Four Centuries of Great Music June 28, 2025 Celebration of Terry Riley's 90th Birthday Encore

Four Centuries of Great Music  June 22, 2025 Terry Riley 90th Birthday  Celebration

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music, I am celebrating the 90th birthday of Terry Riley which is the day after tomorrow, June 24th.  Today I am featuring his chamber and orchestral music and on the 24th, I am celebrating his piano music on Contemporary Classics with Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers.

Let’s open with  Terry Riley:  Cadenza on the Night Plain.  This work was composed in 1983 and adapted for the Kronos quartet.

The cooperation between Riley and the quartet is described as a truly collaborative effort.  According to Riley, "When I write a score for them, it's an unedited score. I put in just a minimal amount of dynamics and phrasing marks. It's essentially a score like Vivaldi would have done. So when we go to rehearsal, we spend a lot of time trying out different ideas in order to shape the music, to form it.”

"Cadenza" was first performed by the Quartet in Darmstadt, Germany in 1984. It contains eleven separate sections, some with whimsical or humorous titles such as "March of the Old Timers Reefer Division." Riley's interest in spirituality is evident in sections such as "Tuning to Rolling Thunder," inspired by the ideas of Native American medicine man Rolling Thunder.  It also includes separate solo cadenzas for each member of the string quartet.

Here is a performance of Terry Riley:  Cadenza on the Night Plain by the Kronos Quartet from their 2015 album One Earth, One People, One Love:  Kronos Plays Terry Riley



Terry Riley:  Cadenza on the Night Plain: I. Introduction
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  II.Cadenza,  Violin I
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  III. Where Was Wisdom When We Went West
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  IV. Cadenza,  Viola
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  V. March of the Old Timers Reefer Division
Cadenza on the Night Plain: VI. Cadenza_ Violin II
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  VII. Tuning to Rolling Thunder
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  VIII. The Night Cry of Black Buffalo Woman
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  IX. Cadenza_ Cello
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  X. Gathering of the Spiral Clan
Cadenza on the Night Plain:  XI. Captain Jack Has the Last Word

Kronos Quartet
One Earth, One People, One Love:  Kronos Plays Terry Riley
Nonesuch Records

Let’s close this first hour of today’s Four Centuries of Great Music with  “A Rainbow in Curved Air.” It is from the album of the same name which contained two solo works.   All the elements of both pieces were played by Terry. “Rainbow” was a solo on an electronic organ with non-tempered tuning and “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band” was mostly a saxophone solo combined with special effects and percussion.

With the help of Columbia’s expert engineer Glen Kolotkin, Terry made skillful and graceful use in these pieces of tape delay, double-speed tape playback and overdubbing. In those days in the 1960s, before digital audio, it was techniques like these that provided the main ways to enhance live performances.

Here is the performance of A Rainbow in Curved Air from the album A Rainbow in Curved Air as performed by Terry Riley. Columbia Records/Sony Classical

And of course we cannot do a tribute to Terry Riley without including “In C”, the lassi statement of what was to become the minimalist music genre.  

Here is a performance of “In C” featuring Terry Riley, composer, leader and saxophone and Members of the Center for Creative & Performing Arts at State University of New York at Buffalo including
Margaret Hassell, the Pulse
David Shostac, flute
Lawrence Singer, oboe
Jerry Kirkbride, clarinet
Darlene Reynard, bassoon
Jon Hassell, trumpet
Stuart Dempster, trombone
David Rosenboom, viola
Edward Burnham, vibraphone
Jan Williams, marimbaphone

From the album In C
Columbia Records/Sony Classical

You have been listening to a performance of “In C” featuring Terry Riley, composer, leader and saxophone and Members of the Center for Creative & Performing Arts at State University of New York at Buffalo 

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music, I am celebrating the 90th birthday of Terry Riley which is the day after tomorrow, June 24th.  Today I am featuring his chamber and orchestral music and on the 24th, I am celebrating his piano music on Contemporary Classics with Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers.
We will close today’s episode of Four Centuries of Great Music which is a celebration of the 90th birthday of Terry Riley which is the day after tomorrow, June 24th with music from the album Church of Anthrax which is a collaboration between John Cale & Terry Riley


Ides of March
Church of Anthrax
John Cale, Bass, Harpsichord, Piano, Guitar, Viola, Organ and Terry Riley, Piano, Organ, Soprano Saxophone
John Cale & Terry Riley:  Church of Anthrax
Columbia Records/Sony Classical