This got reviewed a couple of places. This particular review originally appeared at Epinions:
Perhaps one of the most awesome things that can happen to a fan of “new music” is the chance to hear Terry Riley in concert. There is nothing like it. And, for those who cannot travel around the world to where he might be performing, the Lisbon Concert recording brings you a taste of what an experience that is. (Yes, I've heard Riley live. It was amazing.)
The Lisbon Concert was recorded in 1995 at the Teatro Sào Luís in Lisbon at the final concert in the composer’s sixtieth-birthday tour of Europe. The recording quality is excellent. It is an amazing, shimmering fabric of virtuosity that draws on Riley’s compositions spanning several decades. Although the piano was tuned in equal temperament, as opposed to Riley’s preferred just intonation tuning, he draws from it colors and shadings that are ineffably Riley.
A few general observations before I mention some of the specifics: take it as a given that Riley is a virtuoso on the piano. It has always been his favored instrument, and he certainly can put it through its paces. This album does indeed shimmer – it shimmers, it ripples, and then Riley throws in a sweetly reflective passage or a phrase of high drama. He moves effortlessly between jazz and repetitive Minimalism, while throwing in elements that are almost, but not quite, Latin, Chinese, or movie soundtrack, that might hark back to the richness of Mozart or the earthy romanticism of Vaughan Williams, and yet are truly and only Terry Riley. Throughout, there are echoes of things that have gone before, and foreshadowings of things yet to come. The whole is seamless.
“Arica,” which opens the album, has an understated beginning that recalls, in mood if not actual sound, some of Debussy’s preludes. (In fact, while I am typing this, my trusty CD player has finished with Riley and moved on to Debussy, with never a blip – except that the Debussy is leaner and not quite so richly textured.) Riley builds to cascades of notes over a quiet, reflective base, that somehow moves into a high-brow honky-tonk. It fades into “Negro Hall,” which opens with another quiet passage that could be an extension of the opening of “Arica” (one knows this because one went back and forth between the beginnings of these two pieces several times, with no jar, no discontinuity, in spite of all that went on in between), then immediately takes on a jazzy air, a sort of boogy-woogie style. “15/16” has a Latin feel to it, but not quite, while “Havana Man” – well, if Schumann had done jazz, you might be getting close. And that’s an indication of the way the whole concert moves back and forth, almost reprising earlier pieces, but never quite, while building new contexts as it goes along, moving from style to style but never quite leaving the central theme. There is a unity of vision in control of this music that is quite formidable.
One wants to build analogies with Wagner, the Baroque, even Beethoven and perhaps Rachmaninoff, but why push the envelope that far? The experience is of a master at play, and it’s something. This is not drop-dead music – “high drama” for Riley has an order of subtley to it that’s hard to explain – but this is music that leaves you with a very quiet “wow!” and makes you want to go out and start piano lessons.
(New Albion Records, 2009)
The Lisbon Concert was recorded in 1995 at the Teatro Sào Luís in Lisbon at the final concert in the composer’s sixtieth-birthday tour of Europe. The recording quality is excellent. It is an amazing, shimmering fabric of virtuosity that draws on Riley’s compositions spanning several decades. Although the piano was tuned in equal temperament, as opposed to Riley’s preferred just intonation tuning, he draws from it colors and shadings that are ineffably Riley.
A few general observations before I mention some of the specifics: take it as a given that Riley is a virtuoso on the piano. It has always been his favored instrument, and he certainly can put it through its paces. This album does indeed shimmer – it shimmers, it ripples, and then Riley throws in a sweetly reflective passage or a phrase of high drama. He moves effortlessly between jazz and repetitive Minimalism, while throwing in elements that are almost, but not quite, Latin, Chinese, or movie soundtrack, that might hark back to the richness of Mozart or the earthy romanticism of Vaughan Williams, and yet are truly and only Terry Riley. Throughout, there are echoes of things that have gone before, and foreshadowings of things yet to come. The whole is seamless.
“Arica,” which opens the album, has an understated beginning that recalls, in mood if not actual sound, some of Debussy’s preludes. (In fact, while I am typing this, my trusty CD player has finished with Riley and moved on to Debussy, with never a blip – except that the Debussy is leaner and not quite so richly textured.) Riley builds to cascades of notes over a quiet, reflective base, that somehow moves into a high-brow honky-tonk. It fades into “Negro Hall,” which opens with another quiet passage that could be an extension of the opening of “Arica” (one knows this because one went back and forth between the beginnings of these two pieces several times, with no jar, no discontinuity, in spite of all that went on in between), then immediately takes on a jazzy air, a sort of boogy-woogie style. “15/16” has a Latin feel to it, but not quite, while “Havana Man” – well, if Schumann had done jazz, you might be getting close. And that’s an indication of the way the whole concert moves back and forth, almost reprising earlier pieces, but never quite, while building new contexts as it goes along, moving from style to style but never quite leaving the central theme. There is a unity of vision in control of this music that is quite formidable.
One wants to build analogies with Wagner, the Baroque, even Beethoven and perhaps Rachmaninoff, but why push the envelope that far? The experience is of a master at play, and it’s something. This is not drop-dead music – “high drama” for Riley has an order of subtley to it that’s hard to explain – but this is music that leaves you with a very quiet “wow!” and makes you want to go out and start piano lessons.
(New Albion Records, 2009)
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