Notes from the Subway
The New York City Subway is among the most concrete inspirations for my music. I've written four pieces and counting about it. I am attracted to the subway on a number of levels: as a functional transportation network that informs much of how the city above it looks and works, as a mysterious labyrinth of things half-completed or long-ago abandoned, as a slightly grimy and discomforting everyday necessity, and of course as a microcosm for New York City itself in its compressed and anonymous urbanity. It also encompasses such a wide variety of environments, from elevated tracks above avenues to jungle-like open-cut rights-of-way, from small platforms cramped with people to vast but empty underground halls. So far, I've written pieces about:
- BMT–Chambers Street Station (J/M/Z lines), whose grand scale – at least before a recent renovation – is eerie when compared with its emptiness
- Times Square with its consuming madness
- the G-train, which has a reputation for going nowhere but terminals at a station with magnificent views of New York Harbor and downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan
- the colossally loud diesel-powered maintenance trains.
Scores
If you are interested in a score and parts for any of the Notes from the Subway pieces, please contact Nissim.