AH, the memories that flooded back last night: faded memories through 30 years, recalling a time of psychedelic haze, the swoosh of a kaftan, a time when long hair was long hair (and there was more of it), when you could get five pints for a pound . . .
The last time I heard Terry Riley's minimalist anthem, In C, it ran for about 50 minutes. Last night, in their evocation of the love-it or loathe-it American movement, the RSAMD's Richard Jeffcoat and his 27-strong band of Academy students
got through it in 10 minutes flat, which meant that the actual process of gradual change which is the root of Riley's seminal work was accelerated to a point of near non-recognition.
Not that they had much option. With a big band folowing them into the hall for a late night concert, the Academy Now! group had left themselves very little time, at the end of a long evening, for anything other than a short ride in a fast machine.
In truth, and without losing anything of the essence of the programme, the evening would have been better without the two concerto-like pieces by Simon Bainbridge and Martin Butler (though that would have deprived excellent soloists Julian Appleyard and Jacqueline Aitchison of their chance to shine) and, instead, devoting the second half to a full
and more leisurely performance of the Riley.
And it would still have left Steve Reich's Sextet and Vermont Counterpoint, along with John Cage's Imaginary Landscape, as a demonstration of the technical and musical facilities of the student groups. That the music
was played with so much sense and clarity owed a
lot to the decisive and animated direction of Richard Jeffcoat. Good stuff. Now, where did I leave that hair restorer?
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