Terry Riley: Requiem for Adam
Encyclopedia
Terry Riley: Requiem for Adam is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...

. The music was composed by Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...

, commissioned by the quartet; the album is a requiem
Requiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...

 for Adam Harrington, the son of Kronos co-founder David Harrington.

Genesis and composition

Adam Harrington, age 16, died of heart failure caused by a blood clot, sustained while hiking with his family on Mount Diablo, a 3,849 feet mountain in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

, on Easter Sunday, 1995. Riley finished the three-movement composition in 1998, and it was first performed in the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...

 in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 on 28 June 1999; David Harrington recalls that this performance was "the most powerful in his memory." The requiem has been in the quartet's repertoire ever since.

As Terry Riley explains in the liner notes, the first movement has a rising sequential four-note motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

 moving upwards, and a series of variations on this pattern, ending with the motive being played in upper-register harmonics. The title of the second movement alludes to the spot where Adam Harrington suffered his accident. An electronic soundtrack of horns and percussion (played by Riley on an Ensoniq TS 12
Ensoniq TS 10
The Ensoniq TS-10 was a synthesizer / music workstation introduced by Ensoniq in 1993. It featured synthesis, user sample playback, sequencer, effects and performance facilities in a 61-key package...

) is the background for the strings, in what Riley calls a "New Orleans Dixieland" kind of funeral march. The third movement is an A-B-C-A-B coda, in which a two-note motif opens and closes the composition, two notes representing the two syllables of Adam's name. The fourth track, "The Philosopher's Hand," is a solo piano improvisation by Riley inspired by the late Pandit Pran Nath; Riley at the time was working on Atlantis Nath, a tribute to the Indian master. Pran Nath had been at Adam's memorial service and taken David Harrington's hand; Harrington remarked later that it was the softest hand he'd ever held.

Terry Riley and the Kronos Quartet

Terry Riley and the Kronos Quartet have been collaborating since 1978, when Riley taught composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

, improvisation
Musical improvisation
Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...

, and Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music is the Hindustani or North Indian style of Indian classical music found throughout the northern Indian subcontinent. The style is sometimes called North Indian Classical Music or Shāstriya Sangeet...

 at Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...

 in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

, and the quartet were artists in residence. Both parties benefitted from the exhange. In the words of Joan Jeanrenaud (Kronos cellist until 1998), "Terry shaped how Kronos shaped the music we played"; the Kronos Quartet, in turn, helped Riley "to move beyond the minimalism
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

 of his early period." Riley has composed many works for the quartet, including Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, G-Song, and Cadenza on the Night Plain, released on Cadenza on the Night Plain (1988); and the four compositions on the 1989 double-CD Salome Dances for Peace.

Critical reception

The album is praised widely. Rob Cowan
Rob Cowan
Rob Cowan is a British music broadcaster and writer.Employed by music publisher Boosey & Hawkes for nineteen years in various capacities, his first record review was published in 1967. He edited CD Review for four years from 1985 and became a co-presenter with jazz and classical music writer Keith...

 in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

called it "humbling but ultimately life-affirming," praising its "silvery harmonics, quiet yet flowing and as unsentimental as late Beethoven," and its "inconsolable glissandos." John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

assigns it first place in his top-10 of 2001 recordings. Allen Gimbel, reviewing works by Riley in the American Record Guide
American Record Guide
The American Record Guide is a classical music magazine. It has reviewed classical music recordings since 1935.Since 1992, with the incorporation of the Musical America editorial functions into ARG, it started covering concerts, musicians, ensembles and orchestras in the US.The magazine prides...

, says the requiem is "undeniably quirky" but "quite effective and exhibit[ing] a substantial emotional range": "it's hard not to be moved." Peter Lavezzoli says "it has been regarded as the most compelling recording by either Riley or the Kronos Quartet."

Track listing

Musicians

  • David Harrington - violin
    Violin
    The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

  • John Sherba - violin
  • Hank Dutt - viola
    Viola
    The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

  • Jennifer Culp - cello
    Cello
    The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

  • Terry Riley - piano
    Piano
    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...


Production

  • "Ascending the Heaven Ladder," "Requiem for Adam," and "The Philosopher's Hand" recorded August 2000 at Skywalker Sound
    Skywalker Sound
    Skywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of George Lucas' Lucas Digital motion picture group. Its main facilities are located in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California...

    , Nicasio, California
    Nicasio, California
    Nicasio is a census-designated place in Marin County, California. It is located west-southwest of Novato, at an elevation of 194 feet . The population was 96 at the 2010 census....

    • Leslie Ann Jones - engineer
    • Dann Thompson - assistant engineer
    • Jeanne Velonis - editing assistant

  • "Cortejo Fúnebre en el Monte Diablo" recorded April 1999 at Skywalker Sound
    • Craig Silvey - engineer
    • Bob Levy - assistant engineer
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