD. Somehow, Steve Reich managed to take the often starkly cold patterns and theories of Minimalism and infuse them with immense humanity. The two separate pieces: "Different Trains" and "Electric Counterpoint" are widely different in tone and intent, but work together strangely well. "Different Trains" is a combination of oversampled recordings by the Kronos Quartet, the recordings of trains, and sound bites from interviews with people who rode on trains during the 1940s. The speech recordings provide 10 or 15 simple phrases such as ". . . from Chicago to New York." These phrases provide the tonal images that are the 'melody' of the piece. The slow transition from people speaking about traveling in American trains to a sudden realization that one is now listening to Holocaust survivors speaking about trains that run to death camps is heart breaking. The second piece, Electric Counterpoint, is a massively oversampled piece built up from the recordings of the guitar work of Pat Metheny. Electric Counterpoint is optimistic, flowing, and surprisingly energetic. I heartily recommend this recording as a masterpiece of 20th century composition and performance. I listen to it at least once a month just for the shear joy it provides.

amazing
This is perhaps both Reich's best work and the Kronos Quartet's finest performance. Different Trains is simply phenomenal. The piece consists of short "pitched" fragments of interviews Reich conducted, with always one instrument doubling the voice on the same pitch, over a quasi-minimalist texture with a few additional sounds (train whistles and such) in the background. The subject matter is train rides before, during, and after World War II, with the middle section obviously involving Holocaust stories. Uplifting, mesmerizing, heart-breaking, this piece is a must-have. Kronos is at their best, playing with great rhythmic clarity and an unusually nice sound for them.

Electric Counterpoint is a nice addition to this disc. While it doesn't have the emotional content of Different Trains, it certainly provides an enjoyable listening experience. A reviewer below with more knowledge than I of the electric guitar and this performer has gone into greater detail.