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From Raga to Rag: On Terry Riley’s Stylistic Synthesis
It seems particularly timely and appropriate to be writing about Terry Riley in 2005, the year of his seventieth birthday,
when a spirit of festive celebration fills the air. A free spirit, maverick par excellence, creator of a personal compositional style
that has spawned entire generations of epigones, he certainly deserves these sumptuous celebrations. Terry Riley is the
kind of intellectual who embodies the best aspects of the American pioneer spirit, the positive and uncorrupted image of
America (and California, in particular) that still holds abroad: an America free from the weight of European tradition, a
privileged space where a fusion of Western and Eastern cultural trends can be produced. (After all, this has always been
the supreme paradox of American art: The more diverse and multiethnic the result, the more it appears quintessentially
“American.”)
For more than forty years Riley’s music has engaged us, relentlessly developing in intensity and enlarging its scope, its
author courageously exploring ever-new styles and compositional devices and smelting them into a unique syncretic
synthesis. The styles Terry Riley adopts are like entries in a journal: each one the witness of a particular moment of his
life, be it recent or one lost in time. These styles are like documents, trails that the passing of years has scratched in the
catalogue of his works.
Because every style that Riley embraces can be associated with a specific phase of his career, listening to his music allows
us to travel across space and time, while simultaneously experiencing various steps along his personal and intellectual
journey. As such, it might be necessary to reexamine some passages within Riley’s biography, in particular those moments
that can provide a context for a fuller understanding of the pieces presented here.
When in 1955 the twenty-year-old Riley began his studies in composition at San Francisco State University, ragtime was
certainly not part of the curriculum. And it was not until 1960, while studying composition at the University of California
at Berkeley, that he decided to take a job as a ragtime pianist at the Gold Street Saloon in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast.
In the early Sixties, the Saloon in Gold Street was a consciously retro business where you could still experience the flavors
of a bygone golden era. Riley performed there regularly, entertaining the audience with highlights from the whole honky-
tonk musical handbook: blues, ragtime, jazz.
From 1960 to 1962 Riley was able to support himself (and pay college tuition) by performing regularly at the Gold Street
Saloon, at the same time learning how to actually play honky tonk and ragtime from Wally Rose, a musician who Riley
still remembers as a “wonderful ragtime and Dixieland pianist.”1 This training ended up being particularly useful. It is in
fact well known that circa 1963 he earned a living in Europe playing the piano in American Air Force base nightclubs,
and that until the late Sixties he could still be heard performing in piano bars.
Once we recognize the presence of African-American music in Terry Riley’s formation, it is natural to think that Riley’s
openly acknowledged interest in jazz was what led him to begin playing the saxophone, certainly a key instrument of the
jazz repertoire. It seems fair to assume that the long relationship that Riley established with the saxophone as a performer
and composer can be linked with his openly professed admiration for the music and performances of two of the most
acclaimed jazz saxophonists: Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. It was after an inspiring Rollins performance that Riley, as
we shall see, first wrote Tread on the Trail, and it was under Coltrane’s spell that Riley chose to play the soprano saxophone,
an instrument that had acquired a large popularity thanks to Coltrane.
The first among Terry Riley’s works that employ the saxophone as a means of exploration is 1965’s Dorian Reeds. In this
work Riley duplicates, delays, and overlays a series of musical phrases performed on the saxophone through the effect
machine he himself created: the time-lag, looping, and phasing accumulator. This kind of sound mirroring—think of
reality observed through a multifaceted prism—granted polyphonic possibilities normally denied to an instrument such as
the saxophone, which normally can produce only one musical line at a time.
The famous 1969 Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band—a sort of dark alter ego of A Rainbow in Curved Air—is a further step in
the process of exploring the possible transformations and manipulations of the sound of the saxophone. In Poppy Nogood and
the Phantom Band, an obvious continuation and re-contextualization of the experience of Dorian Reeds, the soprano
saxophone played by Riley and processed throughout a series of delays routinely occupies the center of the musical stage.
1
From a personal e-mail sent by Terry Riley to Luciano Chessa on August 15, 2005.
These are only the first and most famous examples of the saxophone’s presence in Terry Riley’s music. But we would have
to wait until the late Eighties to find Terry Riley’s first work for saxophone ensemble. Written in 1987 for the Rova
saxophone quartet and inspired by the eighth-century Ulster heroic tale “The Tain Bo Cuailnge” (The Cattle Raid of
Cooley), the fifty minutes of Chanting the Light of Foresight exist as the direct precedent to Riley’s works for saxophone quartet
of the late Nineties.
Reading what Riley wrote about the compositional process adopted for Chanting the Light of Foresight provides us with a
privileged view of his workshop:
Although extremely difficult to accomplish, I wanted to have part of the quartet’s movements in “resonant
intonation” with pure intervals combining in the saxophones’ radiant timbres. After composing the music
I made a tape on the Prophet 5 synthesizer of the tuning so that the players could match the intervals in
their rehearsals. Rova has taken this challenge seriously. The result is sounds that I have not heard
previously coming from saxophones and is right in the tradition of Rova cutting an alternate groove in
contemporary music. When we originally conceived of the project we wanted to leave room for lots of
improvisation. This not only takes place in the “Pipes of Medb” and “Medb’s Blues” but in addition Rova
created the Battle Music section, which is one of my favorites and points to their strong compositional
abilities.2
Through this testimony, we immediately realize that the working process described here is derived from his collaboration
with the Kronos Quartet, an association that more than any other deeply affected Terry Riley’s compositional career from
the early Eighties until now. This working together, based on exploring many levels of improvisation, and an openness to
the ensemble’s involvement in the pre-compositional (and sometimes even compositional) process as well as the
exploration of new tunings, most definitely set the standard for Riley’s future collaboration with other ensembles. With the
pieces written for the Kronos Quartet (the relationship started in 1980 with G-Song) Terry Riley found a perfect synthesis
between a more rigorous writing technique (probably an heirloom of the early UC Berkeley years) and its antithesis as
represented in the improvisational work, mainly on a keyboard, that constituted the core of Riley’s output in the Seventies.
The collaboration with the Kronos Quartet marked Riley’s return to musical notation. But this return was in no way a
reactionary operation, nor a nostalgic one. After a pause that lasted for more than a decade, Riley resumed the act of
musical notation with a renewed compositional approach, one that incorporated all the extra-notational musical
experiences he had encountered throughout the Seventies, a compositional approach that encompassed the research
undertaken by him on tuning systems, improvisational techniques, and especially the experience of an entire decade
devoted to the thorough study of Indian classical music.
Another important phase of Terry Riley’s musical career began in the year 1970, when La Monte Young introduced him
to Pandit Pran Nath. This famous meeting would change Riley’s musical direction. Formally initiated as a disciple of Pran
Nath in May, Riley left for India in September to pursue the study of Indian classical music. Although returning to the
United States after six months of training, Riley remained a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath until the latter’s death in 1996.
This musical and spiritual relationship was destined to leave permanent trails in Riley’s music after A Rainbow in Curved Air
(1969).
It is interesting to note that two of the most significant musical influences on Riley’s style—blues/jazz, and Indian classical
music—share relevant common features: modal structures and improvisatory practices intended as careful treatment of a
set of more or less strict, codified rules. By emphasizing common ground (in music as he would also do in world politics),
Riley reconciles different cultures within the same inventive fusing process.
2
From Riley’s liner notes to the New Albion Records CD Chanting the Light of Foresight (NA 064). Reprinted by
permission.
Uncle Jard (1998) for saxophone quartet, voice, piano, and harpsichord. Commissioned by the ARTE Quartett.
Premiered on March 26, 1999, in Liestal, Switzerland, by Terry Riley and the ARTE Quartett.
Uncle Jard offers an example of what has just been suggested. In this piece, Indian classical music and blues/jazz elements
co-exist in a stylistically coherent whole: ragtime and raga have never been so closely intertwined. The pitch collection
that Riley has chosen for this piece is mostly derived from a scale that features a lowered third and a raised fourth.
Common to all parts of the piece, this scale provides large-scale unity despite exterior differences in mood and/or style.
The piece is divided into three parts. While in the first and second parts the texture of the saxophone ensemble is enriched
by the voice and keyboard (in the recording both are performed by Riley himself), in the third part the voice is not
featured. In the contemplative-meditative first part, the Indian modality of Riley’s singing unfolds over the austere drone-
like tapestry of the saxophones, occasionally punctuated by the solemnity of a harpsichord sound that is distinct from the
function and mood of airy playfulness that we find in A Rainbow in Curved Air’s multicolored keyboard virtuosity. The three
colors (Riley’s voice, harpsichord, and saxophone ensemble) create a uniquely evocative blend.
The second part contains a more articulated structure, wherein Riley gradually introduces a different sound world.
Characterized by a 7/4 meter, this part begins with a musical phrase based on the piece’s pitch collection played in
quarter notes by the soprano saxophone. This phrase employs the same register and pitches from the last bars of the first
part, which creates a strong sense of continuity.
The regularity of the quarter-note pattern is soon interrupted by syncopated accents by the rest of the ensemble, which
prepare a change of atmosphere that is soon confirmed by the entrance of the piano. This section leads to a piano solo
break ad libitum that has a characteristic honky-tonk feel, in which Riley seems deliberately to allude to the Gold Street
Saloon years at the beginning of his career. As if excited by the piano swing, the saxophones pick up the piano chord
progression with swing subdivisions, laying the groundwork for the entrance of the voice. Accompanied by piano and the
saxophone ensemble, with a smoky voice Riley sings his ominous blues:
Uncle Jard said to do it
Did he?
Did he did
Or did he did not?
Do you think that we’ve been bad?
Well, I tell you we’ve been totally had.
Do you think we make it up?
Well, ol’ Jard he’s been drinking from the Devil’s cup.
Uncle Jard said to do it
Did he?
Did he did
Or did he did not?
Do you think we tell a lie?
Well, we’d rather lie ourselves than to die.
And life and love’s a mystery
Of its deep and darkest secrets Jard holds the key.
Uncle Jard said to do it
Did he?
Did he did
Or did he did not?
Angels dancing on a pin
Taught old Jard how to take the world on a spin
In his bright and shiny car
He knows how to drive but he never goes far
Uncle Jard said to do it (etc).3
A Mingus-like section with a build-up in volume and intensity (“wailing” is written in the score) leads to the third part.
Here the piece returns to the even 4/4 meter of the opening, but the spirit is different. A regular subdivision of “straight”
sixteenth-notes moves like a perpetuum mobile from one instrument to the next, often times interrupted by syncopated
phrases and sparkling piano passages. The music possesses a sense of rondo-like urgency that finds rest only in the darker
closing measures, which bring the listener back to the austerity of the first part.
Assassin Reverie (2001) for saxophone quartet and tape. Commissioned by the ARTE Quartett. Premiered on June 16,
2001, in Basel by the ARTE Quartett and Beat Kappeler.
Assassin Reverie is a piece in a single movement, but structured in three different sections differentiated by sound material
and stage direction. Composed to be staged in a “theatrical context,” as Riley himself writes in the performance notes
printed in the score, the piece requires the quartet of players to appear onstage all dressed in the same color from head to
toe, be it white, black, yellow, green, etc., and wearing matching hats.
Since this visual aspect is obviously lost in the audio recording, it seems worthwhile to describe it. Red lights fill the stage
as the piece opens on a free lyrical gesture of the unaccompanied soprano saxophone, soon doubled by the alto. The
soprano and alto saxophone begin an articulated dialogue that employs hints of canonic imitation. The tenor saxophone
joins in, canonically imitating the soprano part.
The opening elegiac mood of this first section is soon contradicted by ascending gestures of tuplets that progressively
conquer a higher and higher instrumental range. Among these gestures we can find the ascending phrases of the soprano
saxophone in measures 19–23 and 36–38 of the score. The latter of the two is bolder as the soprano saxophone rushes in
an unaccompanied ascending cadenza that drops with the painful cry of pitch-bending once the top note is reached.
With the ascending phrase of the tenor and alto saxophones in measures 62–63, a new episode begins (con moto) in which
the parallel soprano and bass saxophones’ arabesque-like melody unfolds over the syncopated motion of the alto and tenor
saxophones. The exchange among the instruments becomes more intricate, the episode growing in intensity as it moves
toward the climax of the first section: the striking ascent of the four saxophones’ chromatic cluster (bars 94–99). Supremely
prepared by the triple-forte saxophone climax and by stage directions that require the red lights of the hall to be suddenly
shut off, the audio track starts to play.
Together with the entrance of an already extremely aggressive audio track—gunshots and helicopter sounds are heard
throughout it—a strobe light emerges from the darkness to accompany the next session. Here Riley does not assign written
parts to the saxophones, but only indicates a rigorous order of entrance (soli, tutti, duets, etc.), and associates different
passages of the tape to a series of melodic phrases and pitch materials that can be freely used by the four musicians. The
saxophone parts are meant to be instinctive, improvised reactions to the horror created by the sounds heard on the tape.
In this broad dramatic section, the performers are invited to move “about the stage,” as Riley requests in the score, “often
mimicking the gunfire and violence of the audio track.”
Cued by the audio track at the end of the second section, the saxophonists move back to their music stands. A blue stage
light is turned on while the strobe light is turned off. During the slow fading of the tape, the saxophone quartet plays the
closing section of the piece. This moving section recapitulates, together with melodic elements, the elegiac tone of the
opening.
3
Text transcribed from the present recording by Luciano Chessa and Troy Boyd, and corrected by Terry Riley.
Tread on the Trail (1965) for ensemble. Premiered in the summer of 1965 in San Francisco at the San Francisco Tape
Center. (Version for 12 saxophones by the ARTE Quartett)
Although it was premiered in the summer of 1965 in a concert at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, it is only recently
that Tread on the Trail has begun receiving steady attention from performers. The reason for this can be attributed to Riley
himself. Unsatisfied with the premiere, Riley left the score in a drawer for thirty-five years. Upon his invitation to Moscow
in 2000 for a performance, he decided to bring the piece along and to produce a revised version of it.
It is also possible to suppose that the immense popularity of In C might have upstaged it. Written right after In C, Tread on
the Trail is in fact based on similar construction principles. The music in both pieces is a ludus, a game in which Riley re-
injects into Western music a new-found vitality. Through a free exploration of the score, musical performance recovers
here its true essence as a playful collective ritual.
But Tread on the Trail is not a lesser son (it has its own chops). While Riley does not care to disguise the similarity between
the two pieces, at the same time he rightly points to the one particular feature that is peculiar to Tread on the Trail: what he
calls the “funky-jazz feeling.” Unlike In C, Tread on the Trail in fact “swings,” the sixteenth-note swing being specifically
requested—as it will be in the second part of Uncle Jard—in the score.
As a result, this piece creates a perfect marriage between new music and jazz, something that might have sounded even
more utopian in 1965. This was obviously deliberate since the work was already dedicated in 1965 to the jazz saxophonist
Sonny Rollins, whom Riley saw performing right before starting to compose the piece. In a 2002 radio interview with
Folke Rabe, Riley remembers Rollins’s concert:
I went to see Sonny play in 1965, just shortly before I wrote this piece, and he came out from New York
with four or five musicians, but didn’t give them any music. It was an interesting night, because he just sat
up on the stage, and he would start improvising something with his horn, and he would kind of glance at
the musicians and expect them to interact with the music he was playing. It resulted in a really—I
thought—very interesting night of music, because you could sense the anticipation and the kind of
bewilderment, even, on some of the musicians’ part, about how they were supposed to interact, but it
resulted in some really interesting music.4
The score is made up of five lines of music, labeled from A to D. Each line contains thirteen bars of forty-four beats plus a
two-beat tag. As in In C, the musicians go through the lines of music, performing each line sometimes in unison and
sometimes canonically and eventually overlapping lines. The 2000 revision adds a series of optional drones, which
accompany every line when it is performed as is, before the canonic process starts. Furthermore, this revision adds a line
(in the score called D2) as a variant of the D1 line. Both innovations provide the piece with a richer texture and a broader
variety of color.
The piece is written for an open instrumental ensemble. Although the 1965 premiere was performed by a big band made
up of players from San Francisco State University, right from the dedication to Mr. “Tenor Madness,” the saxophone is in
the forefront, albeit understatedly, as the instrumental source of the inspiration. The version presented here is an
arrangement based on the 2000 revision, quite appropriately scored by the ARTE Quartett for twelve saxophones.
Throughout this version, the drones are performed rhythmically to provide, as does the “pulse” of In C, the backdrop of a
steady beat for the syncopations and swing to be more easily enjoyed.
—Luciano Chessa
Luciano Chessa is a composer, musicologist, and musical saw player.
4
A transcription of the interview can be found at http://home.swipnet.se/sonoloco16/learning/trail.html.
Composer’s note
The first work of mine that I heard the ARTE Quartett play convinced me that they were a group that approached their
performance of new music with seriousness and commitment. The music was Chanting the Light of Foresight, which presents a
saxophone quartet with many difficult challenges, technically as well as stylistically.
Afterwards, the members of ARTE asked me to write some music specifically for them. Uncle Jard and Assassin Reverie were
the result. The Uncle Jard project was an extension of a piece that I had written for my band, the Terry Riley All Stars. The
All Stars version involves a lot of improvisation based on a one-page chart. When I wrote the version for ARTE, I took the
opportunity to write a piece with more polyphonic intricacy suitable for their classically-trained techniques. I also wrote
myself into the piece as keyboardist and vocalist. Through many rehearsals and performances of Uncle Jard, we arrived at a
form that has a nicely balanced shape that has more or less equal parts of improvisation and through-composed sections.
My twin grandchildren, Misha and Simone, when they were around five or six years old, had two imaginary playmates—
MissiGono, who was a mysterious woman who had the ability to die and come back to life, and Uncle Jard. I have written
pieces on both of these characters. Uncle Jard was their scapegoat. Whenever they got into mischief, they would say
“Uncle Jard said to do it.” I would like to thank them for their significant contribution that served to jumpstart this music.
Assassin Reverie is a result of living in the post-9/11 world, where we see rampant terrorism committed by guerrilla fighters
and insurgents and even more devastating acts of terrorism committed by the power-mad leaders of the so-called free
world. I wanted to create a theatrical piece that expressed some of the meanings of both words in the title. Brutality and
beauty holding hands. A twenty-first-century world where assassins dream all around us.
—Terry Riley, August 2005
Terry Riley (born 1935) is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the Minimalist movement. His landmark
composition, In C, established Minimalism as a vital force in contemporary music and his work continues to be a major
influence today. His career, spanning five decades, far from being confined to the minimalist category, has always crossed
boundaries and been marked by its effortless transformations and morphing from one stratum of thought to another.
Highly developed elements of Indian music, jazz, and African and Middle Eastern music are intricately interwoven into
much of his work.
A gifted pianist, singer, and improviser, he has performed worldwide since 1955. He is a senior disciple of the late
legendary North Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, and has appeared in numerous concerts as the Master’s accompanist
both on tabla and vocals. He has received numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim award, a Gerbode
Foundation grant, and two NEA grants. He has written compositions for chamber, orchestral, jazz, rock, and world music
ensembles. Most notable is his twenty-five-year association with the Kronos Quartet, for which he has produced fifteen
major works, including thirteen string quartets and The Sands, a concerto for string quartet and orchestra.
Riley’s list of collaborators includes La Monte Young, Chet Baker, John Cale, Don Cherry, Krishna Bhatt, Stefano
Scodanibbio, the Kronos Quartet, the artist Bruce Conner, and poet Michael McClure. The London Times listed Terry as
one of the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century.” For further information, please visit www.terryriley.com.
The ARTE Quartett was founded in 1993 by saxophonists Beat Hofstetter, Sascha Armbruster, Andrea Formenti and
Beat Kappeler. The musicians have a classical background yet they are stylistically open-minded, as demonstrated by
their intense cooperation with musicians and composers of various styles. The ARTE Quartett is mainly committed to
contemporary music and its various aspects. Since the foundation of the quartet, ARTE has collaborated closely with
many composers, which has permitted the group to be involved in the actual compositional process. ARTE has premiered
a large number of commissions. Part of the concept is a clearly structured and well-reasoned programming as well as
working repeatedly on larger projects. During past years ARTE’s projects have included concerts with Terry Riley, Tim
Berne, Urs Leimgruber, Fred Frith, Pierre Favre, Nick Didkovsky, Nik Bärtsch, Lucas Niggli, and Nadir Vassena. The
quartet tours regularly and plays in various festivals and concert series and has recorded a wide number of new pieces with
various national broadcast companies.
www.arte-quartett.com
Beat Hofstetter, soprano saxophone, was born in Laufen, Switzerland. He studied saxophone and conducting at the
Conservatory in Basel, Northwestern University in Chicago (Master of Music), and the Hochschule für Musik in
Karlsruhe, Germany. He has conducted various ensembles and orchestras. He has also won various grants and
competitions in Switzerland. He teaches at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel and Musikhochschule Lucerne.
Sascha Armbruster, alto saxophone, was born in Lahr, Germany. He studied saxophone in Basel with Iwan Roth and
Marcus Weiss. He won the “Premier Prix à l’unanimité” at the Conservatoire Supérieur National de Paris with Claude
Delangle and has won various competitions. He performs regularly as a chamber musician and with various orchestras
throughout Europe. He teaches at the Musikhochschule Lucerne. www.saschaarmbruster.com
Andrea Formenti, tenor saxophone, was born in Balerna, Switzerland. He studied saxophone and received his Soloist
Diploma in the class of Iwan Roth at the Conservatory in Basel. He has won various grants and competitions. He is a
member of Ensemble Oggi Musica in Lugano.
Beat Kappeler, baritone saxophone, was born in Reinach, Switzerland. He received his Diploma for saxophone in the
class of Iwan Roth at the Conservatory in Basel. He received his Concert Diploma for Saxophone at the Musikhochschule
Zürich in the class of Marcus Weiss. He has studied electronic music and performs with various chamber ensembles and
orchestras.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
ARTE Quartett
Tim Berne. The Sevens. ARTE Quartett, Tim Berne, Marc Ducret, David Torn. New World Records 80586-2.
e_a.sonata.02. ARTE Quartett, Urs Leimgruber, Günter Müller. For4Ears CD 1447.
Gang. ARTE Quartett, Hans Feigenwinter, Wolfgang Zwiauer. Altrisuoni AS110.
Portrait ARTE Quartett. MGB CTS-M 95.
Saxophones. ARTE Quartett, Pierre Favre, Michel Godard. Intakt Records CD 091.
XYLEM. ARTE Quartett with Urs Leimgruber. stv/asm 003.
Terry Riley
Chanting the Light of Foresight. ROVA Saxophone Quartet. New Albion NA 064.
Descending Moonshine Dervishes. Kuckuck KUCK 12047.
The Harp of New Albion. Celestial Harmonies 14018.
In C. CBS MK 7178.
Lisbon Concert. New Albion NA 087.
Music for the Gift. Organ of Corti 1.
Olson III. Organ of Corti 3.
Persian Surgery Dervishes. New Tone nt 6715.
Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band All Night Flight. Organ of Corti 4
Reed Streams. Organ of Corti 2.
Requiem for Adam. Kronos Quartet. Nonesuch 79639-2.
A Rainbow in Curved Air. CBS MK 7315.
Salome Dances for Peace. Kronos Quartet. Nonesuch/Elektra 79217-2.
Shri Camel. CBS MK 35164.
You’re No Good. Organ of Corti 5.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aikin, J., and J. Rothstein. “Terry Riley: The Composer of In C Explores Indian sources and Synthesizer Soloing,”
Keyboard, viii/4 (1982): 11–17.
Alburger, M. “Shri Terry: Enlightenment at Riley’s Moonshine Ranch,” 20th Century Music, iv/3 (1997): 1–20.
Duckworth, W. Talking Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1995.
Gann, Kyle. American Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998.
Mertens, W. American Minimal Music. London: Kahn and Averill, 1983.
Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Potter, K. Four Musical Minimalists. London: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Schaefer, J. New Sounds. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.
Schwarz, K. R. Minimalists. London: Phaidon, 1996.
Strickland, Edward. Minimalism: Origins. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993.
——. “Riley, Terry” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd ed. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
——. American Composers. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Sutherland, Roger. New Perspectives in Music. London: Sun Tavern Fields, 1994.
Produced by the ARTE Quartett.
Recorded 2001–2003 by Ron Kurz at DRS 2 Radio Studio, Zürich, Switzerland and Michael Rast at rete due Radio
Studio, Lugano, Switzerland.
Edited and premixed in 2005 by Beat Kappeler at the CastleStudio, Basel, Switzerland.
Mixed 2005 by Ron Kurz at DRS 2 Radio Studio, Zürich, Switzerland.
Mastered 2005 by Ron Kurz at HardStudios, Winterthur, Switzerland.
Cover design: Jim Fox
This recording was made possible by a grant from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trust.
Uncle Jard and Assassin Reverie were commissioned by and written for the ARTE Quartett.
Very special thanks to Terry Riley, Ron Kurz, Michael Rast, Peter Bürli, Dario Müller, Susanne Schneider Formenti,
Gabi Mächler, Karin Dornbusch, and Dr. Biit.
FOR NEW WORLD RECORDS:
Herman E. Krawitz, President; Lisa Kahlden, Director of Information Technology; Paul M. Tai, Director of Artists and
Repertory; Mojisola Oké, Bookkeeper; Dan Parratt, Production Associate.
RECORDED ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN MUSIC, INC., BOARD OF TRUSTEES:
Richard Aspinwall; Milton Babbitt; John Lee Carroll; Thomas Teige Carroll; Emanuel Gerard; David Hamilton; Rita
Hauser; Lisa Kahlden; Herman E. Krawitz; Robert Marx; Arthur Moorhead; Elizabeth Ostrow; Cynthia Parker; Larry
Polansky; Don Roberts; Marilyn Shapiro; Patrick Smith; Frank Stanton; Paul M. Tai.
Francis Goelet (1926–1998), Chairman
! & © 2005 Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
TERRY RILEY (b. 1935)
& ARTE QUARTETT
ASSASSIN REVERIE
80558-2
Uncle Jard (1998)
1. Part 1 5:17
2. Part 2 8:36
3. Part 3 5:32
ARTE Quartett: Beat Hofstetter, soprano saxophone; Sascha Armbruster, alto saxophone; Andrea Formenti, tenor
saxophone; Beat Kappeler, baritone saxophone; Terry Riley, vocals, piano and harpsichord
4. Assassin Reverie (2001) 18:43
for saxophone quartet and tape
ARTE Quartett; Beat Kappeler, sound design and effects
5. Tread on the Trail (1965) 9:56
version for 12 saxophones by the ARTE Quartett
All works published by Ancient Word (BMI).
! & © 2005 Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
NO PART OF THIS RECORDING MAY BE COPIED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN
PERMISSION OF R.A.A.M., INC.
NEW WORLD RECORDS
16 Penn Plaza #835
NEW YORK, NY 10001-1820
TEL 212.290-1680 FAX 212.290-1685
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email: info@newworldrecords.org
LINER NOTES Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc.
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