Altered Zones

[photo by Jeffrey Herman]

Steve Reich recently talked to the folks over at The FADER about the realisation of his 1988 piece, Different Trains. In the fascinating interview, Reich compares the histories and biographies that inspired Different Trains to his recent, and obstensibly similar 2009-10 piece, WTC 9/11. Saturday sees the the New York premiere of WTC 9/11 at Carnegie Hall, as well as his Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet. It also happens to be a celebration of the big guy's 75th year, and still going strong. Take it away Steve:

"My first thought in Different Trains was really just that I wanted to use a sampler with a string quartet. So actually, when I begin pieces I have an abstract idea that has no content whatsoever. The idea of Different Trains was: speaking voices are integrated with string players. I had no idea, none, who the speaking voices were. As a matter of fact, my first idea for a speaking voice was, “Oh, it’ll be the voice of Béla Bartók!”...Then I began to think, “Wait a minute, I’m writing a string quartet, do I really want Béla Bartók looking over my shoulder while I’m doing that? I think enough is enough.” Then I thought, “Oh, I’ll use the voice of Ludwig Wittgenstein!”...Then, I just thought to myself, well there must be something closer to home. And, God knows, the thoughts of my personal trips on these trains popped into my head. Only later, did I think, like I mentioned, well when did this happen? Well, this happened when little kids like me were being taken off to Poland and they weren’t talking to you on the phone today."