The second of three programmes featuring the music of California
Two Pioneers
Two of California's leading composers introduce and take part in new performances of their music.
Terry Riley 's In C and Morton Subotnik 's
The Key to Songs
San Francisco in the 1960s was a place of extraordinary cultural ferment. For young composers, the Mecca of new music was the Tape Music Center, and there in 1964 In C was first performed. With its hypnotic repeated patterns of sound and simple haunting melodies, In C was a key work in the birth of the influential musical movement known as 'Minimalism'.
Twenty years later,
The Key to Songs is the latest work of Morton Subotnik , America's leading pioneer of electronic music and, like Terry Riley , a graduate of the Tape Music Center. It combines the amplified sounds of pianos, strings and mallet instruments with the synthesised notes of a computer to create music of dazzling virtuosity.
Lighting cameraman
PHILIP BONHAM-CARTER Sound BRUCE GALLAWAY Film editor JEFF SHAW
Executive producer DENNIS MARKS Director MICHAEL MACINTYRE