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PHILIP GLASS

Philip Glass

The Essential

    Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times.

    The operas - Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten among many others - play throughout the world's leading houses, and rarely to an empty seat. Glass has written music for experimental theater and for Academy Award-winning motion pictures. Glass is the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music - simultaneously. Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.

    In the past 30 years, Glass has composed more than twenty-five operas, large and small; twelve symphonies; three piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores for the stylized classics of Jean Cocteau to Errol Morris's documentary about former defense secretary Robert McNamara; string quartets; a growing body of work for solo piano and organ.

    TRACK LISTING

    Side A
    1. Lightning (Songs From Liquid Days)
    2. Facades (Glassworks)
    3. A Gentleman's Honor (The Photographer)
    4. Primacy Of Number (Naqoyqatsi)

    Side B
    1. Metamorphosis IV (Liquid Days, Part II)
    2. Open The Kingdom (Liquid Days, Part II)
    3. Dance II (In The Upper Room)
    4. Dance VIII (In The Upper Room)

    Side C
    1. Glasspiece #1 (Rubric From Glassworks)
    2. Changing Opinion (Songs From Liquid Days)
    3. Opening (Glassworks)

    Side D
    1. Floe (Glassworks)
    2. Funeral Of Amenhotep Iii (Akhnaten)
    3. Point Blank (Naqoyqatsi)

    Side E
    1. Wichita Vortex Sutra
    2. Forgetting (Songs From Liquid Days)
    3. Dance IX (In The Upper Room)

    Side F
    1. The Dam (Itaipú)
    2. Definition (Naqoyqatsi)
    3. Protest (Satyagraha)
    4. Evening Song (Satyagraha)

    Side G
    1. Hymn To The Sun (Akhnaten)
    2. Trial – Prison (Einstein On The Beach)
    3. Akhnaten And Nefertiti (Akhnaten)
    4. Kuru Field Of Justice (Satyagraha)
    5. Knee Play 1 (Einstein On The Beach)

    Side H
    1. Tolstoy Farm (Satyagraha)
    2.Window Of Appearances (Akhnaten)
    3. Bed (Einstein On The Beach)
    4. Epilogue (Akhnaten)
    5. Knee Play 5 (Einstein On The Beach)

    Kronos Quartet

    Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass - 2023 Reissue

      Nonesuch releases Kronos Quartet’s acclaimed album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass on vinyl for the first time to coincide with Kronos Quartet: Five Decades, a year-long celebration marking the quartet’s 50th anniversary. Originally released in 1995, the album features David Harrington (violin), John Sherba, (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Joan Jeanrenaud (cello) performing Quartet No. 2 (Company) (1983), No. 3 (Mishima) (1985), No. 4 (Buczak) (1990), and No. 5 (1991), the first piece Glass wrote especially for Kronos. Recorded at Skywalker Sound in California, the album was produced by Judith Sherman, Kurt Munkacsi and Philip Glass. The cover art features Francesco Clemente’s painting The Four Corners (1985). At the time of the album’s release, the New York Times said, ‘It contains some of Glass's best music since Koyaanisqatsi. His ear for sumptuous string sonorities is undeniable,’ while the Washington Post called it ‘An ideal combination of composer and performers.’ It was a top 10 hit on Billboard’s Top Classical Albums, and spent 12 weeks on Billboard’s Classical chart.

      In his original liner note, critic Mark Swed wrote, ‘Glass’ string quartets may contain his most intimate music. They are works through which a very public composer, perhaps the most important opera reformer of our age and a longstanding collaborator in large-scale music theater, holds up a mirror to himself and his way of composing. “In an odd way,” Glass explains, “string quartets have always functioned like that for composers. I don’t really know why, but it’s almost impossible to get away from it. It’s the way composers of the past have thought and that’s no less true for me. It’s almost as if we say we’re going to write a string quartet, we take a deep breath, and we wade in to try to write the most serious, significant piece that we can.” Glass says that as he sat down to write String Quartet No. 5, he had discovered that perhaps not taking a serious tone might be the most serious way to deal with it. “I was thinking that I had really gone beyond the need to write a serious string quartet and that I could write a quartet that is about musicality, which in a certain way is the most serious subject.”’

      Glass’ first numbered quartet was written in 1966; however, he did not return to the string quartet medium until 1983, when he provided incidental music for a dramatization of Samuel Beckett’s prose poem, Company. During those 17 years, Glass had formed an ensemble and developed his style in a series of increasingly elaborate pieces for it. String Quartet No. 3 is also adapted to dramatic music, this time from his score to the 1985 Paul Schrader film, Mishima. It was with the music of Mishima that Kronos became associated with Glass, recording the string quartet sections of the soundtrack and subsequently working extensively with the composer on all five of his numbered quartets. Kronos also gave the first concert performances of Company and Mishima. String Quartet No. 4 was composed in remembrance of the artist Brian Buczak, who died of AIDS in 1988.

      As Kronos’ anniversary season continues with further concerts around the world, Nonesuch will reissue Black Angels on vinyl on February 16. First released in 1990, the award-winning album includes George Crumb’s title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet. Called ‘an unusually elevated and searing Vietnam War protest’ by the New York Times, it sets a dark, powerful tone for this collection, which addresses the political/physical/spiritual consequences of war. Also featured are works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich. ‘Stylishly packaged, intelligently programmed, superbly recorded and brilliantly performed,’ proclaimed Gramophone. ‘In short, very much the sort of disc we’ve come to expect from the talented and imaginative Kronos Quartet.’ The Evening Standard included it among its ‘100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century’.

      Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1937, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. By 1974, he had created a large collection of music for The Philip Glass Ensemble. The period culminated in the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach. Since Einstein, Glass’s repertoire has grown to include music for opera, dance, theatre, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (including Kundun and The Hours, as well as Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Recent works include his memoir, Words Without Music, his first Piano Sonata, opera Circus Days and Nights, and Symphony No. 14. Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the US National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016, and 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.



      TRACK LISTING

      Side A
      1. String Quartet No. 5: I
      2. String Quartet No. 5: II
      3. String Quartet No. 5: III
      4. String Quartet No. 5: IV
      5. String Quartet No. 5: V
      Side B
      1. String Quartet No. 4 (Buczak): I
      2. String Quartet No. 4 (Buczak): II
      3. String Quartet No. 4 (Buczak): III
      Side C
      1. String Quartet No. 2 (Company): I
      2. String Quartet No. 2 (Company): II
      3. String Quartet No. 2 (Company): III
      4. String Quartet No. 2 (Company): IV
      Side D
      1. String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): 1957 – Award Montage
      2. String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): November 25 – Ichigaya
      3. String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): 1934 – Grandmother And Kimitake
      4. String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): 1962 – Body Building
      5. String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): Blood Oath
      6. String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): Mishima/Closing


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