Different Strokes

This one is a cd of music by Steve Reich performed by the Orchestre National de Lyon conducted by David Robertson. The featured work is Different Trains in a form for string orchestra and pre-recorded tape. One of Reich's more well known pieces, the pre-recorded tape features snippets of speech relating to the idea of two very different kinds of train journey made in the early 1940s, one by the boy Reich from New York to Chicago commuting between his estranged parents and the other by the Nazi oncentration camp victims. The voices are of Reich's nanny, a pullman train porter and of holocaust survivors. The musical content has a driving train rhythym that is typical of Reich's minimalist approach and the whole is a thought provoking piece. Of all the early minimalist composers, Reich has stayed closest to that approach and has been the most successful in championing it as a valid concept. The cd features two other driving string pieces, Triple Quartet and the Four Sections. While more abstract and lacking the programmatic features of Different Trains, they are no less interesting and draw the listener in.