Page 315 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

CONTEMPORARY 313

See also: 4´33˝ 302–305 ■ Six Pianos 320 ■ Einstein on the Beach 321

Seated at his keyboard, Terry Riley
accompanies the Lahore-born musician
Pandit Pran Nath—one of his earliest
mentors—in a concert at Le Palace
Theatre, Paris, in 1972.

can be played by any number of
instruments and ensembles of any
size, although Riley prefers a group
of between 25 and 30 musicians.
The performers play the phrases
in a set order but can repeat each
phrase as many times as they like,
creating a piece that can vary in
length from 20 minutes to several
hours. The musicians also start the
phrases at different times, so they
are not always synchronized. experiments from the late 1950s Riley has rejected the “minimalist”
The work is anchored by a and displays major differences label—and resisted being limited
rhythmic pulse provided by one from many other works in the by any kind of “ism.” In spite of
musician who repeats the C note genre. In most minimalist pieces, this, his work has been hugely
throughout—acting as a kind of the composer typically controls the influential on composers such as
metronome. This is usually played material much more tightly than Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars
on the piano or a percussion Riley, who leaves crucial decisions, in Britain, Americans Steve Reich
instrument, such as a marimba. such as the instrumentation and and Philip Glass, and the Estonian
the number of repetitions, to the Arvo Pärt, who have all embraced
A lasting presence performers. This is known as elements of minimalism in their
Although In C has been called “aleatory,” or chance-driven, work. Riley’s hypnotic musical
the first truly minimalist work, music (from the Latin alea, approach also influenced the rise
it followed a number of earlier meaning “game of dice”). of “ambient” music in the 1970s. ■

Terry Riley Born in California in 1935, Terry continued to combine with his
Riley met La Monte Young, with interest in avant-garde Western
whom he was to forge a new and music and jazz. In the same
radical approach to music, while decade, Riley began a long-
studying composition at the lasting collaboration with the
University of California. In the Kronos Quartet, producing
1960s, as well as pioneering the many works, including Sun
use of tape loops, Riley embraced Rings, which features sounds
electronic overdubbing, especially gathered from space.
on the album A Rainbow in
Curved Air (1969), on which he Other key works
played all the instrumental parts
himself—a major influence on 1969 A Rainbow in Curved Air
Mike Oldfield’s similarly virtuosic 1971–1972 Persian Surgery
album Tubular Bells (1973). In Dervishes
the 1970s, Riley studied Indian 1989 Salome Dances for Peace
classical music, which he has 2002 Sun Rings

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