Summary.
One of La Monte Young's disciples, Terry Riley
became the guru of minimalist repetition with the pulse-based ensemble work In C (1965), that centered on the iteration of simple patterns (almost a human-based imitation of tape loops), and explored the raga-psychedelic connection with the solo electronic improvisation Rainbow in Curved Air (1968), that employed tape loop delays.
These works clearly introduced repetition as a main compositional technique in western music, with (Rainbow In Curved Air) or without (In C) melody.
This conceptual revolution mirrored the sociopolitical revolution of the time(the era of the "hippies"), when communal and improvised concerts prevailed over the formal presentation of classical music.
The spiritual fervor of his Persian Surgery Dervishes (1972) marked the end of the hippy-inspired era. Riley would turn to more conventional formats, but still retain the titanic urge of his minimalist years, particularly in the monumental quartets Cadenza On The Night Plain (1985) and Salome Dances For Peace (1989), and in the Requiem For Adam (1998).
Full biography.
(Translated from the original Italian text by Troy Sherman)
Terry Riley was born in California in 1935. He studied music
at Berkeley, and graduated in composition in 1961. He was formed in America
(playing music in Berkeley nightclubs throughout the 50s) and in Europe (he
performed with a traveling theater in Scandinavia, and engaged in several
projects in Paris).
The vagabond life of the street artist would begin its
transformation into mystical-musical projects when, in 1962, Riley met with La Monte Young (formerly a
school friend). But, Riley did not have a vision of the strict application of
priestly and scientific animation like Young, the guru of minimalism. Instead,
he was a simple man who loved serene communication through music, directly and
immediately.
In Paris in 1962, and especially in the newborn San
Francisco Tape Music Center in 1964, Riley began to develop a technique of
composition based on the processes of “delay,” made possible by the use of tape
recorders. He then began composing works in which progressively overlapped
layers and layers of sounds, such as Keyboard
Studies (1962), one of which
(for two pianos, appeared on Keyboard
Study 2/ Initiative (Byg, 1968), and Music
For The Gift (1963), possibly the first piece of music based on a tape
delay and feedback system (realizing a loop that repeated a piece of jazz
music). In Dorian Reeds (1965)
several sentences of a saxophone are delayed and superimposed to constitute a
form of mono-instrumental polyphony.
The masterpiece of the period was the suite In C (1964), for an ensemble to perform
ad libitum. It is one of the key works of the postwar period. The piano part,
the "pulse," consists solely of "do," and is to be repeated for the entire duration
of the performance; the other instruments are inserted one after the other, stratifying and indefinitely
repeating 53 fixed figures, each for an arbitrary duration of time. The song
ends when all of the instruments arrive at the 53rd figure. The frantic chatter
of each instrument expands or contracts, it shatters or coagulates, it becomes
inflames or is snuffed, all according to the organized improvisation of each
musician. The music regains the essence of collective and cohesive playing, an
air of the expression of a liberating party playing for a collective ritual. In C is a clear and decisive point in
the evolution of avant-garde music. It came suddenly and unexpectedly, the
daughter of the research of tape delay. While conservatives were planning
dissonant symphonies or electronic sonatas, Riley was creating this. It was not
radical enough to belong to Dadaism, and not quite serious enough to fall under
the realm of darmadtstiano expressionism.
Riley's debut album, Reed
Streams (Mass Art, 1966 - Organ of Corti, 1999 - Elision Fields, 2007),
compiled the glacial, geometric, robotic Untitled
Organ, that offers very little variation, and the more intricate Dorian Reeds, that employed the tape
echo to create disorienting polyphony. Both are rather tentative.
The repetition of simple rhythmic and melodic cells not tied
to a known key is the foundation of A
Rainbow in Curved Air (1968), for electronic keyboards. With this
minimalist raga, Riley became famous in rock music as well as creating a
fantastic spectacle for electronic music. He plays alone, alternating various
electronic instruments. The fantasy unfolds with liveliness in a dizzying whirl
of improvisations. The accompaniment evolves every 2, 4 or 8 beats, but it never changes the initial
scheme. The composition is an overwhelming attack, with a madly trilling
harpsichord, an organ holding long church notes, and other electronic sounds
serving as the rhythm or counterpoint. It grows more and more colorful and
exuberant, while the sarabande shamelessly vents the most uncontrolled
hedonistic instincts. It seems to subside into a more ceremonial and
contemplative register, creating liturgical and mantric cadences. A new timbre
unfolds into seeming hours of heavenly lugubriousness, in which the music
chases and spiral in cascades overlapping with more and more electronic stunts.
Everything is set over the galloping, insistent beat of a tabla. The result is
a radiant hymn of joy, an exaltation to the spirit of Franciscan life, an
overwhelming feeling of intoxicating sensation. Rainbow is an electronic suite, in the full psychedelic “Indian”
fashion. It would come to affect many rock musicians, as well as mark the
highest point of perfection reached by formal minimalism.
More polite and thoughtful, and more oriented in stationary
tones, is the contemporaneous Poppy
Nogood and the Phantom Band, for electronic keyboards and saxophone (as
with Dorian Reeds). The layering of
sounds creates a slow and massive atmosphere, reaching a climax when the storms
of echoes of the saxophone regress to the trills of the epileptic Rainbow.
One of the masterpieces of his maturity was born when the
musician relied more firmly on religious inspiration. Ritual peace and ecstasy
emerge from and preside over the terse performances of Persian Surgery Dervishes (1972).
The double album (recorded live on two different occasions) finds Riley on
organ, with only the help of a tape-delay. It is his most deep and evocative
work, and the most closely related to Eastern spiritualism. In one of the
performances, he endlessly recycles and recombines a few figures in a
rhythmic-melodic progression on a keyboard, while inventing a continual flow of
tonal colors. In the other performance, he plays as if in a trance, and
requires a hypnotic pulse (a tape-delay that makes the sound overlap). Humility
is the regulation governing this sonic exercise, and it shows an opposition
inner poverty, lending the material of music to enhance one’s spiritual wealth.
The body trembles along the majestic soaring, circling ecstasy, only to sink
immediately in hushed prayers. It is the “adult” version of Rainbow, and no longer contains the
former adolescent playfulness. It instead expresses more metaphysical emotion.
Riley’s fascinating personality and the extraordinary
symbiosis that began occurring between he and his organ soon made him a living
legend. Thanks to him, minimalism and rock music would meet, bringing us
somewhat closer to an end of the natural modesty that marginalizes the cold
intellectual music in a test tube.
He tended to reject the contracts of fabulous musical
institutions, which instead made fortunes off of his disciples, and ended up
recording very little. He insisted to live on his farm in California, where he
could continue to study in peace. He always remained an underground figure,
even when the music that he invented began to obtain the favor of the public.
Happy
Ending contains the soundtrack to Joel
Santoni's Les Yeux Fermes (1972), reissued together
with Lifespan (1974) as Les Yeux Fermes &
Lifespan (Elision Fields,
2007). The soundtrack itself consists of two lengthy pieces. Journey From A Death of a
Friend is mostly a reprise
of the smooth, liquid, viscous, cascading counterpoint of Persian Surgery Dervishes recast for an acid organ
timbre, except that towards the end the a jazzy piano breaks in briefly but
only to launch the final gallop of the synthesizer. Happy Endings, scored
for piano and saxophone, begins in a jovial manner reminiscent of Poppy Nogood until the organ takes over
with a much slower and graver pattern. The sax follows suite and for a while
the piece becomes a jazz duet between two instruments that alternate (not
interact). They are finally all mixed together in the final apotheosis. Riley
doesn't seem quite in full control of these two pieces.
Keyboard
Study 2 (Get Back) documents a
Terry Riley piece recorded in 1969.
Over the
years Riley's keyboard music became more colorful and expressive, more tolerant
towards variations and movement. This new style was inspired by the intricate tapestry
of some Indian singing on Shri
Camel(reissued as The Last Camel in
Paris, a live solo organ concert recording from november 1978. Anthem Of The Trinity sounds like a jazzy version
of A Rainbow In Curved Air . The appeal of Desert Of Ice,
another variation on Rainbow, lies
mainly in its crystalline xylophone-like timbres.
His tenor, on
the other hand, trained at the school of Pandit Pran Nath, enriched his arsenal
with a warmer kind of spirals on Songs
for the Ten Voices of the Two Prophets.
His early quartets (Sunrise
Of The Planetary Dream Collector from 1980 and The Medicine Wheel from 1983) went unnoticed, but in 1985 he truly
began a new chapter in his work, showing that he may have found a more
congenial style of composition. One of the more remarkable pieces in his
repertoire is 1985’s Cadenza on the
Night Plain. At times it is reminiscent of ragas (Cadenza: Violin I), dances (Cadenza:
Cello), pizzicato Debussy (Cadenza:
Viola), Arabic scales (Cadenza:
Violin II, Night Cry), music
halls (March of the Old Timers Reefer
Division, Captain Jack) and his In C, while elsewhere it illuminates his
ecstatic mysticism with alternating pauses and meditative whirls with
Stravinsky-ian Sufi Marches (Mystic Birds
Waltz).
In 1986, Riley recorded two albums of piano improvisations, The Harp of New Albion, performed on a
piano tuned according to the mathematical system of La Monte Young. None of
these works managed to match the beautiful gems of the past.
The masterpiece of his later years was the quartet Salome Dances for Peace, was one of the
most monumental in the history of music, with 23 movements. Certainly it was
the least minimalistic work of his career, and it was rather close to the
Penderecki and the serialism of Webern. It lost the happy abandon of the
improvisation of the jazz and raga matrix, and instead adopts a rigorous
compositional technique whose mission is no more to arouse ecstatic moods than
to “tell" a story through sound. It is not a coincidence that the work is
closer to film soundtracks than classical chamber music. The topics range from
Arabic litanies (Summons, Way Of The Warrior) and the relentless
bolero progression (Fanfare In The
Minimal Kingdom), until it reaches the rococo minuet (Good Medicine Dance). It includes vertices of pathos in the most
subdued and dissonant (Echoes of
Primordial Time, perhaps the most impressive work, and Peace Dance) and in moments of dramatic tension and dynamism (Half Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight, The Underworld Arising). With these
quartets, Riley established himself as the most educated and inspired followers
of Henry Cowell.
Riley was the most spontaneous minimalist. His abstruse
theories were divorced from the other psycho-acoustic musicians,
and he was in effect the first person to set up a natural bridge between
minimalism and rock, and in general between avant-garde music and popular
music.
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Terry Riley nacque in California nel 1935. Anch'egli studio' musica a Berkeley
(laureandosi in composizione nel 1961) ma si formo' girando l'America (durante
gli anni Cinquanta suonava piano-rag nei night-club di Berkeley) e l'Europa
(in Scandinavia con un teatro itinerante, Parigi soprattutto in diversi
progetti-happening).
La vita vagabonda di artista di strada termino' quando (1962) Riley incontro'
La Monte Young (gia' suo compagno di scuola) e si associo' ai suoi progetti
mistico-musicali. Ma Riley non aveva nulla della rigorosa applicazione
sacerdotale e scientifica che animava il guru del minimalismo, era piuttosto
un uomo semplice e sereno che amava comunicare in modo diretto e immediato.
A Parigi nel 1962 e soprattutto al neonato Tape Music Center di San Francisco
nel 1964 Riley mise a punto una tecnica di composizione basata sui processi di
"ritardo" resi possibili dall'impiego dei registratori a nastro.
Prese allora a comporre opere in cui sovrapponeva progressivamente strati e
strati di suoni, come Keyboard Studies (1962), uno dei quali (per due
pianoforti) compare su
Keyboard Study 2/ Initiative (Byg, 1968), e
Music For The Gift (1963), possibly
the first piece based on a tape delay and feedback system (realizing a loop
that repeated a piece of jazz music).
In Dorian Reeds (1965)
diverse frasi del sassofono vengono ritardate e sovrapposte fino a costituire
una forma di polifonia mono-strumentale.
Il capolavoro del periodo e' la suite In C (1964), cioe' "in do",
per ensemble ad libitum, una delle opere fondamentali del Dopoguerra.
La parte per piano, l'"impulso", consiste unicamente di "do" da ripetere per
tutta la durata della performance; gli altri strumenti si inseriscono l'uno
dopo l'altro stratificando e ripetendo all'infinito 53 figure fisse, ciascuna
per una durata arbitraria.
Il brano termina quando tutti gli strumenti arrivano alla 53esima figura.
Il frenetico cicalare degli strumenti si dilata o si contrae, si frantuma o
si coagula, si infiamma o si zittisce, secondo l'improvvisazione dei musicisti.
La musica riacquista cosi' la sua essenza ludica di gioco, di festa liberatoria,
di espressione rituale collettiva.
In C e' un'opera di rottura, un netto punto di discontinuita'
nell'evoluzione della musica d'avanguardia. Giunge all'improvviso,
inaspettata, figlia di quelle ricerche sui "ritardi via nastro",
mentre i conservatori progettano sinfonie dissonanti o sonate
elettroniche. Non e' abbastanza radicale da appartenere al dadaismo "cageano", e
non e' abbastanza "seria" da rientrare nell'espressionismo darmadtstiano.
Riley's debut album,
Reed Streams (Mass Art, 1966 - Organ of Corti, 1999 - Elision Fields, 2007), compiled
the glacial, geometric, robotic Untitled Organ, that offers very little
variation,
and the more intricate
Dorian Reeds that employed the tape echo to create disorienting
polyphony. Both are rather tentative.
La ripetizione di semplici cellule ritmico-melodiche, ma non piu' vincolata
a una nota cardine, e' alla base anche della A Rainbow In Curved Air (1968)
per tastiere elettroniche, il raga minimalista che rese famoso Riley
nell'ambiente della musica rock.
Riley vi suona da solo, alternandosi ai vari strumenti elettronici.
La fantasia si dipana con vivacita' in un vertiginoso vortice di improvvisazioni.
L'accompagnamento si evolve ogni 2,4 o 8 battute ma senza mai modificare lo
schema iniziale. L'attacco e' travolgente, con il clavicembalo che trilla
all'impazzata, l'organo che tiene lunghe note da chiesa e gli altri suoni
elettronici che fungono da ritmo o da contrappunto. Sempre piu' colorata ed
esuberante, la sarabanda sfoga senza pudore i piu' incontrollati istinti
edonistici. Sembra placarsi in un registro piu' cerimoniale e contemplativo,
su cadenze liturgiche e mantriche, ma nuovi timbri, ora celestiali ora lugubri,
si inseguono in spirali e cascate di echi, si accavallano con acrobazie sempre
piu' mozzafiato, fino a lanciarsi al galoppo su un battito incalzante di tabla.
Ne risulta
un inno radioso di gioia, un'esaltazione francescana dello
spirito della vita, una travolgente giostra di sensazioni inebrianti.
Rainbow e' una suite elettronica che, in piena psichedelia e in piena
moda "indiana", influenzera' molti musicisti rock, oltre a segnare il punto di
massima perfezione formale raggiunto dal minimalismo.
Piu' compita e meditata, piu' orientata ai toni stazionari, la coeva
Poppy Nogoods And The Phantom Band per tastiere elettroniche e sassofono
(come Dorian Reeds)
stratifica suoni piu' lenti e massicci, toccando il climax quando le tempeste
d'echi del sassofono rifanno il verso ai trilli epilettici di Rainbow.
Il capolavoro della maturita' nasce pero' quando il musicista si affida
con maggior convinzione all'ispirazione religiosa.
La pace e l'estasi che presiedono ai suoi rituali sonori emergono piu'
limpidamente nelle performance chiamate Persian Surgery Dervishes (1972).
L'album doppio (inciso dal vivo in due occasioni diverse) con Riley all'organo
e con il solo ausilio di un tape-delay, e' la sua opera piu' profonda e
suggestiva, la piu' vicina alla spiritualita' orientale.
Riley improvvisa senza sosta riciclando e ricombinando le poche figure
ritmico-melodiche: su una tastiera inventa continuamente flussi e flussi di
colori tonali, mentre sull'altra, come in trance, impone una pulsazione ipnotica
(il tape-delay fa si' che il suono si sovrapponga di continuo a se stesso).
L'umilta' e la disciplina che presiedono a questo esercizio quasi interiore
contrappongono la poverta' materiale della musica alla sua ricchezza spirituale.
L'organo sussulta lungo impennate maestose, in larghe volute estatiche, per
inabissarsi subito in sommesse preghiere sottovoce.
E' la versione "adulta" di Rainbow, che non ha piu' nulla della sua
adolescenziale giocosita', esprime emozioni piu' metafisiche.
Il fascino che emana dalla sua personalita' e la prodigiosa simbiosi che riesce
ad instaurare con l'organo ne fanno presto un mito vivente. E' grazie a lui che
minimalismo e rock si incontrano, grazie alla naturale modestia che lo
emargina dai freddi intellettuali della musica in provetta, e grazie alla
cieca fede nell'elemento umano, e cioe' nell'improvvisazione.
Rifiutando i contratti favolosi delle istituzioni musicali, che hanno
invece fatto la fortuna dei suoi discepoli, registrando pochissimo, e ostinandosi a
vivere nella sua fattoria californiana, in cui puo' continuare a studiare in
pace, Riley e' sempre rimasto una figura underground, anche quando la musica
da lui inventata comincio' ad ottenere i favori del pubblico.
Happy Ending contains the soundtrack to Joel Santoni's Les Yeux Fermes (1972), reissued together with Lifespan (1974) as
Les Yeux Fermes & Lifespan (Elision Fields, 2007).
The soundtrack itself consists of two lengthy pieces.
Journey From A Death of a Friend is mostly a reprise of the smooth,
liquid, viscous, cascading counterpoint of Persian Surgery Dervishes
recast for an acid organ timbre, except that towards the end the a jazzy piano
breaks in briefly but only to launch the final gallop of the synthesizer.
Happy Endings, scored for piano and saxophone, begins in a jovial manner
reminiscent of Poppy Nogood until the organ takes over with a much slower
and graver pattern. The sax follows suite and for a while the piece becomes
a jazz duet between two instruments that alternate (not interact). They are
finally all mixed together in the final apotheosis.
Riley doesn't seem quite in full control of these two pieces.
Keyboard Study 2 (Get Back) documents a Terry Riley piece recorded in 1969.
Over the years
Riley's keyboard music became more colorful and expressive, more tolerant
towards variations and movement. This new style was inspired by the
intricate tapestry of some Indian singing
on Shri Camel (reissued as
The Last Camel in Paris, a
live solo organ concert recording from november 1978.
Anthem Of The Trinity sounds like a jazzy version of
A Rainbow In Curved Air .
The appeal of Desert Of Ice, another variation on Rainbow,
lies mainly in its crystalline xylophone-like timbres.
His tenor, on the other hand, trained at the school of Pandit Pran Nath,
enriched his arsenal with a warmer kind of spirals
on Songs For The Ten Voices Of The Two Prophets.
I suoi primi quartetti (Sunrise Of The Planetary Dream Collector del 1980
e The Medicine Wheel del 1983) passarono inosservati, ma
nel 1985 Riley ne raccolse in disco una nuova serie, dimostrando di
aver forse trovato la forma piu' congeniale. Piu' notevole e' la
Cadenza On The Night Plain di ben quaranta minuti che da' titolo alla
raccolta, con reminescenze di raga (Cadenza: Violin I) e di balli
popolari (Cadenza: Cello), di pizzicato alla Debussy (Cadenza:
Viola) e di scale arabe (Cadenza: Violin II, Night Cry),
di musichall (March Of The Old Timers Reefer Division, Captain Jack)
e della sua In C; mentre altrove (Mystic Birds Waltz) illumina il
suo misticismo con un alternarsi estatico di pause meditative e volteggi
sufi, marcette stravinskyane e ostinato alla Nyman.
Nel 1986 Riley ha registrato due album di improvvisazioni
pianistiche, The Harp Of New Albion, eseguite a un pianoforte intonato
secondo il sistema matematico di LaMonte Young. In nessuna di queste opere
e' pero' piu' riuscito a eguagliare le splendide gemme del passato.
Il capolavoro della maturita' e' semmai il quartetto
Salome Dances For Peace,
uno dei piu' monumentali della storia della musica (ben 23 movimenti!),
e certamente l'opera meno minimalista della sua carriera, piu' vicina semmai
alle trenodie di Penderecki e al serialismo di Webern.
Perso il felice abbandono dell'improvvisazione di matrice jazz e raga,
Riley adotta una tecnica di composizione rigorosa che ha come missione non piu'
quella di suscitare stati d'animo estatici, ma quella di "raccontare" una storia
per pannelli. Non a caso l'opera e' piu' vicina alle colonne sonore del cinema
che alla musica da camera classica. I temi oscillano fra la litania araba
(Summons, Way Of The Warrior) e
il bolero in progressione incalzante (Fanfare In The Minimal Kingdom),
fino a lambire il minuetto rococo' (Good Medicine Dance),
con vertici di pathos nei momenti piu' sommessi e dissonanti (Echoes Of
Primordial Time, forse il piu' suggestivo dell'opera, Peace Dance)
e nei momenti di maggior tensione drammatica e dinamismo
(Half Wolf Dances Mad In Moonlight, The Underworld Arising).
Con questi quartetti Riley si afferma come il piu' colto e ispirato
seguace di Henry Cowell.
Riley e' il piu'
spontaneo dei minimalisti. Proprio perche' avulso dalle
astruse teorie psico-acustiche degli altri, Riley ha per primo costituito
un ponte naturale fra minimalismo e rock, e piu' in generale fra musica
d'avanguardia e musica popolare.
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