California Composer Terry Riley
American Minimalist Influenced by Modernist Electron Experimentalism
Sep 22, 2007
California composer Terry Riley was influenced by the electronic experimentalism of earlier modernist composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, who veered away from traditional Western harmony towards serialism and electronic experiments in sound.
But to this mathematical arrangement of notes and sounds, Riley added an interest in non-western music and just intonation, an earlier form of tuning impossible under the Baroque-Romantic era system of well-tempered tuning.
Minimalist Career
From 1965-1966, he performed with the Theatre of Eternal Music, a smallish ensemble formed by La Monte Young, his wife Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, and John Cale, who left around that time in order to join the Velvet Underground. The Theatre of Eternal Music experimented with just intonation and the sympathetic tones from sustained notes, often holding a single note for hours at a time. These in-depth experiments in gradual change formed the basis for what would later be known as Minimalism.
Like fellow early minimalist composer La Monte Young, Terry Riley also owed much of his sound to North Indian Raga Vocalist Pandit Pran Nath. In 1970, he traveled to India to study under Pran Nath and returned often over the course of a 26-year-long friendship and collaboration.
Also in the 1970s, he developed a relationship with the Kronos String Quartet, an experimental group for whom Riley wrote many works.
Relevant Discography
In C: 25th Anniversary Concert : For an introduction to Terry Riley, one should start with In C. Composed in 1964, the piece represents Riley’s initial explorations in minimalist composition. Clocking in at over an hour and fifteen minutes (usually), this work can seem a bit daunting to the newcomer.
Also, the main structure really holding the 53 separate phrases together is simply the fact that each pattern is in the key of C. A piano provides a rhythmically stable beat by repeating the note C over and over again, but the other instrumentalists have the freedom to start their phrases whenever they feel led to do so.
An instrumentalist can repeat a phrase as many times as he or she likes, but must follow the order of phrases. A phrase may be skipped, but the instrumentalist cannot go backwards. Such a lengthy aleatoric piece might seem somewhat intimidating, but the result is actually a rather listenable play of timbre and texture.
The Harp of New Albion
The Harp of New Albion: This 10-part work for piano uses just intonation. Since the piano is normally tuned according to the well-tempered system, this work ends up sounding dissonant, out-of-tune, and generally ethereal.
For more information, please visit Terry Riley's website.
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