| Terry Riley - The Book of Abbeyozzud |
[Jul. 17th, 2006|03:19 pm] |
This post is special for our host here. I am so sorry the request is belated, after he posted a Tigran Mansurian CD overnight at my asking...
I do not have a scanner, but I wrote down the entire liner notes, and they are included below. They are very informative, giving a personal look at the environment Riley composes in and the structure given to this CD. Out of the performers, I saw many of them perform in a quartet with Riley live--an unforgettable experience. Enjoy.
http://rapidshare.de/files/26042273/Terry_Riley_-_The_Book_of_Abbeyozzud.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/26046982/Terry_Riley_-_The_Book_of_Abbeyozzud.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/26055416/Terry_Riley_-_The_Book_of_Abbeyozzud.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/26057304/Terry_Riley_-_The_Book_of_Abbeyozzud.part3.rar
THE BOOK OF ABBEYOZZUD
-notes by Terry Riley-
"The Book of Abbeyozzud" (an invented word) is a planned series of twenty-eight pieces comprised of works for the guitar, either solo or in combination with other instruments or other guitars. All the pieces have Spanish titles and take a different letter of the alphabet to begin their names. They are indebted to the great Spanish music traditions and to those traditions upon which Spanish music owes its heritage.
"Cantos Desiertos"
(Literally, Deserted Songs... but they could also be thought of as songs in and around the Desert)
"Cancion Desierto" "Llanto," "Quijote," and "Tango Ladeado" were written during a week in Puerto Vallarta with my family. Long walks on the beach in the cool, daybbreak mornings to gather melodic inspiration, spicy food dripping with chilies washed down with beer in the evenings and holing up alone in the long hot, dark, hotel afternoons composing when everybody else was at the beach with the grandchildren. This was an inspiring hippie/beatnik/expatriot dream music writing retreat.
"Francesco en Paraiso" (Frank in Paradise) is dedicated to the amazing French composer and contra tenor Frank Royon le Mee, who died tragically a few years back at the age of 40 from AIDS. This was a piece I used as a basis for a piano and keyboard improvisation before scoring it in this version. Although we never met, I had been thinking about a collaboration with Frank to be produced by my friend, composer Michel Redolfi at the CIRM studios in Nice, France where Frank had made his only solo album. Frank died before we got a chance to work on it but I like to think some part of the collaboration has been accomplished with Frank scat singing along with this tune in his heavenly abode.
"Cancion Desierto" takes for its starting point a melody that I learned from long time friend and collaborator Rajastani sitarist and composer Krishna Bhatt. I combined this with a slow, soulful interior melody and other counterpoints and interludes of my own invention to create this rondoesque form.
The relentless accompanying figure in the guitar of "Quijote" (Dreamer) was culled from Cancion Desierto's theme. It is the retrograde of Cancion's melody, appearing in measures 10, 11, and 12.
An improvisatory counter melody was then composed on this ostinato to be played in the violin part.
"Llanto" (lament) is in a simple ABA form with the somewhat anguished middle section flanked by outer sections containing an introspective dialogue between the two instruments.
"Tango Ladeado" (Tango Sideways) has no particular story except everybody's writing tangos these days and I was writing these pieces in Mexico, which is north of Tangoland, but, hey,... it's a passionate, sexy and romantic atmosphere and Latin feelings bubble up. Besides, I'm 1/2 Italian. I love tangos as well as most of the infectious music that resides south of Texas and it was time to give my particular take on this form.
"Ascencion" and "Zamorra" - The first piece I ever wrote for guitar was called Ascencion y Zamorra. It was for solo guitar but I was trying to write in too complicated a way for one instrument and it was not working, so I abandoned the project. Then I started over again using themes and patterns from my earlier string quartet, Mythic Birds Waltz, and this then became Ascencion. In the meantime, realizing that Ascencion and Zamorra start with the first and last letters of the Spanish alphabet I decided to write a separate piece for each letter. I went back and looked at the material I had begun with for Ascencion y Zamorra and decided to make it into a two guitar work and call it Zamorra.
"Dias de los Muertos" - The mood and atmosphere of the Dias de los Muertos (written at the end of 1997) are reflections of how Death approaches his subject. There was a phrase from one of Carlos Castanedas' books that has stuck with me where Don Juan informs Carlos that he should be alert because Death is always waiting, perched on his shoulder. In the first piece "Innocencia-Se Aparace la Muerte Inocentmente por la tarde" (Death Appears Innocently in the Afternoon), presumably on a day whose course had started in a more optimistic direction. In the case of the second piece, "Le Muerte en Medias Caladas Negras" (Death Appears in Black Fishnet Stockings), whose music is one of my personal favorites, our subject experiences a shocking surprise ending instead of the promised seduction. The idea was inspired by a private concert I gave for a certain American Holyman whose female devotees were exposing lots of bare belly and navel and whose lovely legs were encased in the aforementioned attire. For me at that moment a rainbow link occurred between "death" and "seduction."
"Barabas" is the name of a biblical character I have encountered in a number of my readings. The sound of his name is craggy, suggesting a massive rising energy, someone to be reckoned with. This rising energy is represented in its quasi chromatic scale (a scale that is related to Bhairav in the North Indian classical music system that includes an augmented 2nd skip in each tetra chord with the inclusion of additional passing 1/2 steps) and its contrapuntal upward reaching melodic lines.
TERRY RILEY - Californian composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist mocement with his revolutionary classic "In C" in 1964. This seminal work provided the conception for a form comprised of interlocking repetitive patterns that was to change the course of 20th century music and strongly influence the works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams as well as rock groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Curved Air, Tangering Dream and many others. In ths 60's and 70's he turned his attention to solo works for electronic keyboards and soprano saxophone and pioneered the use of various kinds of tape delay in live performance resulting in another set of milestone works, "A Rainbow in Curved Air", "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band", "The Persian Surgery Dervishes" and "Shri Camel." These hypnotic, multi-layered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated, eastern flavored improvisations set the stage for the New Age movement that was to appear a decade or so later.
In 1970 Riley made his first of a series of trips to India to study with renowned North Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath. Over the years he has frequently appeared with Pandit Pran Nath as vocal and tamboura accompanist. Terry taught North Indian Raga and music composition during his years at Mills College in Oakland, California, in the 1970's. It was there that he met David Harrington, the founder and 1st violinist in the Kronos Quartet and began the long association that has produced 9 string quartets, a keyboard quintet, "Crows Rosary" and a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, "The Sands", commissioned by the Salzberg Festival in 1991. "Cadenza on the Night Plain" was selected by both Time and Newsweek as one of the 10 Best Classical Albums of the Year. The epic 5 quartet cycle, "Salome Dances for Peace", was selected as the No.1 Classical Album of the Year by USA Today magazine and was nominated for a Grammy.
Riley's solo keyboard and piano concerts have become legendary due to his unique blending of eastern and western styles and the unusual all-night solo concerts he gave in the 60's. HE was listed in the London Sunday Times as one of the 1000 Makers of the 20th Century. For more information please contact www.terryriley.com.
DAVID TANNENBAUM - Recognized internationally as an outstanding performing and recording artist, a charismatic educator, and a transcriber and editor of both taste and intelligence, David Tannenbaum is one of the most admired classical guitarists of his generation. He has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia, and in 1988 he became the first American guitarist to perform in China by the Chinese government. Many composers have written music for him, including Terry Riley, Aaron Jay Kernis, Roberto Sierra, Hans Werner Henze, and John Athony Lennon. David Tannenbaum's recordings, which reflect his broad repetoire interests, are on EMI, Ars Musica, Rhino, GSP, Audiofon, Green Linnett and Innova Digital Archive. This is his seventh recording for New Albion. More information can be found at www.davidtannenbaum.com.
TRACY SILVERMAN - Tracy Silverman was the first violinist of the Turtle Island String Quartet for 4 years. His eclectic background swings from soloing with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall to soloing at jazz clubs to singing lead and playing electric violin with the rock band, Gutbucket. He has performed from Sao Paulo to Vienna, from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl and has appeared on national radio and television, including NPR's Performance Today, MPR's St. Paul Sunday and A Prairie Home Companion, and CBS News Sunday Morning. Producer/arranger credits include "On a Starry Night", an album of lullabies from around the world, released on BMG Records. For more information please contact www.tracysilverman.com.
GYAN RILEY - Gyan Riley, b. 1977, is an Honors Graduate at the San Francisco Conservator of Music where he studied under the direction of David Tannenbaum. He will return to work towards a Masters Degree with Dusan Bogdanovic as the first guitarist ever to receive a full scholarship from the Conservatory.
In March, 1999, he received First Prize in the Portland Solo Guitar Festival Competition. He performed in the Bremen Musikfest '98 in Bremen, Germany and the NEw American Music Festival '98 in Sacrmaento, California, both as a soloist and as a duo partner with David Tannenbaum. He premiered Piedad, from the Book of Abbeyozzud, which was written by his fatehr, Terry Riley. Gyan has composed and perfomred his own works for solo guitar and guitar ensemble.
WILLIAM WINANT - "One of the best avant-garde percussionists working today" according to Mark Swed of The Wall Street Journal, William Winant has collaborated with a diverse range of musicians, including John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Frederic Rzewski, James Tenney, Gordon Mumma, Cecil Taylor, Steve Reich and Musicians, Jean-Phillipe Collard, Ursula Oppens, Joan LaBarbara, and the Kronos String Quartet. He has recorded and toured with Mr. Bungle (Disco Volante on Warner Brothers Records), as well as with John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Mike Patton (Faith No More), Oingo Boingo, and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth). With the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he recently performed the world premiere of Lou Harrison's quintet "Rhymes with Silver" in collaboration with the Mark Morris Dance Company.
He has made over 100 recordings, covering a wide variety of genres. Some of the century's most innovative composers have written works for him, including John Cage, Lou Harrison, John Zorn, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, Terry Riley, Fred Frith, and Leo Wadada Smith. |
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