Salome Dances for Peace Terry Riley: opening hit Musica Sacra

Thursday 15 September saw the kick-off of arts festival Musica Sacra in Maastricht. While I was in a traffic jam, Bobby Mitchell played the eighth and final movement of the piano cycle The Road by Frederik Rzewski, who was himself present. It also marked the conclusion of last year's festival, which was dedicated to 'the way', the journey pilgrims make to reach a holy place. The current festival has as its theme 'sacrifice of love', I gave my five concert tips.

I arrived in the Limburg capital just in time to experience the Dutch premiere of the integral performance of the string quartet Salome Dances for Peace by Terry Riley at St John's Church. He composed this five-part, over two-hour piece between 1985-86 for the Kronos Quartet, which reportedly took three years to rehearse the rhythmically very difficult parts.

The Ruysdael Quartet took considerably less time: the four string players only started rehearsing in August. Violinist Joris van Rijn acknowledges that they might have underestimated the subject matter a bit: 'It turned out to be damned tricky, with lots of irregular time signatures and parts that interlock in non-obvious ways. We spent an awful lot of time on it, not only together, but also in personal study'.

This paid off. The more than eighty-strong audience listened breathlessly for the full two-and-a-half hours in St John's Church to Salome Dances for Peace. Only twice did we - and the musicians - get a brief opportunity to stretch our legs. Then the quartet continued tirelessly, with admirable commitment, precision and infectious joy in playing.

Musical world tour

Those who think of Terry Riley think of minimalism à la Glass or Reich, was surprised by the wealth of musical atmospheres the American presents us with in this string quartet. The five movements form a consistent whole, in which drifting 'war music' seamlessly passes into lovely 'peace music' and vice versa. Recurring elements are long-held notes ending in slow trills, unison passages of some strings versus archaic melodies in hopscotch rhythms, haunting sounds played with mutes and the 'taking over' of a melody from each other.

Musically, Riley takes us all over the world. Sometimes we imagine ourselves in Eastern Europe with lively stomping dance music, other times we are in Norway with the sound of a Hardingfele (Norwegian folk violin) in our ears, Riley presents us with American folk music from the Appalachian Mountains, or we hear the shrouded sound of the Mongolian horse-head fiddle.

Varied but coherent

Besides all these references to folk music, there are numerous references to classical composers. From banging Bartók pizzicati to furious contrapuntal music à la Beethoven's late string quartets, and from ostinato rhythms à la Stravinsky to languorous harmonies à la Messiaen. There are also regular repetitive motifs so recognisable to minimalism, such as the ones he used in 1964 in In C introduced. There are even moments when you imagine yourself in a jazz or blues club.

Salome Dances for Peace remains varied and surprising, but has an unmistakably ritualistic atmosphere that encourages meditation. So great idea by Musica Sacra to have this cycle performed in a church. The Ruysdael Quartet cannot be praised enough: their performance was unprecedentedly intense and musical. It is a delight to see how the four string players communicate with each other before almost every note with a glance, a nod or another gesture.

This wonderful concert was broadcast live on Radio 4. Too bad there was no webcast. But Saturday 18 September will be Salome Dances performed again, so I would say: take your chances!