The Classical Music Book

312

ONCE YOU BECOME AN

ISM, WHAT YOU’RE

DOING IS DEAD

IN C ( 1964 ), TERRY RILEY

I

n 1950s’ America, a generation

of artists, such as Donald

Judd, Richard Serra, and

Frank Stella, championed a new

kind of minimalist art. Inspired

partly by Piet Mondrian and

other artists of the Dutch De Stijl

movement founded in 1917, it

relied on plain, often industrial,

materials and was free of any

explicit meaning or influence. In

music, too, American composers,

including La Monte Young, Steve

Reich, and Terry Riley, looked to

strip notation, instrumentation,

and rhythm to their barest

essentials. To this they added

a new set of materials, including

sound “samples” recorded on

magnetic tape and played

on a repeated “loop.”

Breaking new ground

In C was the work in which Terry

Riley defined the musical style that

became known as minimalism. It

features a steady pulse, gradual

transformation, and the repetition

of short phrases or musical cells,

focusing the attention, not on a

goal toward which the music is

progressing, but on a continuous

process of change.

Riley did not begin with the

aim of writing a “minimalist” piece.

In C emerged partly from his

experimentation with tape loops,

particularly when he collaborated

with trumpeter Chet Baker on the

music for a theatre production,

called The Gift, in Paris in 1963. He

recorded Baker and his musicians

then made loops from the tapes and

played them back simultaneously

but starting at different times so

they repeated out of sync.

In C uses a similar technique

but with live players rather than

tapes. The piece consists of 53

musical phases of varying length

(none longer than 32 beats) that

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Minimalism

BEFORE

1893 Erik Satie composes

“Vexations,” a piano piece that

is widely recognized as being

a forerunner of minimalism.

1958 La Monte Young writes

his Trio for Strings, considered

to be the original work of

musical minimalism.

1960–1962 In Mescalin Mix,

Riley develops the technique

of repetitions using tape delay.

AFTER

1967–1968 Philip Glass writes

a succession of minimalist

pieces, including Gradus (for

solo saxophone) and 1 + 1

(for amplified tabletop).

1971 The Who’s song “Baba

O’Riley,” dedicated to Terry

Riley, opens with a keyboard

riff inspired by trademark

minimalist repetition.

In C is revolutionary.

It introduces repetition

as a primary

constructive force into

Western music.

Robert Davidson

Composer and student of Riley

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