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Terry Riley (Colfax, 24 giugno 1935) è un musicista e compositore statunitense.

Noto per essere stato tra i fondatori del movimento minimalista, il suo brano In C composto nel 1964 è considerato da molti il primo lavoro del minimalismo musicale americano, corrente artistica cui aderirono compositori come Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams e gruppi rock come The Who, Tangerine Dream e altri. Il titolo della canzone Baba O’Riley di The Who fa proprio riferimento a questo autore moderno.

In C è un brano di musica semi-aleatoria composto da Terry Riley nel 1964
per qualsiasi numero di musicisti, anche se egli stesso consiglia “un
gruppo di circa 35, ma funziona anche con gruppi più o meno numerosi”.
È una risposta alle tecniche accademiche astratte e seriali usate dai
compositori della metà del ventesimo secolo ed è spesso citata come la
prima composizione minimalista.

Tecnica 

In C consta di 53 frasi musicali numerate e brevi, che durano
da mezzo a 32 battiti; ogni frase può essere ripetuta un numero
arbitrario di volte. Ogni musicista ha il controllo di ogni frase da lui
suonata: gli esecutori sono invitati a suonare le frasi inizianto in
momenti differenti, anche se stanno suonando la stessa. Le indicazioni
di direzione affermano che l’ensemble musicale dovrebbe tentare di
tenere una distanza di due o tre frasi. Le frasi devono essere suonate
in ordine, tuttavia alcune possono anche essere saltate. Come riportato
in alcune edizioni dello spartito, è abitudine che un musicista
(“tradizionalmente… una bella ragazza”, afferma Riley nello spartito)
suoni la nota Do (C in inglese, da cui il titolo) in ottavi ripetuti;
tale compito è tipicamente svolto dal piano o da uno strumento a
percussione intonato (ad esempio una marimba). Ciò ha la funzione di
metronomo e viene identificato come “L’Impulso”.

In C non ha una durata definita; le esecuzioni possono durare
dai qualche decina di minuti a qualche ora, nonostante Riley indichi che
“le performance normalmente spaziano in media tra i 45 minuti e un’ora e
mezza”. Anche il numero di esecutori può variare da una performance
all’altra. La registrazione originale del pezzo è stata creata da 11
musicisti (tramite sovraincisioni e l’utilizzo di diverse dozzine di
strumenti), mentre una performance del 2006 alla Walt Disney Concert
Hall ha visto protagonisti 124 musicisti.

Il pezzo inizia con un accordo di Do maggiore (pattern da 1 a 7) con
un’enfasi particolare sulla mediante Mi e l’entrata della nota Fa che
inizia una serie di lente progressioni verso altri accordi, che
suggeriscono alcune sottili e ambigue variazioni di chiave – l’ultimo
pattern è un’alterazione fra Si♭ e Sol. Nonostante sia di primario
interesse l’esecuzione polifonica delle frasi, ognuna sull’altra o
ancora su se stessa, con differenti spostamenti ritmici, il pezzo può
essere considerato eterofonico.

In C is a semi-aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley
in 1964 for any number of people, although he suggests “a group of
about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work”. It is a response to the abstract academic serialist techniques used by composers in the mid-twentieth century and is often cited as the first minimalist composition.

Etichetta:  COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS
Catalogo: MS 7178
Data di pubblicazione: around 1975
Matrici:  XX SM 137742 – 2C / XX SM 137743 – 2A

• Tipo audio: stereo
• Dimensioni: 30 cm.
• Facciate: 2
• Gatefold sleeve / copertina apribile, brownish medium gray label, The Sounds of Today catalogue  inner sleeves

This is the 1964 work that is credited a cornerstone with launching the genre of Minimalism, played and recorded in 1968 with musician members of Center of Creative and Performing Arts, SUNY Buffalo

CAPOLAVORO DELLA MUSICA CONTEMPORANEA E CAPOSTIPITE DEL MINIMALISMO SPERIMENTALE, NELLA MEMORABILE ESECUZIONE E REGISTRAZIONE DEL 1968 CON I MUSICISTI DEL C.C.P.A. DELL’ UNIVERSITA’ DI BUFFALO

 Track listing

Side 1

1. “TERRY RILEY : IN C ” – (23:50)

Side 2

1. “TERRY RILEY : IN C ” – (19:10)

Performers

In C consists of 53 short, numbered musical phrases, lasting
from half a beat to 32 beats; each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary
number of times. Each musician
has control over which phrase he or she plays: players are encouraged
to play the phrases starting at different times, even if they are
playing the same phrase. The performance directions state that the musical ensemble
should try to stay within two to three phrases of each other. The
phrases must be played in order, although some may be skipped. As
detailed in some editions of the score, it is customary for one musician
(“traditionally… a beautiful girl,” Riley notes in the score) to play the note C in repeated eighth notes, typically on a piano or pitched-percussion instrument (e.g. marimba). This functions as a metronome and is referred to as “The Pulse”.

In C has no set duration; performances can last as little as
fifteen minutes or as long as several hours, although Riley indicates
“performances normally average between 45 minutes and an hour and a
half.” The number of performers may also vary between any two
performances. The original recording of the piece was created by 11
musicians (although, through overdubbing, several dozen instruments were
utilized), while a performance in 2006 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall featured 124 musicians.

The piece begins on a C major chord (patterns one through seven) with a strong emphasis on the mediant
E and the entrance of the note F which begins a series of slow
progressions to other chords suggesting a few subtle and ambiguous
changes of key, the last pattern being an alteration between B♭ and G. Though the polyphonic
interplay of the various patterns against each other and themselves at
different rhythmic displacements is of primary interest, the piece may
be considered heterophonic.

Recordings of the piece

The piece has been recorded a number of times:

Impact on other music

Probably more than any other single work, In C established and influenced subsequent developments in musical minimalism, particularly the work of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. In his composition The Dharma at Big Sur, John Adams paid homage to Terry Riley in the second movement with a musical pulse and figures similar to those found in In C,
jokingly referred to by the composer as “In B.” The movement is also
titled Sri Moonshine, the name of Riley’s ranch in California.

Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble produced an album of remixed versions of In C with guest remixers including Jad Abumrad of Radio Lab. A discussion of the In C remixing project including music played from three of the remixed versions can be heard in Radio Lab’s podcast on In C from December 14, 2009.

Una composizione che gioca sull’accumulazione di
materiali e che ha nella ripetitività quasi maniacale della struttura
armonica il suo massimo punto di riconoscibilità. Terry Riley, uno
dei padri del minimalismo americano, già esponente di punta del
gruppo Fluxus e ricercatore al Tape Music Center di San Francisco,
presso cui sperimenta nuovi processi compositivi attraverso la stratificazione
di molteplici tracce sonore su nastro magnetico, conia con In
C l’idea stessa di minimalismo. In breve: sopra un interminabile
ostinato costruito su un do, eseguito nel registro acuto del pianoforte,
si sovrappongono una serie di cellule motiviche, predisposte per
un ensemble strumentale di più elementi.

All’interno della composizione non vengono definiti
i momenti per l’esecuzione di ciascuna cellula, ma tutto è lasciato
alla discrezione e alla capacità semi-improvvisativa dell’esecutore,
che opera la scelta del momento opportuno per la proposizione ascoltando
quello che fanno gli altri. I motivi sono in tutto 53 e il brano
termina quando ogni strumento li ha eseguiti tutti.

There are such compositions in the 20th Century which created a
butterfly effect that their legendary positions have totally surpassed
their beauty or intellect. “In C” is one of those compositions and we
can see the similar structural compositions still today, not only in
contemporary classical music, but Electronic Music, Rock and even Jazz.

Terry Riley is more of a technician or a structuralist (I may have
created the word) rather than a composer. In this case, he shares the
same fate like his contemporary Karlheinz Stockhausen. Of course Riley
has crucial compositions which we are listening still today, but his
main strength lies elsewhere. This is also quite interesting since he
started his musical career as a pianist and later a soprano saxophonist.
He is quite a master in both as well.

The structures in “In C” are layered and this layerizing is clearly the
teachings of La Monte Young. Moreover, Riley created a duality of
performance within this structure. The performers each have 53 figures
to play with a chance to improvise. Also collectivity is crucial since
they need to listen their fellow performers in order to interact. No two
performances can be the same and the music itself comes out like a
living organism.

This continuity feeling is very well established among most minimalist
composers. It is quite easy to see in the cases of Steve Reich (Ie
Sextet/Six Marimbas) and Philip Glass (Ie Akhnaten or Koyaanisqatsi
Ost). Thus it can be said that one of the reasons for this style to gain
a strong foothold in today’s compositions and other music genres is
this similarity to life and nature. Obviously, Minimalist producers have
been the primary choice of music for the natural documentary producers.

“In C” is musically enlightening. It is a feast for the ear as well as
all perceptive senses. While listening, you don’t feel it as an almost
50 year old composition, but rather like a music which has been evident
in many things one may have listened. The notes or the structure are not
the only thing that matters for this composition, it is also what they
have caused in later stages.




Terrence Mitchell Riley, (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement. His work has been deeply influenced by both jazz and Indian classical music.

Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University, and the San Francisco Conservatory before earning an MA in composition at the University of California, Berkeley, studying with Seymour Shifrin and Robert Erickson. He was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918–1996), a master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Riley made numerous trips to India over the course of their association to study and to accompany him on tabla, tambura,
and voice. Throughout the 1960s he traveled frequently around Europe as
well, taking in musical influences and supporting himself by playing in
piano bars, until he joined the Mills College faculty in 1971 to teach Indian classical music. Riley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Music at Chapman University in 2007.

Riley also cites John Cage and “the really great chamber music groups of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, and Gil Evans” as influences on his work, demonstrating how he pulled together strands of Eastern music, the Western avant-garde, and jazz.

Also during the 1960s were the famous “All-Night Concerts”, during
which Riley performed mostly improvised music from evening until
sunrise, using an old organ harmonium (“with a vacuum cleaner motor
blower blowing into the ballasts”) and tape-delayed saxophone. When he
finally wanted a break, after hours of playing, he played back looped
saxophone fragments recorded throughout the evening. For several years
he continued to put on these concerts, to which people came with
sleeping bags, hammocks, and their whole families.

Riley began his long-lasting association with the Kronos Quartet when he met founder David Harrington while at Mills. Over the course of his career, Riley composed 13 string quartets for the ensemble, in addition to other works. He wrote his first orchestral piece, Jade Palace,
in 1991, and has continued to pursue that avenue, with several
commissioned orchestral compositions following. Riley is also currently
performing and teaching both as an Indian raga vocalist and as a solo pianist.

He has a son named Gyan Riley, who is a guitarist. Riley still performs live. He has been chosen by Animal Collective to perform at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival that they will curate in May 2011.

Techniques

While his early endeavors were influenced by Stockhausen, Riley changed direction after first encountering La Monte Young, in whose Theater of Eternal Music
he later performed in 1965-66. The String Quartet (1960) was Riley’s
first work in this new style; it was followed shortly after by a string
trio, in which he first employed the repetitive short phrases for which
he and minimalism are now known.

His music is usually based on improvising through a series of modal figures of different lengths, such as in In C (1964)and the Keyboard Studies. The first performance of In C was given by Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Pauline Oliveros, and Morton Subotnick.
Its form was an innovation: The piece consists of 53 separate modules
of roughly one measure apiece, each containing a different musical
pattern but each, as the title implies, in the key of C. One performer
beats a steady pulse of Cs on the piano to keep tempo. The
others, in any number and on any instrument, perform these musical
modules following a few loose guidelines, with the different musical
modules interlocking in various ways as time goes on. To some extent,
though, critics have focused too obsessively on In C, thereby ignoring the full range of Riley’s work and innovations. The Keyboard Studies are similarly structured, a single-performer version of the same concept.

In the 1950s he was already working with tape loops,
a technology then in its infancy, and he has continued manipulating
tapes to musical effect, both in the studio and in live performance,
throughout his career. An early tape loop piece titled The Gift (1963) featured the trumpet playing of Chet Baker. Riley has composed in just intonation as well as microtonal pieces. 

Riley’s collaborators have included the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, the ARTE Quartett, and, as mentioned, the Kronos Quartet.

Riley’s famous overdubbed electronic album A Rainbow in Curved Air (recorded 1967, released 1969) inspired many later developments in electronic music, including Pete Townshend‘s synthesizer parts on The Who‘s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley“, the latter named in tribute to Riley as well as to Meher Baba. The recording had a significant impact on the development of ambient music and progressive rock and predated the electronic jazz “fusion” of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and others.

As Rainbow demonstrates, Riley performs on multiple keyboard instruments, but his principal instrument is actually the acoustic piano. Riley’s 1995 Lisbon Concert recording features him in a solo piano format, improvising on his own works. In the liner notes Riley cites Art Tatum, Bud Powell, and Bill Evans
as his piano “heroes,” illustrating the central importance of jazz to
his conceptions, and his playing bears some notable similarities to that
of Keith Jarrett. (The album title invites this comparison.)

Riley’s work and various innovations have influenced many others in various genres, including John Adams, Roberto Carnevale, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Philip Glass, Frederic Rzewski, Mixmaster Morris and Tangerine Dream.