Night After Night

Writing, a blog, and a newsletter. By Steve Smith.

Symphony in C.

Terry Riley, the Kronos Quartet et al: In C at Carnegie Hall
The New York Times, April 27, 2009

To my dismay, a small discrepancy found its way into this review; Jon Gibson and Morton Subotnick, mentioned at the end of the fourth paragraph, were not heard "either in the piece's 1964 premiere or its first recording, from 1968." They were in the San Francisco premiere, plain and simple, which is what I wrote. I'd mentioned those involved in the 1967 New York premiere and 1968 recording separately, just before the amended line.

Edit: For the record, I didn't describe Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan's contribution as "classical Indian," either. Sigh…

Steve Smith

4 responses to “Symphony in C.”

  1. R J Keefe Avatar
    R J Keefe

    God, I wanted to go, but I couldn’t find anyone to go with me, and Donna Leon was reading up on 82nd Street.
    I don’t even try to describe “In C” anymore. I’ve loved it for forty years.

    Reply
  2. jon abbey Avatar
    jon abbey

    I’m sure you know by now, but it’s “Subotnick” with a C (ironically, in this case).
    any time for the new Ersts? should I still be sending you promos? I barely send out any these days, maybe 15-20 to writers worldwide.

    Reply
  3. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    Thanks for the correction, Jon.
    As for the Ersts, your call: The discs you release continue to be pretty much the only thing I’ll stop everything and listen to immediately every time they arrive, but as you’ve noticed, time, outlets and space have been at a low ebb for a variety of reasons. Still, economics are economics; if you need to stop sending comps, I’d just go back to buying them all like I used to.

    Reply
  4. jon abbey Avatar
    jon abbey

    that’s cool, as long as your interest level is still that high, I’m happy to keep sending them. I have no idea how you have time to keep up with what you need to, and I certainly don’t envy you, but you seem to be doing a nice job with it, so kudos.
    as for Erst, the 10th anniversary of the label is this fall. I’m not planning anything special, but it’d be a great hook to write some kind of overarching piece about an industrious local label with global impact, if there was a writer around who’d followed it from the start and who knew the catalog well already. 🙂
    hope to see you in person again sometime!

    Reply

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