Recap: In C 45th Anniversary Celebration
Terry Riley's avant-garde classic gets the Carnegie Hall treatment
Betty Freeman
Terry Riley
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The score of Terry Riley’s In C, a piece whose performances generally last 45 to 90 minutes, is a page long. Presuming (perhaps unfairly) that Decider readers will want guidance with this arithmetic, here goes: In C, written in 1964 for an unspecified group and number of instruments, consists of 53 short, often rhythmically staccato phrases passed through the ensemble, morphing from one phrase to the next, until the group reaches a collective end. Players can rest when they like and transition to the next phrase when they feel it’s appropriate. Last Friday’s 45th anniversary performance at Carnegie Hall, however, featured a “flight plan coordinator” who shuffled around the stage like a ghost for the duration of the piece, flashing cue cards, occasionally suggesting changes in volume and intensity, and generally quelling the percussionists’ visible desire to rock out. (In C has a lurking and implicit potential to sound “jammy.”) An octave C on the piano—“traditionally played by a beautiful girl” Riley notes, and played on Friday night by the original recording’s pianist, Katrina Krimsky—pulses for the duration of the piece, a ting ting ting ting that, even when inaudible, grounds the ensemble.
It’s puzzling why anyone felt like the piece’s 45th anniversary required a celebration, let alone the strangeness of holding an anniversary concert for a piece that never sounds the same twice. But in a way, it’s a testament to the piece’s profundity: In C, almost by nature, is rooted in a concept so sound and striking that abandoning it would be like calling clouds “passé.” In part, Friday’s performance—organized by the Kronos Quartet—was in part a roll call of 20th-century luminaries: Philip Glass on keyboards, Oswaldo Golijov on keyboards, Jon Gibson on woodwinds, Stuart Dempster on trombone, and white-bearded Terry Riley perched on a Korg synth in the center of the stage. (If these names mean nothing to you, don’t feel left out—try and conjure a warmth and reverence between “reunion of friends” and “all-star sports.”)
In C’s impact derives, in part, from its blend of rigor and informality, of the performers’ subtle, personal motions and their ability to disappear into the group. It’s strange and unflappably radical, even now: industrious, shimmering, and precise, but endless. The discretion of math meets bug-eyed, drooling transcendence. (The indestructible pull quote here is Alfred Frankenstein’s, from a review of the piece’s premiere in The San Francisco Chronicle: “At times you feel you have never done anything all your life long but listen to this music and as if that is all there is or ever will be.”) Less grand but with no less feeling: Hearing In C is a little like watching a factory assembly line build nothing in particular.
In C only “goes wrong” if a musician obviously loses the pulse or somehow slides out of focus. This happened a few times on Friday night, but the error—if it’s even fair to say it’s an “error” in the context of a piece that is part chance—was ignorable. The group onstage was so motley and bizarre—a Hindustani vocalist; a swaying children’s choir wrapped in bright silk scarves; a guy in tie-dye playing what looked like PVC piping; a diminutive Asian woman in a floral-print blouse kneeling over a toy piano; the grand pianist in long black gloves ruthlessly hammering out the pulse—that a deaf person would’ve had an impossible time figuring out what they had in common. The formality of dress ranged from charity ball to auto maintenance. In a way, though, that’s In C’s legacy: A moment when the classical-music world shucked formalities and started welcoming the barefoot and decidedly weird. It’s not to suggest that Riley’s music is informal—pieces like Poppy Nogood and His Phantom Band or Reed Streams or even In C require as much focus as Bach, if not more (in Bach, the performer has fewer choices to juggle while playing).
In C’s last few sections are heavy on B-flats. For readers without music theory, let’s say that a B-flat in C is like a very gentle plot twist that hints at a new storyline. And so In C ends with the suggestion that it’ll never end. At Carnegie Hall on Friday night, everyone stood up and clapped like wild because they’d just had their brains scrubbed out. They likely couldn’t sing a note of what they’d just heard. Terry Riley stood in the middle of the stage, hands clasped in prayer, smiling, and bowed. He walked away. People cheered again. He returned. More clapping. He walked away once more. Even more clapping and hollering. He returned. And it happened again and again—a moment no one was ready to leave.
