The recording of In C is available from New Albion Records.

20th Anniversary Concert of In C
by Terry Riley

January 16 1989, Cowell Theater, San Francisco

performed by David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), Joan Jeanrenaud (cello), Bill Douglass (flute), Bruce Ackley (woodwinds), Steve Adams (woodwinds), George Brooks (woodwinds), Steve Coughlin (woodwinds), Jon Raskin (woodwinds), John Sackett (woodwinds), Evan Ziportyn (woodwinds), Don Howe (trombone), Toyoji Tomita (trombone), Werner Jepson (piano), Chris Brown (synthesizer), Alden Jenks (synthesizer), Danny Tunick (pulse), William Winant (pulse), Don Baker (xylophone), Bill Maginnis (glockenspiel), Gino Robair (marimba), George Marsh (drums), Henry Kaiser (electric guitar), Gyan Riley (electric guitar), Ramon Sender (accordion), Jaron Lanier (various instruments), Blake Derby (voice), Mihr'un'Nisa Douglass (voice), Shabda Owens (voice), Terry Riley (voice), Loren Rush (conductor)

In C (1964)

What is remarkable about In C is how directly and immediately it makes its effect. Even at first hearing it is accessible yet free of banality, intricate without being pretentious, visceral without being simple-minded. There seems never to have been any doubt about its success or importance. Alfred Frankenstein reviewed the world premiere in the November 8, 1964 San Francisco Chronicle: "[Riley] has developed a style like that of no one else on earth, and he is bound to make a profound impression with it ... [In C] is formidably repetitious, but harmonic changes are slowly introduced into it; there are melodic variations and contrasts of rhythm with a framework of relentless continuity, and climaxes of great sonority and high complexity appear and are dissolved in the endlessness. At times you fell you have never done anything all your life long but listen to this music and as if that is all there is or ever will be, but it is altogether absorbing, exciting, and moving."

Douglas Leedy wrote, "There aren't very many really revolutionary pieces of music in this century or any other: pieces that seem like cultural mutations that spring spontaneously into being without visible or audible precedent, Le Sacre du Printemps is an authentic example. So, I believe, is In C... In C unquestionable belongs, to my mind at least, to the elite group of great elaborations of C tonality, including Bach's Overture No. 1, Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, Schubert's cello quintet, and the Sibelius third and seventh symphonies."

Composers of both "art" and "pop" music lost no time incorporating the lessons of In C into their work. Though widely credited as the forebear of "minimalist" music, it more significantly showed a way back to tonality in Western art music without simply retrenching, as some composers later did, to neo-Romantic traditional harmony.

The score is a single page, for any number and combination of melody instruments. Every player reads the same part. Fifty-three relatively short melodic patterns of different length are played in order, each repeated an indefinite number of times. Over a constant pulse, each musician advances independently through the score, creating a "loose-jointed canon" (Douglas Leedy). "The effect is of a sparkling, glinting crystal which, as it slowly rotates, changes almost imperceptibly in color from a clear C major to a bright, yet more slowly pulsating e minor, then back to C rather triumphantly, and finally takes on the cast of a much more somber and enigmatic g minor."

Perhaps the most inventive aspect of In C is the way it generates macro-structure from micro-structure. Its only formal organization is at the level of the repeating melodic cells. All larger-scale features arise in performance, from the ever-changing unscored interweave of lines, time, and timbre. Almost unbelievably, this is spontaneously evolving structure remains interesting, even riveting, for an hour and more. It is a major compositional discovery.

In C is a very American piece, in its happy melding of elements from jazz, Indian raga, and tape-loop music, its open structure, and its free instrumentation. It's a democratic, communal music that eschews soloistic virtuosity in favor of close-listening ensemble musicianship. Though very much a product of its time, In C remains a liberating excursion in musical form.

– Carter Scholz