Eight Lines

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Eight Lines is work by Steve Reich that is a rescoring of his work Octet. In addition to the original scoring for Octet (string quartet, two pianos, and two clarinets doubling both bass clarinet and flute as well as piccolo), Reich added another string quartet. Eight Lines is exactly the same piece as Octet, but adds additional players to make the performance easier. As Reich describes it, the additional two violins solve "the difficulty of playing rather awkward double stops in tune," and the additional viola and cello "allow the rapid eighth-note patterns to be broken up between ... two players" to prevent fatigue.