On the latest Nonesuch release from Kronos Quartet, the group offers the premiere recording of longtime collaborator Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, taking the listener on a "fantastic journey," says the San Francsico Classical Voice, through the 2004 piece, which Kronos commissioned in honor of the composer's 70th birthday.
On the latest Nonesuch release from Kronos Quartet, the group offers the premiere recording of longtime collaborator Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, taking the listener on a "fantastic journey," writes Jason Victor Serinus in San Francsico Classical Voice, through the 2004 piece, which Kronos commissioned in honor of the composer's 70th birthday.
"Peyote rituals, Chinese lullabies, Indian ragas, children's toys, sacred bonds, and secular madness all dance and swirl in ritualistic fashion in Terry Riley's extraordinary The Cusp of Magic," Serinus writes, from the opening first movement's "entry into the mystical" through the fourth movement, with its "passages of great rhythmic intensity," and the "ear-catching" fifth to "the irresistible rhythms and colors" of the last, ending "with an ecstatic flourish" that sounds to the reviewer like a resounding "Yes!"
To read the review, visit sfcv.org.
Kronos is currently in Davis, California, where they performed over two nights this past weekend at the UC Davis Mondavi Center, with programs featuring Steve Reich's Triple Quartet and John Adams's Fellow Traveler on Friday and works from the albums Requiem for a Dream, You've Stolen My Heart, and Nuevo, as well as their collaboration with Sigur Rós on Saturday. This coming Friday, Kronos will join the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Mondavi Center for a special "MinEvent," performing John Cage's Thirty Pieces for String Quartet. For more information, visit mondaviarts.org.
