Much like any other work which serves to make art from others’ suffering, Different Trains is fraught with danger, yet Reich courts this danger with his decision to attempt a sort of resolution within the piece. The New York Times says it best: Different Trains is “a work of such astonishing originality that breakthrough seems the only possible description…..possesses an absolutely harrowing emotional impact” (Filreis). This piece transports the listener to two completely different settings and still again combines elements of the first two settings into a third movement. With the use of varying dynamics, tempos, rhythms, melodic contour, and instruments of varying timbre, several vivid pictures are painted, sweeping whoever is in the vicinity away into a whole new time and place. The emotional attachment gained from the viewers further drives home the moral of this
Much like any other work which serves to make art from others’ suffering, Different Trains is fraught with danger, yet Reich courts this danger with his decision to attempt a sort of resolution within the piece. The New York Times says it best: Different Trains is “a work of such astonishing originality that breakthrough seems the only possible description…..possesses an absolutely harrowing emotional impact” (Filreis). This piece transports the listener to two completely different settings and still again combines elements of the first two settings into a third movement. With the use of varying dynamics, tempos, rhythms, melodic contour, and instruments of varying timbre, several vivid pictures are painted, sweeping whoever is in the vicinity away into a whole new time and place. The emotional attachment gained from the viewers further drives home the moral of this