“In C” is an ensemble piece that Riley composed on a bus trip across the U.S.A. 1964. The work was to become a gateway to the new art music of the 20th century with its brand new compositional method, and it would certainly propel the illusionistic, repetitive music that some call minimalism forward in a sudden gush of feverish activity!
The piece consists of 53 short melodic motifs around the C tonality. The simple but effective performance method means that the musicians play the 53 fragments in order, from the first one to the last, but each player repeats each motif as often as he wishes, with the restraining instruction in mind that he should at all times listen to the other players and show consideration for the collected sounding result. Each player can also refrain from playing for as long as he feels is right. When all the musicians of the ensemble has played through all the motifs and reaches the end of motif number 53, the performance is complete.
This is the secret at work in “In C”: The music is completely composed within each motif, while still allowing for interpretational freedom and choice along the time axis. Furthermore, the score is written in free instrumentation, meaning that any kinds of instruments may be used. There is neither any self-evident duration decided. Riley himself says that he could conceive of a yearlong performance, which would allow each motif a duration of about one week!
This is a kind of music that works with the microscope and the kaleidoscope! The music is shifted and layered in minute, almost unnoticeable transformations, which subject you to hallucinatory sonic illusions, in which the music is elicited of pictures that rise out of the tensions and force fields which are emerging between the tones, between the rhythms and in the overtones that hover over the expanding and contracting sound fields’ relations to each other."
My first listen of this album was on the L and it was one of the most powerful experiences I've had with music synchronizing with reality. As the title says, this is actually a 25th anniversary concert of In C, I actually have not even heard the studio album yet. It's a memorizing album to say the least. It's most appropriate for traveling in cities. Listen for yourself and see it intertwine into your reality as it did mine.
In C
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