Kronos Quartet

K RONOS QUARTET SUNRISE o f the PLANETARY DREAM COLLECTOR Music o f TERRY RILEY TERRY RILEY (b. 1935) KRONOS QUARTET David Harrington, VIOLIN 1. Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector 12:31 John Sherba, VIOLIN Hank Dutt, VIOLA 2. One Earth, One People, One Love 9:00 CELLO (1–2) from Sun Rings Sunny Yang, Joan Jeanrenaud, CELLO (3–4, 6–16) 3. Cry of a Lady 5:09 with Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares Jennifer Culp, CELLO (5) Dora Hristova, conductor 4. G Song 9:39 5. Lacrymosa – Remembering Kevin 8:28 Cadenza on the Night Plain 6. Introduction 2:19 7. Cadenza: Violin I 2:34 8. Where Was Wisdom When We Went West? 3:05 9. Cadenza: Viola 2:24 10. March of the Old Timers Reefer Division 2:19 11. Cadenza: Violin II 2:02 12. Tuning to Rolling Thunder 4:53 13. The Night Cry of Black Buffalo Woman 2:53 1 4. Cadenza: Cello 1:08 15. Gathering of the Spiral Clan 5:24 16. Captain Jack Has the Last Word 1:42 from left: Joan Jeanrenaud, John Sherba, Terry Riley, Hank Dutt, and David Harrington (1983, photo by James M. Brown) Sunrise of the Planetary possibilities of life. It helped the Dream Collector (1980) imagination open up to the possibilities It had been raining steadily that day surrounding us, to new possibilities in 1980 when the Kronos Quartet drove up curiosity he stopped by to hear the quartet Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector for interpretation.” —John Sherba to the Sierra Foothills to receive Sunrise practice. Harrington, who “heard quartets” grew out of Riley’s own improvisational of the Planetary Dream Collector, Terry in Riley’s music, was eager to have him style of the 1970s. During those rainy jam sessions, Riley’s Riley’s first composition for them. The write something for them. Harrington A cycle of fourteen beats undergirds collaborative approach to music-making drive from San Francisco to Terry and Ann wooed the composer relentlessly. the work. This metric pattern, roughly encouraged the quartet members to Riley’s home at Sri Moonshine Ranch takes Riley, however, harbored many analogous to the tal of raga music, is ample rethink the roles traditionally assigned only a couple of hours. Kronos’ journey misgivings. He had abandoned written enough for listeners to temporarily lose to them by the classical tradition. They up to that point, though, had already composition more than a decade before. He themselves within eddies of syncopations were at Sri Moonshine Ranch not merely been a couple of years in the making. was dissatisfied with the artificial nature of and cross-rhythms. Yet every few seconds, to execute the composer’s music, but to Riley had been teaching for several musical notation, which seemed to him to a downbeat pulse arrives—a brief moment help create it. To the bare notes of the years at Mills College in Oakland, which fossilize musical thought. He had also come of rebirth, simultaneously closing the score they added their own markings for had a decades-long tradition of supporting to dislike the old hierarchies, where per- previous musical idea and initiating a new dynamics, articulation, and phrasing, new and experimental music. At Mills, formers humbly served master composers. one. The music for Sunrise is in contin- adding a crescendo here, a sul ponticello Riley not only taught composition, but Instead, Riley devoted himself to impro- uous orbit: it does not, could not, end. there. Sometimes, the quartet found the rudiments of Hindustani raga as visations. Riley believed that his musical their own path to the composer’s inward well. He arranged for his mentor and ideas were never meant to reach a finished “I like mornings. I wish they could vision. But just as often, they revealed close friend, vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, state, fixed forever on a piece of paper, last all day.”—Terry Riley to him things he hadn’t anticipated. to instruct the more advanced students. but were destined to continually evolve. Since 1970, Riley had been his disciple, Sunrise immerses the listener in the “They always find something there devoting hours each day to learning the “I thought this was what I was going sound world of a small handful of modes to surprise me, almost always in vast repertoire of ragas and compositions. to be doing for the rest of my life. And based on A. The sound of scales played a happy way.”—Terry Riley The chair of the Mills music depart- then I met Kronos.” —Terry Riley on A has a particularly expansive quality ment, Dr. Margaret Lyon, was interested in when played by a string quartet. A is the Even the form of Sunrise was the result establishing a residency at the college for Harrington’s persistence eventually paid Ur-pitch, the note to which the instru- of a collaboration between Riley and the a string quartet. The two-year residency off: the quartet succeeded in coaxing Riley ments’ cosmos is tuned. The scale utilizes quartet. Riley initially envisioned quartet given to Kronos was a crucial break for the into creating something for them. Though the natural resonance of all sixteen open members collectively improvising the members of the young quartet. At the time Riley and Kronos saw each other frequently strings. There is no modulation between composition from start to finish. In the they had been eking out a living playing at Mills, the composer felt that they could keys—instead, the melodies of Sunrise beginning, this was an enormous chal- occasional gigs at restaurants, at weddings, collaborate more freely at his home, Sri explore different regions of these few lenge for the classically trained quartet. and even at San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Moonshine Ranch. They all rehearsed in scales, offering competing centers of Eventually, Riley provided Kronos with Square. For Kronos, Mills was an incubator a cottage Riley had converted to a studio. gravity within their constellation of seven a sample realization of the work in score where their technique could mature, a The roof was still a work-in-progress, and notes. The secret of working in this type of form, which they were free to recompose forum in which they could develop their it leaked. Rainwater trickled through the modal music, Riley taught the quartet, was and rearrange according to their own artistic vision. Mills was also site of their skylights gently into the room, with quartet in detecting and manipulating the subtle musical sensibilities. Once the quartet fateful encounter with Riley and his music. members doing their best to dodge the gravitational fluctuations between pitches. had mastered a single interpretation of drops. Navigating the music Riley set before The rain continued through the next the musical materials, they gradually “Right away, I felt Terry was a quartet them was trickier still. Instead of the usual couple of days. Drop by drop, Riley’s began to explore ways to reintroduce composer. There’s something about musical score, the composer provided each musical spirit began to seep into Kronos’ Riley’s extemporizing spirit into the his generosity of spirit that made member of Kronos about thirty melodic playing. The musical modules of Sunrise— performance. Over the course of thirty-five me think, ‘I want this man’s music snippets on which they were to improvise. constituted of funky riffs, tabla-like years, the quartet has grown confident in in our work.’” —David Harrington Even the melodies themselves were devoid patterns, bits of raga fioritura, and frag- improvising on the melodies of Sunrise. of the usual markings for dynamics, phras- ments of lyrical abandon—are steeped Riley’s working methods proved to Kronos first met Riley while they were ing and expression. Occasionally Riley in the idioms of jazz and Indian music. be liberating for the quartet. They began rehearsing Traveling Music, a piece by would sing for them, his voice disciplined to see themselves less as performers and David Harrington’s friend and high school by the daily practice of raga. But mostly he “Going up to Terry’s ranch and working more as partners in musical creation. The composition teacher, the Seattle composer was content to listen to the quartet exper- on those early pieces—we were engulfed process of working with Riley’s modules, Ken Benshoof. It turned out that Riley and iment, encouraging the musicians to find by all of these sounds: frogs, birds, choosing just the right sequence for them, Benshoof had been students together at for themselves the music within the notes. leaves rustling in the wind. It made gave the musicians experience in seeing San Francisco State University, so out of us think deeply about all of these themselves as co-composers. Working with Riley helped Kronos hone their skills of Riley’s most abiding sources of inspi- in making new scores speak through their ration as keyboardist and as composer: own voices. “It opened up a window for us,” the Baroque and jazz. Bach’s music was a said cellist Joan Jeanrenaud. “Working cornerstone of his repertoire. As a young with Terry influenced the way we ended composer, Riley assiduously studied the up working with every composer.” old arts of contrapuntal combination, The experience of writing for Kronos of musical inversions, retrogrades, had an unexpected effect on Riley, too. augmentation, diminution and stretto. Throughout the 1970s, Riley firmly When he returned to composition in believed that music ought to be transmit- the 1980s, he took Baroque scores—with ted directly, without the intermediary of their absence of performance indica- notation. However, the composer discov- tions—as a model for his own work.

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