Dilettante Music

After creating several graphically notated and pattern-based works for jazz ensembles in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Terry Riley developed a new type of pattern music strongly influenced by gamelan music and the classical traditions of India. In C, the composer's best-known work, is both the purest example of this phase of Riley's musical development and a landmark of the minimalist aesthetic.

The one-page score, which calls for any ensemble of pitched instruments, consists of 53 discrete, concentrated gestures -- sometimes as small as a two-note motive -- of varying lengths. The players enter independently, moving gradually through this progression of cells; each cell may (and should) be repeated indefinitely and independently of the other players. The result is that the interlocking of patterns, the evolution of texture, density, and sonority, and the work's duration are all unique to each performance. The work's main unifying element is a metronomic pulse on the pitch C, normally played in octaves in the highest register of a piano, which provides a fixed tempo and tonal center. Because of its inherent instrumental flexibility, In C has been performed in a countless variety of configurations, from conventional chamber groups to massed keyboards and percussion to an ensemble of Chinese instruments.

In C is significant for its deconstruction of the European classical tradition, accomplished partly through its harmonic and tonal stasis, partly through its lack of hierarchical development. Further, the work emphasizes the importance of the ensemble (group) over the virtuoso (individual), granting each player an autonomous though guided role in creating the work anew each time it is performed. ~ All Music Guide