ARTIST : Kronos Quartet & Wu Man
TITLE : Terry Riley: The Cusp Of Magic
LABEL : Nonesuch Records / Warner
GENRE : Instrumental
BITRATE : 173 kbps avg
SOURCE : CD (LP)
PLAYTIME : 00:42:49
SIZE : 55.6MB
STORE DATE : 2008-02-00
Track List
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1. The Cusp Of Magic 10:04
2. Buddha's Bedroom 10:33
3. The Nursery 5:09
4. Royal Wedding 6:14
5. Emily And Alice 4:08
6. Prayer Circle 6:41
The Cusp Of Magic was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet
to commemorate the 70th birthday of their longtime friend
and collaborator Terry Riley. Frankly, it's a bit mean
making someone work so hard on something for their own
birthday, but there's clearly a great deal of joy been
poured into the composition, with the outwardly quite
frivolous use of children's toys and noise-makers on one
of the piece's six movements, 'Emily And Alice'. Far from
being the sort of irritatingly twee exercise in banal
tinkering it might have been, there's a tangible link to
fairy tale worlds (apparently the melody heard in this
movement is taken from the theme song to Russian cartoon
character 'Cheburashka', and there's an obvious parallel
to be drawn with elements of The Nutcracker. Much of the
music here incorporates the pipa of Wu Man, which
integrates in a surprisingly seamless fashion, avoiding
the usual east-meets-west clichΘs, instead occupying a
'between' state that doesn't really commit to any single
set of harmonies. The closing piece 'Prayer Circle'
condenses this perfectly, with the Kronos strings playing
call and response with the Wu Man's pipa; like two
clauses forming a sentence.