One of the earliest examples of minimalism and process music, Terry Riley’s seminal 1964 composition in C is beautifully recast in the Salt Lake City Electric Ensemble’s 2010 recording, “The Salt Lake Electric Ensemble Perform Terry Riley’s in C”. SLEE’s version for “laptop orchestra” is dominated by the synthesized timbre of contemporary dance music, and garnishes Riley’s concept with the flavor of Ratatat and other mainstays of the electronic rock genre. Led by Matt Dixon, the 8-man group relies on overdubbing and sophisticated music software to produce a vibrant electro-acoustic aural tapestry weaving together a variety of percussion instruments and computerized elements.
I fantasize that someday In C will be programmed on regular orchestra concerts.
I don't particularly fantasize about the classical music business (although as I kid, I did wonder how cool it would be to be Sonny Rollins). So I don't know if I share this same fantasy or not. Still, It's an interesting idea and anything that gets In C in front of more people is probably good.
But in my mind anyway, "regular orchestra concerts" is the deal breaker as it implies uninteresting, stodgy, large 18th 19th century music. Maybe that's why I no longer care about the San Francisco Symphony despite MTT arguably being a more progressive conductor than most. Is he the equivalent of being a liberal Republican?
rdio's default member presentation when you go to the streaming subscription site is a grid of albums in current heavy rotation "in your network." In my network anyway, that tends to be populated with cool indie acts, jazz, and Lady Gaga. The Philip Glass Nonesuch retrospective happens to be in today's version. Yesterday, it had a baroque collection. I don't remember if a traditional orchestral recording has ever shown up.
Update: If you look to the right in the "Your Network Top Artists list", Natalie Dessay does appear. Score one for opera.
I'm listening again to the Grand Valley State recording of Terry Riley's In C. Unlike every other rendition, early on, it has a long, dynamic sax solo. Since I live close to the classical / jazz divide (albeit slightly on the notated side), I like this. But I have no idea of the aesthetic rationale.
As for the actual musicians, the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble is made up of some of the finest musicians. Each one is clearly heard with the saxophones shining brightly. Near the beginning, it is a lone sax that brings the music to a rousing climax before the ten-minute mark and later, around the forty-minute mark, the trumpet passes the lead to the sax for another wonderful excerpt.
Although I own more than a dozen versions of Terry Riley's In C, tonight I was glad to purchase a new version by Allendale, Michigan's finest musicians (aka Grand Valley State New Music Ensemble) recorded last year at Le Poisson Rouge.
In C has some interesting performances e.g. the versions by Paul Hillier and by the Shanghai Film Orchestra. But the most radical may be by flutist Hans Bender where he plays each fragment once on flute. This probably works better if you know the original.
My own feeling is that if people aren't just carried away to heaven I'm failing...I want to create a kind of concentration on a musical idea so that people can go inside themselves and comfortably follow the development until they slowly rise up and disappear into the clouds.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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...
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 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.
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.
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.
Cover of Terry Riley
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