Terry Riley (b. 1935)
The Holy Liftoff (2022-2024) (Realization by Samuel Clay Birmaher)
Claire Chase (flute)
JACK Quartet rec. 2025 Oktaven Audio studio, Mount Vernon, New York
Reviewed as a digital download
Sono Luminus DSL-92290 [61]
Terry Riley is 91 years old. He was born the same year as Arvo Pärt, one year before Steve Reich, and two years before Philip Glass. No one can be said to have ‘invented’ minimalism, but Riley’s name is invariably listed when discussing pioneering figures in the minimalist school. Suffice it to say that he is about as early and as influential within that movement as one could be, so it is a genuine delight to get to hear a new composition by Riley, written some 60 years after In C.
As a brief, personal aside, the album that won me over to Riley is Africa Presents…Terry Riley’s In C Mali which is nothing other than In C performed by Malian musicians on a variety of colorful and interesting instruments. It’s hardly the reference recording of the work, but that’s sort of the point: Riley’s compositions are highly versatile, and every performance of them is different.
The term ‘minimalism’ has meant different things to different artists, and I think it is important to understand Riley’s approach before we get into The Holy Liftoff. The painter Frank Stella, who pioneered minimalism in the visual arts, will serve as a useful point of contrast. Stella famously declared in a 1964 radio conversation, “My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen there is there (…) what you see is what you see.” This is minimalism as formalism: the painting is an object; the shape being depicted is the ‘point.’ 1964 is also the year In C was published: Stella and Riley are contemporaries. But Riley talks about his music in a way that is not at all formalist. Long before the term ‘holy minimalism’ was coined to describe the music of Pärt, Tavener, and Górecki, Terry Riley was synthesizing Indian raga, Buddhism, mind-expanding drugs, and free jazz in what I can only call ‘spiritual minimalism.’
“Riley has always thought of himself…as a shaman,” says an article published in the New York Classical Review last year. So that is the spirit in which we might approach the work. We should aim for a sort of Zen state of spiritual awakening, or ‘satori’ to use Riley’s preferred term.
To me, then, The Holy Liftoff feels like a culmination of Riley’s career in spiritual minimalism. But Riley is not the only artist featured here. As I understand it, The Holy Liftoff exists as an open score that combines drawings and symbols as well as classic notation. It was commissioned by flautist Claire Chase as volume 11 of her 24-year project to commission new flute repertory, which she has christened “Density 2036” (a reference to the Varèse piece for solo flute Density 21.5). Volumes 1–4 and 6–8 are also available to hear on streaming platforms and include pieces by Olga Neuwirth, Liza Lim, and Tyshawn Sorey. Chase has been described as “magnificently inventive” (review) for her work on the BIS Brandenburg Project wherein contemporary composers contributed works using the same instrumentation as Bach’s concerti. Chase is one to watch if the idea of contemporary flute music is appealing to you.
Riley’s open score was then ‘realised’ by New York–based composer Samuel Clay Birmaher (his name rhymes with ‘here and there,’ he tells us). I suspect ‘realised’ means converting Riley’s drawings into more typical notation, although I have no way of knowing. This CD is the first recording I can find of Birmaher, which is exciting. Perhaps when he is 91 in the year 2077, someone else will be writing a review of his latest work.
Finally, Chase is joined by the JACK Quartet, a string quartet specializing in avant-garde music. You might know them from their work on the Xenakis Edition (volume 10) or from any of their releases on the KAIROS label: recently, Timothy McCormack (review) and Rand Steiger (review). Praise for them has been effusive: “It is almost impossible to overstate the technical demands this work places on its performers, and the JACK quartet meet them with a precision and sustained intensity that I find difficult to imagine being matched,” says Dominic Hartley.
So that is our cast of characters. Let’s talk about the music.
The Holy Liftoff is in 22 movements, lasting just over an hour. The movement titles range from ‘Chorale,’ ‘Hymn,’ and ‘Pastorale,’ to more colorful phrases such as ‘Parked Between Two Clouds,’ ‘The Realm of the Silver Balloons,’, and ‘Angels in the Snooker Parlor.’ There are two further disambiguations that readers might find helpful. First, the word ‘ishi,’ which appears in the titles of three movements, means ‘stone’ in Japanese. It seems to indicate an ostinato pattern here. Second, ‘The Tragedy of What We Lost’ is an elegy in honor of those who were killed in the tragic school shooting at Uvalde in 2022. Riley included the names of every single victim in his score.
Death, then, is ‘the holy liftoff’ itself. Riley has made that clearer in interviews about the work: “I’m going to lift off soon,” he says cheerfully. I think this is part of what makes the piece so fascinating. Any classical listener can rattle off a litany of compositions inspired by death: the Mozart Requiem, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet, a handful of Mahler symphonies, just to name a few. The Holy Liftoff is as different from all of these as it is possible to be. I found myself comparing it to the Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder, if anything: both approach the idea of the composer’s death with a sort of resignation and wistfulness. But Riley alone is serene and even sometimes funny about the topic.
The opening texture in ‘chorale’ is decidedly pillowy: switching between multi-tracked flute and flute-over-string-quartet. It is at once cloudy and rather mechanical, with its smooth-edged chords played poco crescendo, calling to mind at once both an airplane and the sky into which it is ascending. This is succeeded by a slow, syncopated march and a pretty pipe organ-like melody aptly called ‘Hymn.’ On ‘Lift Off Harmony’ we get a series of rising staccato chords, and on ‘Parked Between Two Clouds,’ a dreamy, luscious adagio. Each of these movements is quite short, but it feels like we are treated to something with variation as well as cohesion. ‘C Major Ishi’ is something of a standout because it almost seems as though we have a melody over a fun, driving bass pattern.
‘The Tragedy of What We’ve Lost’ is suitably sombre – heartbreaking, in fact – with agonizingly slow string accompaniments under a muted flute eulogy. It finishes with birdsong, as if no human expression could ultimately be enough. But we move into the much more upbeat ‘Angels in the Snooker Parlor,’ which places a bright, chirpy melody over a humming backdrop. ‘All Arise’ similarly makes use of a droned bass with a percussive string lead, and ‘Escape’, perhaps the most interesting movement, begins by alternating between extended technique bow scraping and a simple ascending melody before transforming into something entirely different: serenely pastoral, yet energetic.
The recording itself is beautiful. Nice and warm, and spacious enough to hear the different layers. When I say that occasionally it took a second to decide whether I was hearing multi-tracked flutes or the JACK Quartet, that must be understood as a sincere compliment to the players making that stylistic choice. They both interpret the work ideally. The JACK Quartet are so sharp, and Chase’s flute playing is so all-encompassing: equally at home expressing breezy playfulness as devastation and loss. Occasionally you can hear other instruments – rubbed stones, for example – and Riley’s voice introducing some of the movements. These add a quirky touch and help the listener who wants to put down the liner notes (or minimize the screen) and simply focus on the music.
I struggled to figure out how exactly to pitch this review, because The Holy Liftoff is so clearly a profound artistic statement, but much like the music itself, it is a nuanced, layered expression. I felt listening to it the way I sometimes feel looking at very abstract art: moved, but not entirely sure why. I cannot easily compare it to anything else I’ve heard, but the whole album can be played (without a subscription) on Claire Chase’s Bandcamp if you want to sample it.
In her excellent booklet essay, music and philosophy PhD Jenny Judge draws a distinction between Steve Reich’s urban and “machine-cut” minimalism and Riley’s pastoral and organic minimalism. I think this might be why The Holy Liftoff feels so emotionally vast despite the relatively small number of musical elements.
All parties involved – Riley, Birmaher, Chase, and the JACK Quartet – have achieved something special here. This album represents a listening experience which I’m quite sure will stay with me for a long time.
Aidan Gray
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