Riley, Terry (1935- )

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    Yunchan Lim’s Chopin, and Other Classical Albums to Hear Now

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    Yunchan Lim’s collection of Chopin piano études, a new recording of Terry Riley’s “In C” and works by Marc-André Hamelin are among the highlights.Chopin: ÉtudesYunchan Lim, piano (Decca)The pianist Yunchan Lim, who recently turned 20, debuted at Carnegie Hall in February with an old-school program: all 24 of Chopin’s études. His first album on the Decca label, playing those same 24 devilishly difficult pieces — 12 each in Op. 10 and 25 — is old-school, too. The cover photo, shot on film, has Lim nearly engulfed in moody shadow, an image that, along with the font, evokes classical music’s glamorous mid-20th century.The aim seems to be to position him as an heir to that era’s keyboard titans. It’s hardly a difficult task. After Lim’s Carnegie performance, and his dazzling winning rounds at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, it’s no surprise to find him in total command on this recording, balancing note-by-note clarity with long-phrase lyricism amid staggering technical demands. Even in fiery études, he is calm as he exposes the panoply of voices that emerge from just two hands. His rubato breathes naturally yet energetically; there’s a vitality and sense of forward motion even in slower pieces. And Lim’s soft playing is particularly sensitive, as in the pleading quality he brings to a tiny pianissimo quintuplet in Op. 10, No. 9. The album loses little of the excitement of a live concert while adding more control, transparency and polish. It’s a triumph. ZACHARY WOOLFE‘In C’Maya Beiser, cello (Islandia Music)For the 60th anniversary of “In C,” Terry Riley’s crusading, proto-minimalist work, the intrepid cellist Maya Beiser has reimagined the piece ingeniously. As written, “In C,” which consists of a series of 53 short musical motifs, can be played by any group of musicians on any instruments, and lasts as long as their individual decisions about how long to repeat those motifs. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Peter Gordon, Music’s Mr. Adjacent, Is Starting His Own Record Label

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      Peter Gordon, who studied with Terry Riley, has always made music that is surprising but accessible. Now he’s starting his own record label.For 45 years, Peter Gordon has held onto a reel-to-reel tape of a show he performed in 1979 at the Mudd Club in New York City with a trio called the Blue Horn File. Gordon, the violinist Laurie Anderson and the percussionist David Van Tieghem — a group of new music all-stars — did a short set with the playful and unshackled feel of cartoon music. It was one of only three shows the Blue Horn File played.Gordon, a saxophonist, composer and bandleader who has been a mainstay of downtown music for decades, has recorded for several different labels. But he decided to take a different path with these tapes: This week, he is releasing “The Blue Horn File at Mudd Club” as one of the first titles on Adjacent Records, his new digital-only label.“It eliminates the middleman,” he said. “With record companies, people second guess at every point what’s going to work or not work. It’s really about setting up artistic freedom, from creation to distribution.”In the course of his restless, mutable career, Gordon, 72, has written all kinds of music, from classical pieces for solo piano or chamber orchestra to dance scores and experimental operas. But he also has used his classical background to write disco-kissed rock music for the long-running group he formed in 1977, Love of Life Orchestra.He isn’t as well-known as some of the people he’s worked with, like Anderson, the novelist Kathy Acker, the choreographer Bill T. Jones, the singular cellist Arthur Russell, or David Byrne; or the people he’s studied with, including the founding Minimalists Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros, with whom he played in a klezmer band. “But he’s known by the right people,” said Tim Burgess, frontman of the Charlatans U.K. and another of Gordon’s many collaborators.Gordon is Mr. Adjacent: “Adjacent” is more than the name of his label, it’s a description of his music, which sits in a distinct Venn diagram of influences, including jazz, classical and rock, often with R&B at the center. The one constant is a kind of populist experimentation: He makes music that’s surprising but also accessible.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More