The Holy Liftoff (2024) is the 11th installation of Claire Chase's 24-year Density 2036 project, an initiative to create a bold new repertory for the flute by the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varèse's seminal 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. Density 2036 has been called "one of the great musical undertakings of our time" by The New York Times, and "a quarter-century journey that has little precedent" by The New Yorker. Terry Riley began composing The Holy Liftoff in 2022 as an open score sketchbook brimming with colorful drawings that were intended to be played by Chase with any number of collaborating musicians. Over the following two years, the sketches evolved into a multidimensional work that now combines extensive through-composed material as well as graphic notation, evocative artwork, and Riley's signature open-form scoring that can be freely interpreted by the performers in variable durations and ensemble formations. Samuel Clay Birmaher's 60-minute realization of the work, which he composed in close collaboration with Riley and the performers, is scored for multiple flutes and string quartet. "When I improvised the first 16 bars of 'The Holy Liftoff' the melody and the chords whispered it's name while simultaneously urging me to make drawings of the experience. The drawings had angels and flying creatures and all the energies were rising up into a surrealistic skyscape... This piece could only have been written for Claire Chase." -Terry Riley

Alexandra Hawley and Jeffrey McFadden offer a wonderfully eclectic program for flute and guitar. If you haven't heard this combination of instruments before, on the evidence presented here you'll very likely agree that it's a most musically rewarding pairing. The flute's smooth timbre ideally complements the guitar's non-legato and softly percussive tone quality--aspects put to good use in Robert Beaser's Mountain Songs, where McFadden's rustic, folksy picking and strumming is tempered by Hawley's serenely floating melodies. Joan Tower's quasi-impressionistic Snow Dreams initially conjures up idyllic, pastoral images before the composer's spiky harmonic style slightly sharpens the music's edges. Likewise, Lowell Liebermann's Sonata for Flute opens with a blissfully ruminative Nocturne, an atmosphere that dissipates immediately with the start of the nervously dancing Allegro finale.


Based on Mexican folk tunes, Terry Riley's Cantos Desiertos features delightfully stirring dances rendered with the aid of percussion. Finally, Peter Schickele's Windows offers a neo-Renaissance Pavane and a songful Cantilena before charging into an all-out strum-fest for the closing Refrain. Hawley and McFadden play beautifully, sounding convincingly at home in all of the varying styles and modes presented by this unusual mix of composers. Naxos' engineering gives listeners a realistic sense of the recording venue. This is one of those discs you just put in your player and totally enjoy.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release!

Terry Riley’s name will always be associated with his breakthrough work In C, but his influence on modern music has stretched far beyond minimalism. Both of the works on this recording reveal Riley’s spirit of exploration and his close collaboration with remarkable musicians. Commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, The Palmian Chord Ryddle is a kind of musical autobiography in which electric violin pioneer Tracy Silverman’s “one-man string quartet” sets the pace for the sparse, translucent orchestration. At The Royal Majestic is another recent example of Riley’s work with a symphony orchestra and a virtuosic soloist, in this case organist Todd Wilson. Its title refers to “the mighty Wurlitzer housed in grand movie palaces,” and the music draws on a wide variety of genres including gospel, ragtime, Baroque chorales, and boogie.

REVIEW:

The late career of Terry Riley has received less attention than that of Philip Glass or even Steve Reich. The resurgent Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero makes a good case here that such neglect is misguided. The Palmian Chord Ryddle (2011) is an eclectic, playful eight-movement work for electric violin and orchestra, but steering mostly clear of highly extended techniques. Even stronger is At The Royal Majestic, an homage to the golden age of the theater organ. Engineering kudos for clarity in an extremely diverse set of materials. Highly recommended.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

This unique album features two fine pianists, John Tilbury and Zygmunt Krauze, exploring the works of interesting composers Cornelius Cardew, Terry Riley, Tomasz Sikorski, and Christian Wolff. Especially notable is the inclusion of Krauze’s own composition, One Piano Eight Hands. For this piece the duo is joined by Szabolcs Esztenyi and Hubert Zemler. British pianist John Tilbury is known as one of the world’s finest experimental pianists. Since 1980 he has been a part of the free improvisation group AMM. Zygmunt Krauzeis most known for his compositions, which favor the piano above all other instruments as Krauze is also a performing pianist. In 2012 Krauze was given the title of Coryphaeus of Polish Music in the category of Personality of the Year.

Playful, eloquent, intimate and existentially cool, Terry Riley's Autodreamographical Tales is a musical dream diary - a no-holds-barred journey into the creative unconscious, rendered with a compelling joie de vivre by one of the most influential composers of our time. Each of these ten songs offers an uncommonly special connection with Riley, who narrates, sings and adds his signature minimalist piano filigrees to a sprawling narrative that can turn poetic, picaresque or downright kaleidoscopic. Backed by the ever-flexible Bang on a Can All-Stars, Riley challenges the ensemble by digging deep into a wide range of musical flavors that includes free jazz, blues, rock, pop and classical. And through the vivid storytelling of "Long Bus Ride" and "Zucchini" to the Jabberwockyan wordplay of "Science Fiction" and the raucous confessional "Cannabis," Riley also bends and stretches the very limits of language - conveying a multivalent message for these times that is pithy, positive and powerful.

Terry Riley's In C is a democratic work in which every player makes his or her own decisions about how often to play the 53 brief motifs of which the score consists.

For it to work each player must listen intently and react instantly. Every performance will sound rather different for that reason, and because any number of players, using any form of melody instrument, may take part.

In two senses this might be regarded as a happy medium of a performance: Riley's own, on New Albion, uses about 30 players and lasts for an hour and a quarter; while Piano Circus on Argo, who use three types of piano, two harpischords and vibraphone, take barely 20 minutes, no doubt partly because because they accommodate Terry Riley's Six Pianos on the same disc. Bang on a Can, with some doublings, use four bowed and three plucked strings, two woodwind, piano and four tuned percussion, and their reading seems neither protracted nor contracted at 46 minutes. Obviously the more players are involved the longer it is likely to take, but by the same token the textures at any given point are likely to be richer. The sound is fairly bassy, and for that reason whenever the doublebass player decides to repeat one motif for a minute or so it is likely to assume something like a soloistic prominence, thus to become less 'democratic', but for the most part the instruments are well chosen to ensure a lively texture and a fluid continuum of change.

In C makes addicts of some listeners, while others cannot bear to listen to it and its unvarying pulse of octave C's for more than a minute or two. I am betwixt and between, not wanting to listen to it very often, but not wanting to be without a recording of it. If there are other listeners of that kind, and I suspect there are quite a few, this betwixt and between performance should suit them very nicely; it is closely, head-ringingly recorded.

-- Michael Oliver, Gramophone