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Terry Riley "In C" which one ?

bigblue

bigblue

pfm Member
I bought this a long time ago having heard it in a record shop playing quietly - it sounded great ... unfortunately they were playing the European Music Project / Zignorii++ (Wergo) recording and I hadn't really noticed the strange electronic music that was part of this version. Once home I thought that this was a very odd thing to have done and want to hear it without these additions. A quick google brought to light this page http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=17550 which gratifyingly also calls this version rather odd.

So which version do I buy ? It seems that this piece is particularly open to interpretation "the performance should be between 45 and 90 minutes long".

Perhaps the Bang on a Can version mentioned in the web-page
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00005NUPM/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Or the 25th anniversary concert
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000000R3V/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Anyone here know anything about Riley ?
 
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Spookily I bought my first Riley cd today, but it wasn't In C. I have got Acid Mothers Temple's interpretation which is pretty cool, but can't compare it to anything else I'm afraid.
 
Sorry, I don't have 'In C' in any variation. The LP he did with John Cale is OK, whilst 'A Rainbow in Curved Air' and 'Poppy Nogood and The Phantom Band' are fantastic. The only thing I've heard which sounds anything like these are the drone sections of 'Rock Bottom' by Robert Wyatt.

I would also be interested to find out if anything he's recorded is as good as these two.
 
I have 25th anniversary concert I bought some 6 years ago, along with other CDs on New Albion.

I did not compare different versions, though -- I listened to samples and read reviews, decided to get this one. Honestly, I am not that big fan of Riley, I do not have anything else by him and even this CD I play perhaps once per 3 years.

I prefer Steve Reich, have his 10CDs box, and John Adams.

I was at the recital of Riley in 1999, he played piano solo, sounded more like contemporary jazz than "In C".
 
Whereas I have the Adams 10CD Nonesuch box set as well as some Reich :)

But I don't have Drumming or Music for 18 Musicians.
 
o.k.:)

I did not buy Adams box out of protest that Nonesuch did not include full operas, only excerpts. They did the same with Reich box but I do not miss much his operas in full.
 
But I don't have Drumming or Music for 18 Musicians.
Click to expand...

I’ve got both! My copy of Drumming is the original 3xLP box on DGG, it’s really good. I've sadly not got Reily's In C though, just Rainbow In Curved Air - I like that so need to find a copy.

Tony.
 
I think I'd go for the original CBS Masterworks performance:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0000259OD/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Much as I like him, I do feel Riley to be a slight [although undeniably significant] composer, whose works are very much bound up with the sonorities of the instruments of the original recordings. [I mean, imagine, - Rainbow in Curved Air on digital synths? ]

CBS / Sony don't have much faith in Riley, do they? Apart from Rainbow,they don't see to be bothered. Especially given that [IMO] Riley's best work is his earliest, we should really be able to get Church of Anthrax and Shri Camel [which is Rainbow pt 2] from corner shops.

I haven't heard the Bang On A Can Version, but the 25th Anniversary Concert is rather horrid. Too much audience noise for a contemplative work, and the instrumentation just sounds wrong. It may be longer, but really the 36 mins of the original is enough for anyone [and you can always have it on repeat nowadays].

palp
 
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Much as I like him, I do feel Riley is a slight [although undeniably significant] composer, whose works are very much bound up with the sonorities of the instruments of the original recordings.
Click to expand...

That is an argument one could use against pretty much all musique concrete and the works of Stockhausen, Subotnik, Cage etc. Whilst the technology is undeniably linked to a period of history it doesn’t blunt these works in any way at all to me. They just work in a completely different way to most ‘classical’ music in that there is a single and definitive recording, e.g. it is impossible for anyone else to play something like Stockhausen’s Hymnen or Subotnik’s Silver Apples Of The Moon. I don’t have the slightest issue with that. I've seen Stockhausen perform Hymnen, Telemusik etc and he simply plays the tape. It works.

Tony.
 
Tony - I wasn't suggesting that Riley's slightness is in any way connected with the fact that the best interpretations of his early work are his own [maybe I should have said 'and whose works' rather than 'whose works'.

However, it is Riley himself who encourages other versions [hence the Chinese instrumentation & version with vocal lines in other attempts at 'In C'].

Obviously work which has been 'realised' by the composer, as they quaintly used to say, is sui generis - but Riley perhaps seems to indicate that he does not wish to fall in that category..

Re: Subotnick - I'm more of a 'Wild Bull' man myself - it's catchier! I bought it during that sublime period when you really could judge a book by its cover, and the fact that the art was by the same guy who did Forever Changes was good enough for me!

palp
 
Rainbow In Curved Air is a classic and probably his most coloured work and for anyone who's not heard it is a piece of swirling, hypnotic instant trip material. Shri Camel was available on CD at some point fairly recently, and apart from Church Of Anthrax is the nearest he comes to "normal" and has a great organ sound.

If you like the Poppy Nogood style, then the doubles Persian Surgery Dervishes and Descending Moonshine Dervishes are very good too (though on the latter you do get Songs For The Ten Voices Of The Prophets which involves our Tel singing a bit - not as bad as you'd think), and of course All Night Flight Vol.1, which is a stunning long live version of Poppy Nogood and even better than the studio version.

I like In C better than I did originally but prefer the above by a wide margin.

I'm staring at the sleeve of the LP of The Wild Bull right now. Trying to work out which bit of a Sunday would be best for playing it. Clearly a time when I'm feeling energetic as Side One is 13 minutes long and Side Two 14:50. Almost not worth levering myself up and down from the settee for.

Made me think what old Morton would think of having The Stranglers, Suicide and Donna Summer as cheek-by-jowl neighbours for the last 30 years or so. Nearly 40 years ago he'd have been cuddling up to The Stooges and Third Ear Band. Perhaps I should go back to bed.
 
Well, I dusted off (literally) The Wild Bull, and very good it was too. Sounded very modern really. Followed that up with Descending Moonshine Dervishes which struck me as being very much influenced by Indian ragas.
 
I have In C on original vinyl and Rainbow in Curved air and persian Surgery on vinyl and will happily send a Nakamichi recorded cassette tape in a perverse effort to avoid copyright hassles whilst fostering interest in my mates terry's music .and make you want to buy the CD's (alas).... he often sings and plays Harmonium with a close friend of mine. i also play the harmonium ......not a lot of people know that .... heavens am I going to flogged for home taping infringements ......Terry is a lovely human being.
 
this new version:

Ars Nova Copenhagen/ Percurama Percussion Ensemble/Paul Hillier

in full on yesterdays Late Junction

listen: here
 
Just a heads-up for Riley fans that there's a CD just been released of two soundtracks he did for obscure 70s films, and very good it is two.

Les Yeaux Fermes consists of two 18 minute tracks of the swirling, hypnotic Riley that's probably best known while Lifespan has six tracks, some of which though unmistakeably Riley, could almost be taken as mainstream. Well sort of.

Anyway it's a very good album.

I know 30 second extracts of his work is almost useless, but it's the best I could do. Click here
 
I've got a Terry Riley & Stefano Scodanibbio Album, Lazy Afternoon Among The Crocodiles, but dont have much of Mr Riley's work. Anyhoo I'm doing a bit of exploring about American composers and stuff and i find A Rainbow In Curved Air on Spotify, i had to do a double take when i saw it was done in 1969!
 
I have ''In C'' on vinyl and have always enjoyed it. The Bang on A can version is also enjoyable.
 
Since the thread was in its heyday, the Elision Fields label that released Les Yeaux Fermes etc. has put out Last Camel In Paris - a live recording that's a cross between Rainbow In Curved Air and Sri Camel, so end-to-end swirling trippiness and just heaven on a stick (if you like this sort of thing).

Riley has ventured out from this style (Last Camel is about the last work he did in that vein). His piano works - Harp Of New Albion, Lisbon Concert, Padova Concert - are improvised blues/jazz/trippy pieces (this is a poor description to be honest, you need to listen to some. Harp Of New Albion in particular is lovely in an otherworldly way), usually on a piano with a whacky tuning. That sounds a bit grim, but it's nothing of the sort.

Also worth seeking out is No Mans Land, which features him on piano with sitar and tabla and includes a piece improvised around the main Rainbow In Curved Air theme.

Then there's his more recent semi-classical works for the Kronos Quartet such as Salome Dances for Peace, Cadenza On The Night Plain, and The Cusp of Magic which I'd say were totally unrecognisable as Riley but very worth while getting if you like modern chamber classical without the tootle-parp-squeak-HONK.
 
Agree with the 1968 Columbia version being superior to the In Concert. On a side note apparently a remastered Rainbow in Curved Air is being released in late January next year.

regards,

Giles
 
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