aworks :: "new" american classical music

In C (1964). Terry Riley /founding or crowning?/

Terry Riley via last.fm

Kyle Gann points out that Robert Carl's book on In C is out.

From the first sentence in the Amazon description of the book:

Unquestionably the founding work of minimalism in musical composition...

I'm certainly no musicologist, even if Four Musical Minimalists is my favorite music book. Regardless, while In C is arguably the crowning achievement of minimalism, isn't La Monte Young's Trio for Strings, from 1958, the founding work?

For the record, Keith Potter's Four Musical Minimalists lists the following early influences on Terry Riley:

• Piano Concerto. Francis Poulenc
• Three Piano Pieces, Opus 11. Arnold Schoenberg
• Six Little Piano Pieces, Opus 19. Arnold Schoenberg
• Zietmasze. Karlheinz Stockhausen

Despite his relationship at the time with La Monte Young, Riley missed the student performance of Trio for Strings.

Potter also describes how Riley was interested in both non-Western music and the jazz of Miles Davis and John Coltrane:

One of the only two records he carried with him on his travels was a French BAM disc of Moroccan music. The other -- Cookin' With The Miles Davis Quartet (1961), with its explorations of the different ways in which repetition and modality could refocus the relationship between a melody and the rhythmic basis familiar from earlier jazz -- invited Riley to explore the links between Moroccan music and jazz, and to see more clearly the potential for his own work.

In C (1964). Terry Riley /first performance etc./

Terry Riley (via last.fm)

To recap, Leah Garchik's column in yesterday's Chronicle has items about Robin Williams, Julianne Moore as well as this one:

Harpsichordist Margaret Fabrizio, who used to be on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, reports that it was raining during the premiere performance of Terry Riley's piece, and the roof of the old building leaked. "About 10 minutes into the piece, I had the distinct feeling that I was in a tropical rain forest. Seconds later, an umbrella went up. Then more, until the hall was filled with people sitting under their umbrellas. Unforgettable."

I'm not sure what she means by "old building." I found this 1964 Chronicle article (by Alfred Frankenstein) indicating the San Francisco Tape Music Center at the time was located at 321 Divisadero Street. Yoga Loft, among other businesses, is now at that address.

And here's a description from the article of what the Tape Music Center would get with the $1200 they were trying to raise:

"We already have five tape recorders," said Burton Subotnick, director of the center, "plus 14 loop machines, all sorts of sound generators, filters, and simple things. What we need is a central mixing panel or control cabinet to tie it all together and into a keyboard, so that a composer can create electronic music precisely as if he were working from the keyboard of a piano.

I assume this was a quote from Morton Subotnick. Note also that a young Pauline Oliveros is in the accompanying photo.

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In C (1964). Terry Riley /in the random flow/

Image via Wikipedia

Greg Sandow's highly positive review of the In C extravaganza at Carnegie Hall includes this quote:

At first I thought the pulse was heavy, and the texture muddled. I'd see people playing, but I couldn't hear them. But then I simply listened to the sound, and stopped caring about how I thought "In C" should be organized.

I had to make a similar mental adjustment at the recent Philip Glass Music in Twelve Parts concert:

1 Within two minutes of the beginning of the concert, I decided I didn't like the sound. With three-plus hours to go, this was not an auspicious start. The keyboards were too tinny and I couldn't hear the woodwinds....Fortunately, Part 1 is a favorite with its tranquil, soothing quality (well, compared to the usual Glass music that is), so I decided to just relax and take it in.

I've never heard live that other iconic minimalism piece -- Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians -- but I suspect a similar mindset change is not required. Well, at least for us sequentialists anyway...

(lala)

Iconic Minimalism

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In C (1964). Terry Riley /45th anniversary!/

Image via Wikipedia

The Standing Room blogs about tomorrow's In C extravaganza as well as the work itself:

And probably the most unexpected discovery as I've spent more and more time with In C was realizing that, hard-wired into the piece, is a whole philosophy of life. As we individually move through the patterns, we take responsibility for our individual selves, yet we have to constantly watch out for others.

I had the good fortune to attend the 25th anniversary In C concert. Such joy and exuberance. Is there a more canonical contemporary American classical work?

The Wikipedia In C page lists 20 In C recordings. As evidence I'm not a comparative performance person, I own 7 of those and like them all. lala has six versions available.

And don't forget Steve Hickens' 53 things about In C:

8. The variety of tone colors, attacks, and decays available from such a mixed ensemble enriches a performance of In C and expresses the multiplicity that is at its heart.

42. As minimalism was a response to perceived over-determination in music, the searching that characterized the 60s was (in part) a response to the perceived over-determination of American life.

In C (1964). Terry Riley /ambul/

It's the Bulgarian premiere of Terry Riley's In C at the AmBul Weekend, part of the American Music Week in Bulgaria. Vocal works by Charles Ives are also scheduled although my Google skills have failed me as I can't find any more details.

In C (1964). Terry Riley /music to frown by/

I've been listening to the Artists like Terry Riley stream on last.fm. There are some interesting, mostly European composers (Scelsi, Risset, Kagel etc.)  but it's all so dark and dour. I don't think of Californians like Riley or myself being particularly "ecstatic" but there's something missing from this other apparently related music.

In C (1964). Terry Riley /shanghai and the 53/

Steve Hicken has an interesting list of 53 notes about Terry Riley's In C. As I listen to the Shanghai Film Orchestra's version, which I don't particularly like, this item may be pertinent:

In C embodies the 20th century’s fascination with quest for freedom in a way that is characteristic of American society in the 1960s, because it requires a combination of individuality and a strong feeling of community.

Do I not like this performance because it is not individualistic enough? Or is it that, although timbral variety is a life-source for me, I just don't like the Chinese instrumentation?

Amazon disagrees:

The Shanghai Film Orchestra plays this contemporary Western work on traditional Chinese instruments. The tuning is different, and the tone colors of the ancient Chinese bells and strings lend a new vibrancy to the piece.

And Joshua Kosman points to a new choral version.

In C (1964). Terry Riley

Via del.icio.us/jhibbard42, sequenza21 has some comments on revisions of Terry Riley's In C. I happen to be listening to the 1968 recording right now. And I don't know what to make of the "beautiful girl" tradition called out in the second version of the score.

In C (1964). Terry Riley /without the c/

Allan Kozinn writes of a performance by the Composer's Collaborative of Terry Riley's In C:

There is also usually a repeating C, in octaves, played as a pulse that runs through the work, although this time the ensemble - billed as the Mighty CCI House Band - elected to drop it. That decision, though it made the piece sound slightly naked at first, allowed for an extra measure of fluidity in this already free-flowing score.

gable: aworks riley consciousness revolution era riley: official del.icio.us wikipedia google news yahoo audio singingfish

In C (1964). Terry Riley

Listened again to the 25th Anniversary Concert recording  on New Albion Records of In C.  It is surprisingly dramatic and colorful and makes the old SUNY Buffalo Columbia recording sound mechanical and lifeless.  Terry Riley is quoted as saying the performance is the best yet.