Recordings

One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley (Box Set)

Terry Riley

2015

“Taken cumulatively, the result feels like an attempt to help us see a major aspect of Riley’s art on its own terms. Riley’s string quartet music reveals the interpretive limitation of the ‘minimalist’ tag. In his writing for Kronos, Riley variously employs raga patterns, jazz harmonies, and chromatic dissonance. … The diversity of the music and its emotional range are anything but compact in scale [in Salome Dances for Peace]. Likewise, the surprising synthesized brass section that pops up in Requiem for Adam’s second movement highlights a daring compositional mind at work. While I’d previously paid scant attention to The Cusp of Magic, this box set helps prepare the listener for Riley’s increasingly hybrid aesthetic over time.”

Seth Colter Walls, Pitchfork

About the album

In honor of American composer Terry Riley’s 80th birthday, Nonesuch Records released One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley—a five-disc box set of four albums of his work composed for, and performed by, the Kronos Quartet. Riley and Kronos met in 1978, and since then, the quartet has commissioned nearly 30 works from him, more than from any other composer in the group’s history.

The One Earth, One People, One Love set includes three albums previously released by Nonesuch—the two-disc album Salome Dances for Peace (1989), Requiem for Adam (2001), and The Cusp of Magic (2008)—as well as a new disc called Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector: Music of Terry Riley.

SELECT CREDITS

Kronos Quartet
David Harrington, violin
John Sherba, violin
Hank Dutt, viola
Sunny Yang, cello

Joan Jeanrenaud, cello (1978–1999)
Jennifer Culp, cello (1999–2005)
Jeffrey Zeigler, cello (2005–2013)

Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

Dedicated to the memory of Laurence Neff

Disc 1: Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector: Music of Terry Riley (2015)

Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector
One Earth, One People, One Love, from Sun Rings
Cry of a Lady (feat. Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares [Dora Hristova, conductor])
G Song
Lacrymosa – Remembering Kevin
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Introduction
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Cadenza: Violin I
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Where Was Wisdom When We Went West?
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Cadenza: Viola
Cadenza on the Night Plain: March of the Old Timers Reefer Division
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Cadenza: Violin II
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Tuning to Rolling Thunder
Cadenza on the Night Plain: The Night Cry of Black Buffalo Woman
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Cadenza: Cello
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Gathering of the Spiral Clan
Cadenza on the Night Plain: Captain Jack Has the Last Word

Disc 2: Salome Dances for Peace (1989)

I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: The Summons
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: Peace Dance
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: Fanfare in the Minimal Kingdom
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: Ceremonial Night Race
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: At the Ancient Aztec Corn Races Salome Meets Wild Talker
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: More Ceremonial Races
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: Oldtimer at the Races
I. Anthem of the Great Spirit: Half Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight
II. Conquest of the War Demons: Way of the Warrior
II. Conquest of the War Demons: Salome and Half Wolf Descend Through the Gates to the Underworld
II. Conquest of the War Demons: Breakthrough to the Realm of the War Demons
II. Conquest of the War Demons: Combat Dance
II. Conquest of the War Demons: Victory: Salome Re-enacts for Half Wolf Her Deeds of Valor
II. Conquest of the War Demons: Discovery of Peace
II. Conquest of the War Demons: The Underworld Arising