Customer Reviews

Terry Riley: In C

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Terry Riley's "In C" has been called groovy and euphoric. It is definitely a product of its times, the 1960s, and is by now a classic of the 20th century, right up alongside "The Rite of Spring." ("New Music" can't any longer apply to 37-year-old music -- "Late 20th Century" seems more accurate.) The score for "In C" is simply a succession of 53 simple motifs, for "any group of musicians," to be played in succession for any amount of time! The piece moves from C, to E minor, to C, to G minor, revolving as the instruments shift from motif to motif one by one. From simplicity emerges complexity, and every performance will be unique.

I was skeptical that this new Bang On a Can version, recorded in 1998, could equal the great 25th Anniversary concert with Riley himself, on New Albion, but it does, with a quite different approach. The 1990 recording is 76 minutes long, while this 1998 version is only 44 minutes long. Evan Ziporyn's Bang On a Can ensemble has only 11 musicians, while the 1990 version had 31. (Ziporyn played bass clarinet for Riley's 1990 concert.) The feel is quite different, with a sense of urgency and inexorability in contrast to the sense of endless, timeless cycling in the 1990 version. Riley and three others add vocals to the long 1990 version, which adds to the mystical, Eastern transcendental experience. Bang On a Can, with prominent bass, creates a distinctly Western "In C," which realizes Riley's goal of awakening and enlightenment in a more immanent way, through the flow of time in modern life, rather than outside it.

Simply superb, an essential interpretation for the new millennium.

Usually the pianist in this piece is saddled with "the pulse," a series of repeated octaves acting as a rhythmic spine holding the score together for its mesmerizing 45 minutes. Fortunately in this case, the outstanding Australian artist Lisa Moore is given more interesting tasks, while the monotony of banging out these notes is handed over to a laptop computer.

For those who are inclined toward Riley's pioneering experiment, this will be arresting and rewarding listening. The score fits on a single page, and consists of a series of 53 short instrumental figures, designed to be played in order by any combination of instruments. Each musician performs a given figure as many times as desired before moving on to the next one. The score is designed so that all figures mesh with each other, resulting in a huge wall of sound, slowly evolving as the musicians reach new plateaus.

Compared to the relative innocence and sunshine of the original, this one has a raucous, fiery quality that I like even better. The go-for-broke Bang on a Can crew gives it a loud, intense performance that is especially satisfying in the climactic thickets, when the entire group seems immersed in throbbing harmonic waves. It would be hard to single out musicians, but Evan Ziporyn's beautiful clarinet cannot go unnoticed, as well as David Cossin's excellent work on glockenspiel and vibraphone, and Maya Beiser on cello. But pretty much everyone here seems to be having a great time, and the effect is flat-out exhilarating.

The original version, still available on Sony, has its own charms, and there is an intriguingly delicate one with the Shanghai Film Orchestra (Celestial Harmonies), but this is now my favorite -- involved, committed and extremely powerful. Cantaloupe's sound is crystal-clear, and the lively packaging is excellent, too -- mostly bright orange and green graphics that do both Terry Riley and the group proud.

in the energy of the performance. I've had the original recording for a long time, and have enjoyed it as the first "definitive" sound of the piece. But this Bang On A Can version brings out the real inner beauty of the piece. WIth fewer musicians, and such diverse instrumentation, the individual lines stand out clearly while still blending into the overall mix and wash of sound.

I just listened to this for the first time and I am in total rapture from it.

All I can say is WOW.

This is an excellent recording of In C, not to be missed.

I've been listening to various versions of "In C" for several years, and never could find one that really seemed to sound right, until I heard this one, which in it's very freshness hits the mark. The main problems with the other versions (notably Riley's 1964 original and the 25th anniversary recording) seemed to be the instrumentation - too much mallet percussion, which makes the piece sound like it's being performed by a Gamelan orchestra, or the overabundance of woodwinds and saxophones, whivh make it sound like a bad Soft Machine jam. But in this recording BOAC brings in new, western sounds to the In C catalog, such as Bass, Electric Guitar, Violin, and Synthesizer, giving the performance an urgent, driving feeling (I think one reviewer put it as a "nervous energy").
As always with this surreal, everchanging piece, there are several moments where the band members (unintentionally?) phrase together at just the right moments. My favorite is at around 9:40 or so, when the violin and piano mesh together in an unexpected, completely satisfying way. Aaaaah...

Something that has always struck me about In C is that it is, at its core, all about the joy of making music. I do not know whether this was Riley's intention or not. Nevertheless, no other recording captures that element so energetically and resoundingly as Bang on a Can's performance.

From the very start, it is obvious this is going to be a very different experience than what fans might expect. The first thing that caught my attention, and made me smile, was the piano in there playing parts instead of being relegated to its usual position as an expensive metronome. This version seems also to have many more crescendos and decrescendos during its forty-five minute length. It is so much fun to listen to one instrument suddenly give rise a powerful presence and the others build around the base, then peel off into their own tangents. It is like a great swelling and ebbing of chaotic tides. I smiled as, like old friends, I heard familiar melodies bursting forth in new ways.

As another person put it, this recording makes the listener feel happy to be alive, especially if they find joy in music. I would also go so far to suggest that those who are new to In C might find this a better place to start than the classic renditions. They all have their own strengths. However, something about the richness and sizzling energy mixed with effortless delicacy and foreboding in BoaC's version makes the composition extremely accessible, despite its decidedly experimental basis.

Since I found this disc three days ago, I have already listened to it countless times. Sometimes focusing on the pounding C note is fun, letting everything else flower around it; other times following one or two musicians is fun; or just letting the whole cacophony wash over at once. To the power of the bass, the sizzle of the mandolin, the soaring of the violin, and the dancing of the saxophone-- highly recommended!

Having performed this piece a couple of times in the 70s, I was first struck by the instrumentation in the current version. Gone is the gamelan-like ricky-ticky edge caused by too many percussive instruments (and I was a percussionist!). This softening is also considerably helped by the decision to assign the Pulse to a synth rather than a piano. Kudos to whoever thought of THAT one.

The second thing that struck me is the fact that these guys actually listen to one another. This performance doesn't sound, at least to these ears, like the 2 rehearsals then do the gig situation that has produced a great many mediocre, or just plain bad performances and recordings of this work. Instead, it strikes me that there must have been many many sessions sharing ideas, experimenting, discarding, adding, editing and on and on. In four short words, a real group effort.

This realization is a must-have for fans of the genre. Bjork, how about some cross-marketing?

Personally, I find Terry Riley's music gorgeous, but it's the sort of thing that really polarizes people; four years ago the wind ensemble I play in performed Riley's "Olson III" (similar to "In C," but also completely different) and we ended up driving roughly half the audience out of the hall. Kind of a shame, really -- Riley's music requires a certain amount of patience and activity on part of the listener to really enjoy, and I think doing something as knee-jerk as simply walking away really deprives people of an experience. "In C" isn't jarring or unpleasant, but it is repetitive, and the brilliance of the piece comes from the subtle changes and evolutions in that repetition.
Maybe this isn't the best place to start with this kind of music, but it's one of the best readings of this work out there.

i first heard "in c" back in the late 60s or perhaps early 70s. that was the cbs masterworks recording. i was taken. since then i have come across a few newer recordings but nothing that comes close to this "bang on a can" performance. the 25th anniversary concert doesn't come close (however much i loved the feel of that performance). to "bang on a can", and to terry riley.....many thanks.

Everyone else has gone into depth about the hows and whys of "In C." All I want to say about it is - it'll make you feel glad to be alive. And that means alot these days. This Bang On A Can version is the best version of "In C" I've ever heard. My only complaint is that since this version clocks in at 45 minutes, they should've been able to pull another additional work from the BOAC archives that would've nicely complimented this piece. But no matter - it's still very worth the money.

Like the last of the Baby-Boomers (and some Gen-Xers), Terry Riley's In C is now approaching middle age. Yet the work continues to inspire fascinating and evocative new versions at every turn. There's quite an array of these now available, from the original Columbia version (with its vintage Columbia studio sound) to a version with chorus, sung in French, to another for an ensemble of Chinese instruments. The Bang On A Can All-Stars have come up with a swell compromise, that brings a modern day acoustic and a world-music sensibility to this startling work. The result feels remarkably solid for a work in which the structure is subject to improvisation. One suspects that some of that solidity was a gift from "arranger" Evan Ziporyn, who's no slouch at putting together persuasive tunes with ensembles that mix instruments from different cultures. This version of In C doesn't need Grecian Formula to come across as naturally youthful as it must have sounded in 1963.