Watching Steve Reich watch Steve Reich

This autumn, the music of Steve Reich is reverberating across the world as he celebrates his 90th birthday. Ten years ago, my first job was at a PR agency specialising in classical music, running campaigns for orchestras, record labels and festivals. Within my first few weeks I was sent up to Liverpool for a performance celebrating his 80th birthday that gave me a glimpse of the peculiar power of the apostle of musical minimalism.

On the programme were two of Reich’s most important works – Electric Counterpoint (1987) and Different Trains (1988). The performance took place outdoors at Edge Hill Station, the oldest active passenger railway station in the world. During the afternoon, rehearsals and a soundcheck took place and Steve Reich was interviewed by the press. I didn’t have a huge amount to do, so I wandered around taking in the railway-station-cum-performance-venue. I walked into one of the deserted waiting rooms where a documentary about Reich was playing. A few minutes later, a man wearing a baseball cap walked in and sat down a couple of seats away from me. There was Steve Reich talking on the screen; and there, to my left, was Steve Reich watching Steve Reich talking on the screen. I sat there, not quite knowing what to say or do. He walked out a few minutes later.

It seemed an appropriate way to meet him: one real Steve Reich, one on tape, and momentarily they were in sync, like a human version of his Violin Phase (1967). From glancing interactions with the man across the day, it was clear that he was quite at ease in his grouchy old age. I remember someone from BBC 6 Music giving him a little present to unwrap that he greeted with only faintly masked disdain. During the show itself, he hopped on to the sound desk, evidently not happy with the mix. I’m told that this is a regular occurrence if Reich is in the room, to the annoyance of technicians I’m sure. I suppose at 80, or 90, you know what you like.

Edge Hill Station opened in 1836 and has been in use ever since, although it’s a little sleepy these days, with trains coming through only occasionally. The arts organisation Metal, which presented the concert, now occupies some of its buildings as an office. The station’s austere late Georgian red sandstone made for a handsome backdrop for the standing audience gathered on the cobbled approach road, all facing intently towards a stage at the bottom. There was a real sense of excitement.

Electric Counterpoint, scored for 13 guitars, is most typically performed by a single guitarist (at Edge Hill, the Swedish musician Mats Bergström) accompanied by a tape playing the pre-recorded lines of two bass guitars and ten electric guitars. Written in three movements – Fast, Slow, Fast – it’s a mesmeric, playful work, with the bass guitars adding a pleasing depth and richness which belies the sight of the lone musician on stage. The shimmering sound of the guitars lingered above the tracks.

First recorded by Pat Metheny, it is a work that many admirers of Reich beyond the confines of classical performance have latched on to: it is sampled in ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ by psychedelic electronic music duo The Orb, was remixed by Norway’s Röyksopp, and is a favourite of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood to perform live.

Different Trains followed, played by a string quartet from the London Contemporary Orchestra alongside a new film by the celebrated director Bill Morrison, commissioned especially for the event. The live quartet was accompanied by a tape, this time featuring the pre-recorded tracks of a further three string quartets, together with sampled sounds of voices and trains.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its mechanical energy, Different Trains is a profoundly moving work. Reich wrote it in recollection of the long trips he made across America as a boy, between his divorced parents, and finds a parallel in the journeys fellow Jews made across Europe during the years of the Holocaust. The snippets of speech, including from Holocaust survivors, from which the melodic motifs are derived, take on a sepia-toned quality. The romantic, adventurous optimism of the first movement, ‘America – Before the War’, moves to tension and fear with angry sirens and screeching train horns in ‘Europe – During the War’. ‘After the War’ offers a conclusion of poignancy and restrained hope.

The closing moments of that concert have always stayed with me. As the musical texture thinned to more plaintive, unanswered melodies, a real train trundled through the station. Whether by coincidence or clever scheduling, it was an extraordinarily resonant moment. The music seemed to continue along the track and away into the distance.

Steve Reich is one of those rare living artists in classical music who have attained status as a major cultural figure, creating a sound world that has transcended genre. Very few can claim the same malleability – perhaps only his minimalist brethren Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt. His style of composition appeals to classical purists and acid ravers alike. Reich, through his overlapping rhythms and driving pulse, seems to tap into something deeply woven into the modern psyche. That was evident ten years ago in Liverpool.

Happy birthday, Steve.