Editing In C (section)

==Legacy==
Upon hearing the premiere of ''In C'', [[Alfred Frankenstein]] remarked that Riley had developed "a style like that of no one else on earth", and the critic accurately predicted, "he is bound to make a profound impression with it."<ref name=VF/> Indeed, Riley's composition is often cited as the first [[minimal music|minimalist]] composition to make a significant impact on the public consciousness and inspire a new movement.<ref>Strickland, Edward. ''Minimalism: Origins''. [[Indiana University Press]], 1993. 145.</ref><ref>Christopher Bonds, ''The Musical Impulse'', second, revised edition (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 1994): 345. {{ISBN|9780840398024}}</ref> Terry Riley's website advertises ''In C'' as "The composition that launched the Minimalist movement".<ref>"[http://www.terryriley.net/sheetmusic.htm#OrderingDetails Scores]", ''TerryRiley.net''. Accessed March 29, 2025.</ref> However, he has repeatedly dismissed the idea in interviews:<blockquote>
People say minimalism started with [[Erik Satie]], and it may have started with [[Carlo Gesualdo|Gesualdo]]; I don't know who it started with. But in this group of people, which is Steve Reich, Philip Glass, La Monte Young, and me, obviously it was La Monte who was the first one. The ''[[Trio for Strings]]'' is the landmark minimalist piece.<ref name=Duck/>{{rp|282}}</blockquote>
''In C'' came at a time when [[experimental music]] in America was synonymous with atonality. The simple fact of using a key signature for a title was its own form of revolt against current trends.<ref>[[Tom Johnson (composer)|Johnson, Tom]]. "[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=j9RHAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_YsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6413%2C724144 Lyricism Is Alive, and, well...]", ''[[The Village Voice]]''. April 12, 1973. 51.
::Anthologized as "[https://editions75.com/tvonm/articles/1973/terry-riley-returns-to-tonality.html Terry Riley Returns to Tonality]".</ref><ref name=Duck/>{{rp|266}} The modal patterns of ''In C'' proved a much more malleable device than Young's static sonorities. Steve Reich and others point to Riley's technique as a seminal influence on their work.<ref name=Potter>Potter, Keith. ''Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass''. [[Cambridge University Press]], 2002. 164.</ref> [[Morton Subotnick]] recalled how ''In C'' "brought a forward movement to repetition...it blossomed in a direction, and that directionality, and the beat, was not what people were thinking at the time...it was a kind of cockamaimie [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]] ''[[Boléro|Bolero]]''; people don’t think about it now because it’s so ordinary. Everyone’s grown up with Glass and Reich, but that didn’t exist at that point."<ref name=Carl/>{{rp|99}} One historian concluded that Riley's composition "achieved something unprecedented...It was ''In C'' that made minimalism a viable commercial force in American music, for it took minimalism out of the lofts and galleries - where Young's far more austere music was destined to remain".<ref>Schwarz, K. Robert. ''[https://archive.org/details/minimalists0000schw_w0n5/page/44/mode/1up Minimalists]''. London: Phaidon Press, 1996. 44.</ref>

A decade after it was written, ''In C'' was described as "the single most influential post-1960 composition by an American".<ref>[[Robert Palmer (American writer)|Palmer, Robert]]. "Terry Riley: Doctor of Improvised Surgery", ''[[DownBeat]]'', 42/19. November 20 , 1975. 17–41.
::Anthologized in ''Blues & Chaos: the Music Writing of Robert Palmer'' (Scribner, 2009).</ref> Riley's score is one of the classics of experimental music, and it injected a physical exhilaration into the genre that was previously lacking.<ref>[[Michael Nyman|Nyman, Michael]]. ''Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond''. New York: Schirmer, 1974. 113, 127.</ref> Because of the openness of the score, ''In C'' is attractive to presenters. It has become one of the most widely performed pieces from the twentieth century.<ref>[[Kyle Gann|Gann, Kyle]]. ''[https://www.kylegann.com/AM20C.html American Music in the Twentieth Century]''. New York: Schirmer, 1997. 196.</ref> Riley described the score as "a gift that The Universe kindly bestowed on the Terry Riley of 1964, who might possibly be a stranger if he showed up at my door today".<ref>SMCQ, ''In C''. Liner notes. ATMA Classique, 2000.</ref>

The foregrounding of the repeated C gave rise to the mistaken impression that the piece is about that relentlessly hammered note.<ref name=Sun/>{{rp|170}} One detractor mused, "A modern vision of [[Hell]] might well contain an unbroken loop of ''In C''".<ref>[[Norman Lebrecht|Lebrecht, Norman]]. ''[https://archive.org/details/companionto20thc00lebr/page/288/mode/1up?view=theater The Companion to Twentieth-Century Music]''. Simon & Schuster, 1992. 288.</ref>  Another writer concluded, "''In C'' is, at root, an exercise in human relations."<ref>Fink, Robert. ''Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music As Cultural Practice''. [[University of California Press]], 2005. 90.</ref> Riley described it as a "musical [[House of mirrors|hall of mirrors]]".<ref>Morgan, Robert. ''[https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury0000morg_q6g1/page/426/mode/1up Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America]''. W. W. Norton, 1991. 426.</ref> Due to its communal ethos, ''In C'' has been called "the quintessential [[1960s|Sixties]] piece".<ref>Potter, Keith. "[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/guru-in-need-of-a-cchange-1582318.html Guru in Need of a C-Change]", ''[[The Independent]]''. November 17, 1995. 14.</ref>