Knut Mork Skagen wrote:
> On Oct 27, 2005, at 15:08, Ken Wolman wrote:
>
>>
>> Thank you, Douglas.
>>
>> TOTAL RECALL: THE POLISH RAILWAYS
>
>
> What a juxtaposition.
>
> Are either of you familiar with composer Steve Reich's "Different
> Trains"? A friend tipped me off to a concert performance of it and I
> had no idea about the theme, just thought it was an odd title for a
> string quartet. It begins as a highly minimalist and somewhat
> eccentric musical history of the American railroad but gradually and
> inevitably segues into the Polish railways of Ken's poem. Needless to
> say I left the auditorium in a very different state than when I came in.
>
> --Knut
I know of Reich, and for all I know I've heard Different Trains. No, I
just looked--it was Tehillim. I need to overcome my prejudice about
minimalism: growing up on Romantics and verismo opera will do that to
you. Glass's The Voyage I found quite beautiful. I can intuit where
Reich was going though not how he got there (that is the surprise, I
guess). I don't suppose it's possible for a post-Holocaust Jew,
especially one who works as much from the tradition, as Glass appears
to, to contemplate European railways and not "play the tape" until all
rails converge on the gateway with the writing above it.
Curious that Reich reorchestrated Different Trains for a string
orchestra, then withdrew it.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
W.H. Auden
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