Maya Beiser x Terry Riley: In C
Islandia Music Records

Terry Riley's In C feels so much like the piece Maya Beiser was born to play, the major surprise is that the album didn't already happen a long time ago. If anything, it's hard to imagine a better match than the ever-adventurous cellist and the minimalist pioneer. Issued on her Islandia Music Records label, the fifty-five-minute release shows once again how amenable this seminal, ‘open score' work is to different treatments. Since its Nov. 4, 1964 premiere in San Francisco, it's been performed by Western, African, Chinese, and Indian ensembles, an eclectic array of instrumental soloists, and even symphony orchestras.

Its simple structure and malleable character are key to its enduring appeal: with one musician (often a pianist or marimbist) grounding the performance with a droning pulse on the note C, other participants select from fifty-three melodic cells and play them however long they choose, the result a shimmering, ever-pulsating tapestry of interlocking patterns and timbres that can last anywhere from forty to ninety minutes. But for live drumming by Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer that enlivens her treatment's heaviest parts, Beiser's the sole performer, even if a looping machine enables her to convert the cello into a swelling ensemble. As expected, the foundation in this case is the droning, 120 beats-per-minute pulse sourced from the instrument's C string. The work's structure allows for an unlimited number of personal interpretations and by extension a constant stream of fresh reinventions, Beiser's self-produced version a terrific example.

Presented in ten parts, the performance takes no time at all to pull the listener into its rapturous vortex. Elements and patterns swim within this densely layered mass in a graceful, hypnotic flow; with cellos wailing and singing blissfully on high, Beiser subtly nudges the music in a tribal direction with plucked accents that hocket across the stereo field. Often a slight pull-back transpires as a part nears its end, the gesture foreshadowing the imminent arrival of the next. A rather different tone surfaces in the fourth part when she adds her breathy voice to the mix, a move that gives the music an ethereal, almost celestial quality, and in bringing the drummers aboard, Beiser's rock goddess side emerges for the roaring fifth. A powerful as such high-intensity episodes are, the restrained seventh is as memorable for giving the spotlight to a single expressive cello before the churning mass reinstates itself for the ecstatic eighth.

Riley himself has given Beiser's enthralling treatment his blessing in noting how naturally the work flows in her “stunningly beautiful” rendition, words you might find yourself gravitating to as this transporting treatment washes over you. In C is a tremendous addition to Beiser's already distinguished discography.

April 2024