PROGRAM NOTES SPONSORED BY THOMAS WARD

As one of the most celebrated European composers of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) has left behind a legacy of indisputable excellence despite his fairly anonymous demise. Wolfgang’s father Leopold taught both him and his sister Nannerl at home in Salzburg and discovered musical promise within the boy as early as age four. Just a couple years later, Leopold began taking both talented siblings on tour throughout Europe, where they performed before empresses, ambassadors, and other nobility. These tours continued for several years, in which Mozart only grew in reputation as both a performer and composer. Despite the siblings’ popularity on these tours, such success did not translate to economic security when they returned to Salzburg. Wolfgang would spend much of the 1770s going back and forth between cities abroad – including London, Mannheim, Munich, and Paris – and home in order to find suitable employment. When he finally landed in Vienna in 1781, it seemed Mozart had found some stability at last, but financial struggles plagued him there, too. Finally, after a bout with a sudden illness, he died in poverty in 1791.

Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 16 (K545), composed in 1788, remains one of the composer’s most famous pieces, used on countless albums and playlists proudly claiming to represent the core canon of “classical music” for today’s listeners. Like some of his msot popular works – think of The Magic Flute’s “Queen of the Night” or the Marriage of Figaro Overture – this Sonata is incredibly tuneful and has taken on a cultural life of its own as a sort of sonic shorthand for “classical” (i.e., refined) social settings. Mozart intended the sonata for teaching purposes, and this is perhaps the reason he granted it the nickname “Sonata facile” or “Simple Sonata.”

This title is a bit misleading, however, inasmuch as the sonata does require technical skills beyond those of a mere beginner. Further, its simplicity is more elegant than basic. The first movement offers a lovely primer on sonata form, with an exposition featuring two distinct themes, followed by a harmonically exploratory development, and concluding with a recapitulation in the home key. The second movement follows a similar structure, highlighting the songlike nature of Mozart’s thematic writing for piano. Finally, the sonata ends with a brief Rondo, shaped by a staccato motif that ushers the piece towards its lighthearted, playful conclusion.


Terry Riley (b. 1935) is an American composer originally from the small foothills town of Colfax, California. Riley absorbed influences from across the globe, styling earlier compositions after the music of Stockhausen before aligning his compositional voice more closely with that of radical American composer La Monte Young and Hindustani vocalist / composer Pandit Pran Nath. Riley’s work has also absorbed traces of his training in ragtime piano playing through his tendency toward syncopation. His forays into tape and other multimedia modes of composition give evidence to Riley’s involvement with the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s.

What Terry Riley is best known for, however, can be summed up in a single word: Minimalism. He is hailed as one of the leading figures of the musical arm of Minimalism, characterized by stripping down musical materials to what he and his colleagues considered to be the bare essentials. With inspiration taken from non-Western music, jazz, and rock, Minimalist composers such as Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass all leaned heavily on the use of repeating pulses, melodic gestures, and simple harmonies to shape a more accessible style that starkly contrasted mid-century Serialism.

Riley’s completion and premiere of In C in 1964 has been identified as one of the defining moments of musical Minimalism. It is not typical in most program notes to share excerpts of a composer’s explicit directions to their performers. In the case of In C, however, I believe that sharing a portion of Riley’s instructions for the piece can helpfully shape listeners’ expectations, giving them an idea of the general infrastructure and explaining how it is that such a piece can never sound exactly the same twice.

The basic DNA of In C lies in the composer’s first directive: “All performers play from the same page of 53 melodic patterns played in sequence.” After this direction, Riley addresses other logistical matters, such as “Any number of any kind of instruments can play” or “There is no fixed rule as to the number of repetitions a pattern may have.” The composer gives general guidance about tempo and duration of each of the 53 patterns (see the sheet music below), but he also points out that “One of the joys of In C is the interaction of the players in polyrhythmic combinations that spontaneously arise.”

Finally, although Riley leaves much up to players’ individual and cooperative discretion, he does make the following, final specification: “In C is ended in this way: when each performer arrives at figure #53, he or she stays on it until the entire ensemble has arrived there. The group then makes a large crescendo and diminuendo a few times and each player drops out as he or she wishes.” A typical performance lasts roughly 40-45 minutes.

Emily Masincup, © 2026