TNN | Jan 20, 2012, 05.17AM IST
MUMBAI: He is one of the greatest living composers of Western classical
music. In 1964, he wrote a piece that became the foundation of a new
genre. Many rock bands owe the bite in their mind-bending salad to him.
Sci-fi films often rely on his musical ideas to explore themes from
dystopia to mathematical arcana. If one has heard The Velvet
Underground, Tangerine Dream or Coldplay, or paid attention to the
soundtracks of The Terminator, AI or A Beautiful Mind, one, perhaps
unknowingly, has sauntered into the soundscape created by him.
An odd question, but there is nothing Indian about all this stuff, is
there? Listen closer. Because the first thing Terry Riley does every
morning is sing ragas.
Terry Riley is the subject of this article. He is suddenly in TOI
because the American has decided to give the city a rare treat: Saturday
evening, he will perform a few of his works on the piano at the NCPA.
"This will be my first visit to Mumbai in three decades," Riley (76)
told TOI on phone from his California home.
In 1970, Riley became a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath of the Kirana
gharana, who that year moved from Delhi to the US. Till his guru's death
in 1996, Riley frequently appeared in concert with him as an accompanist
on the taanpura, tabla and also vocals. What attracted Riley to
Hindustani classical music was its "deep devotional reverence for sound
and the concept of Nada Brahman (sound is God, or the universe is
sound)". "The vast science of tala and swara are a constant resource for
me, giving me great respect for the genius of those masters who have
created the ragas," he said.
It was perhaps natural for Riley, a free spirit in the truest American
sense, to embrace Hindustani classical music and the interpretive
freedom it accords its practitioners. The revolutionary piece he wrote
in 1964, more than any work before or since, broke the boundaries
defining Western classical music and consolidated its minimalist school.
The one-page score of the piece, called In C, looks deceptively simple.
It does not specify instruments or tempo markings. Its instructions are
so vague that it disrupts the pecking order of orchestral social
structure. No conductor and no principal players. No backbenchers
either. To a person familiar with music notation, the score might appear
as a joke. But considering it so will be folly, as its place in the
repertory, numerous recordings and enduring fascination for musicians
proves.
"I wanted to make a musical form in which all the performers have the
freedom to make crucial choices and take responsibility to influence the
direction of the music as it unfolds," Riley said. "In C is made of 53
repeating patterns of varying rhythmic lengths; so, it forms an
interlocking grid of cycling orbits that could be viewed as a model of
universal order."
Other than music, is there anything else that fascinates him about
India? "Yes. The uniqueness of the Indian approach to cuisine, visual
arts and architecture".
Riley loves India. Will Mumbai return the compliment?
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service