Composers: John Adams and Steve Reich
Opera North spares no pains to offer a stimulating programme in the Howard Assembly Room and Steve Reich’s Different Trains proved to be a riveting conclusion to this short, but compelling, afternoon concert. In a haze of dry ice, with lamps glowing and fading, a string quartet from the Orchestra of Opera North added the hustle of trains, the sound of their whistles and the tragedy of the death camps to a pre-recorded tape.
Dating from 1988, Different Trains owes its existence to the fact that Reich had come to realise that, as a privileged American Jewish boy, he was travelling regularly by train between New York and Los Angeles to stay with one or other of his separated parents, just at the time (1939 to 1942) when European Jews were undergoing far more dreadful train rides. He got his governess who accompanied him, a retired Pullman porter and three Holocaust survivors to record their memories – and he was ready to write Different Trains.
Fragments of their speech form the basis for the music, together with three separate pre-recorded string quartets. Apart from the second movement (Europe – During the war), where the words of survivors are echoed in the music, this is exhilarating stuff, headlong journeys, contrasts of momentary peace, dramatic climaxes with rich dynamic appeal. The four members of the string quartet delivered a superbly spirited account of the score.
Before that came John Adams’ Road Movies, another minimalist masterpiece requiring virtuoso playing (and masses of stamina) from its two musicians – on violin (Byron Parish) and piano (Annette Saunders). Again the middle movement is the contrast, described by Adams as “a solitary figure in an empty desert landscape”, the violin creating a sense of space over dense piano figures. The first movement builds much from little, isolated phrases repeated and transformed, and the final movement finds Adams confessing the “giddy bouncy ride” is very difficult for piano and violin to maintain. Parish and Saunders justified Adams’ tongue-in-cheek comment, “Relax, and leave the driving to us” and the work ended with smiles all round.
Reviewed on 22 April 2023.
