Search - Philip Glass :: Philip Glass: The Concerto Project, Vol. 2

GLASS GENIUS- GLASS CAN DO IT ALL!!!!

S. Schindler | Florida | 09/12/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Two spectacular concertos on one disc- these are two of my very favorite concertos by Glass.



I attended the world premiere performance of Philip Glass' Piano Concerto No. 2 "After Lewis & Clark" at the Lied Center in Lincoln, Nebraska on Saturday, September 18, 2004. The work was performed by pianist Paul Barnes, Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai, and the Omaha Symphony Orchestra conducted by Victor Yampolsky.



I've attended somewhere over 50 Philip Glass "events" since 1988, and this is the first performance of a Philip Glass piano concerto that I've attended.



"After Lewis and Clark" was co-commissioned by the Nebraska Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commission, the Lied Center for Performing Arts and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Hixon College of Fine and Performing Arts. The piece was introduced by Ron Hull, Chairman of the Bicentennial Commission. Other speakers included UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman, Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale, and Otoe-Missouria tribal elder Dr. Aaron Gawhega. Mr. Hull said "the Lewis & Clark Commission wanted to do something to commemorate the expedition of Lewis & Clark- something that would be classy and something that would last".



Mr. Glass definitely delivered upon their wish with a wonderful piece that is beautiful, powerful, and inspiring. I somehow wound up getting a seat in the second row even though I purchased my ticket about 5 days ahead of time and the hall was practically sold out. Mr. Barnes is the most exciting pianist I've seen, and you must see him play if you can. His playing was note-perfect and powerful and he was really fired up! Mr. Barnes looked like he was having the time of his life! He played like I always have imagined myself playing if I could play. The first movement, "The Vision", an 11 minute long "musical steamroller" as Glass put it, has only four bars of rest for the pianist throughout. Perfectly conveying the determination it takes to embark on a journey, with the trademark Philip Glass drive, the movement flies by in a flash and doesn't seem 11 minutes long. The piece starts off with the rapid-fire, Philip Glass arpeggios with a cyclical arrangement for orchestra- trademark Glass mesmerizing musical structures that I can never get enough of. My eyes actually start watering whenever I hear Glass arpeggios and cyclical structures played like that.



The second movement "Sacagawea" is based on the Shoshone Indian who became the duo's companion. The premier Native American flutist, R. Carlos Nakai, joined Mr. Barnes for a duet with some orchestral accompaniment. This movement perfectly conveyed the meeting of cultures with a playful center section and closed on a sorrowful note. To me, the ending felt like the loss of a treasured part of the past which can't be re-created. It was so beautifully written that the crowd couldn't breathe when it came to an end. This movement attests to the genius of Mr. Glass in that he can write high-tech pieces on one hand, and yet can write pieces for instruments like Native American flute on the other, and do it convincingly and authentically.



The final movement "The Land" was described by Mr. Glass in the short talk given before the performance, as a portrait of looking back at where you've been, such as if you climbed a mountain and looked back at where you started and said "I can't believe I did that". This movement flies by as well and is my favorite movement of the work, with many wonderful themes and complex passages. Incorporating a canon that overlaps themes and six variations, this movement makes for wonderfully involving listening. Mr. Glass said "it has a lot of notes", but every note has its place and the movement is actually incredibly tight and without any flab at all. It's actually remarkable in its economy. Glass said when you look back at your life, you find it to be very complex. This movement perfectly conveys that. Life is very complex and simple at the same time. This is probably one of my favorite Glass pieces that he has written in say, the last five years.



The crowd immediately gave a boisterous standing ovation which lasted at least three minutes (seemed much longer in person) and there was whooping, whistling, and bravos from the crowd's excitement of the piece. Mr. Glass joined the performers on the stage and they were called out for two extra bows. This ovation was well-deserved and the excitement in the air was palpable and authentic. You can see the genuine excitement in the crowd if you see the photo taken from the stage during the ovation which is on Paul Barnes' website (it's easier to see the crowd better if you crank up the brightness in a photo editing program).



If you haven't seen Mr. Barnes play, you owe it to yourself to make sure you attend one of his performances sometime. He is simply the best, most exciting, passionate and intense performer, who is a blast to watch, yet plays crystal clear and logically, pianist I've ever seen and I can see why Mr. Glass enjoys working with him.



The other concerto on this CD is the Harpsichord Concerto. I've listened to it several times, as the premiere performance was broadcast over the Internet and I recorded the broadcast. Of course, the sound quality on the CD is much superior.



Glass composes for the harpsichord like he has been doing it for years- Handel and Bach would be proud. The first movement is especially uplifting and beautiful. One of my favorite Glass movements- pure Glass! The other two movements are great as well.



You can't go wrong with this CD!



"

NY Times Review "Philip Glass Casts New Spells, Including On

R. Guerin | Brooklyn, NY | 11/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"BOUTIQUE labels run by composers and performers are supposed to be the hot new thing, but Philip Glass took charge of his own recordings in the early 1970s, when he began releasing his ensemble's performances on his own Chatham Square label. Mr. Glass has always been savvy about sound: his audio engineer, Kurt Munkacsi, has been a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since the early days. Both Mr. Glass and Mr. Munkacsi have overseen most of Mr. Glass's recordings, even those released by other labels. And they have usually maintained control of the master tapes.



Not long ago, Mr. Munkacsi set out to archive Mr. Glass's tape library, which includes not only the studio masters but stacks of concert recordings as well. And the archiving project led to the next logical step: Orange Mountain Music, a label through which Mr. Glass could release new recordings and reissue old ones, as well as lending his spotlight to composers and ensembles he admires, as he did on Point Music, his boutique label for Universal. Lately, the Glass factory has been spinning out recordings every few weeks, both on CD and in compilations available only through iTunes.



The gem in the most recent batch is "The Witches of Venice," a zesty children's opera-ballet, set to a libretto by Beni Montresor and packaged in a CD-size hardcover book. The piece is about a boy who was born from a magic flower and lived with the king and queen of Venice before flying off on a wooden pigeon to rescue a girl of similar provenance from a group of witches.



The work has slipped under the radar of much of Mr. Glass's adult audience, and it is surprising and uncharacteristic. Its 24 movements are brief, and Mr. Glass's energetically rhythmic, repetitive thumbprints are everywhere; but so are sound effects that point up the magical aspects of the story, and stretches of dramatic, colorful scoring that is not immediately identifiable as Mr. Glass's. Who would have thought, back in the days of "Einstein on the Beach," with its embrace of nonnarrative theater, that Mr. Glass would someday offer vivid musical portraits of witches, fairies, ogres and a magical Plant-Boy?



Many of Mr. Glass's works are about discovery, sometimes spiritual ("Akhnaten") or scientific ("The Light") but often geographical, with social underpinnings. In "The Voyage" (two CDs), written for the Metropolitan Opera in 1992, the subject is Columbus, with a parallel plot about space travelers crashing on Earth. Where "The Witches of Venice" paints pictures with music, "The Voyage," like many of Mr. Glass's full-scale operas, is a grandly ritualistic spectacle in which staging is a crucial element, with the music often simply chugging along in support.



The ideal format for many of these works is DVD. Still, Dennis Russell Davies, leading the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and soloists and chorus from the Landestheater Linz, draws a solid, sometimes weighty reading that captures the monumental qualities one heard in the Met production.



"The Concerto Project, Volume 2" includes another installment in the discovery series, the Piano Concerto No. 2, "After Lewis and Clark." This 2004 score is built on an odd hybrid of Mr. Glass's ostinatos, Lisztian thunder (supplied with deft fluidity by Paul Barnes, the pianist) and an evocation of American Indian music. Some of the Indian themes have the feel of 19th-century salon music, but they work best in an attractive central movement dominated by R. Carlos Nakai's wooden flute.



The companion work is the Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2001), a Baroque-gone-haywire score in which 18th-century figurations and ornaments morph into (and sometimes escape) Mr. Glass's signature repeating cells. Jillon Stoppels Dupree, the harpsichordist, does a superb job of moving between the two worlds. (Ralf Gothoni conducts the Northwest Chamber Orchestra in both works.)



Also not to be missed is "Analog," which includes a vividly remixed version of "North Star" (1977), one of Mr. Glass's early Virgin recordings. Unlike most of his works of the time, this film score is built of short works that develop comparatively quickly. Joining it here are "Dressed Like an Egg" (1977) and an organ solo, "Mad Rush" (1980), previously available only in a limited edition given away as a subscription bonus for the long-defunct SoHo Weekly News."

Two outstanding keyboard concertos

Russ | Richmond, VA | 12/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here we have the second volume of Orange Mountain's Philip Glass (b. 1937) "Concerto Project." If you missed the first volume of this series, featuring the Cello Concerto and the Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, you missed some outstanding music. Although I slightly prefer the two concertos on that volume, the second piano concerto and harpsichord concerto presented on this release are fantastic as well.



The second piano concerto is subtitled "After Lewis and Clark" - so called as it was commissioned for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial in 2004. I think the subject matter will only be apparent to most listeners in the second movement, which takes a form of a duet (with string accompaniment) between the piano and a Native American flute. Anyone who enjoys the energetic, yet hypnotic, qualities of Glass' work will definitely enjoy the first movement of the piano concerto with its irregular rhythmic patterns and intriguing harmonic shifts. The concerto's above mentioned central movement strikes me as a bit strange, and the timbre of the Native American flute is not always to my liking; however its inclusion ensures that Glass joins the ranks with Khachaturian of composers whose piano concertos contain bizarre second movement additions (Khachaturian included a flexatone). Things return to normal in the third movement, which begins with Glass' immediately recognizable do-da-do-da-do-da pattern. If you are not quite sure what I am talking about, listen to the song sample for the third track and you will know what I mean. Although the opening of the finale is serene in nature, the movement gradually picks up steam as arpeggiations and other instrumentalists are weaved into the texture. This movement is also notable for the incorporation of some lovely melodic fragments towards the end.



Similar to the first volume of this "project" the second concerto included on the release serves to contrast the first. The piano concerto, despite its constant soloist figurations, strikes me a mellow and reflective work. The harpsichord concerto (composed in 2002), in contrast, is mostly extraverted and is often playful. The more I listen to the first movement of this concerto, the more I love it. In this movement, the energetic harpsichord part, full of trills, intriguing filigrees and arpeggios (of course!) is contrasted against a descending harmonic motif that, despite its wistfulness, is totally endearing. The second and third movements (and I feel somewhat the same about the piano concerto) are somewhat eclipsed by the first movement, although both movements are still quite enjoyable. The second movement marked by a lovely melody and includes several charming woodwind passages. The lighthearted finale is filled with Glass' characteristic syncopations and forward momentum, although the ending strikes me as a bit sudden and leaves me wanting something more.



When describing these concertos, I think it is important to mention that neither solo part appears to be exceedingly difficult. Both parts are chocked full of "busy" figurations, but there is seldom a section that sounds tremendously tricky. In fact, the harpsichord soloist indicated she learned the part in a few days. The nature of the solo parts did not bother me, as the music was continuously interesting. But if you are looking for a virtuosic tour de force, you might be somewhat disappointed with this release.



In conclusion, Glass fans need not hesitate in purchasing this fantastic disc. If you have not acquired the first volume featuring the cello concerto and the concerto fantasy, be sure to grab that one is well. If you happen to new to the music of Glass, the concerto project series would make an excellent introduction.



Highly Recommended!



TT: 58:55



As a brief side note, if you acquired this disc and liked the second piano concerto you may also like Glass' score to "The Hours" which has a similar style. If you liked the harpsichord concerto and are curious about other such works composed in the "modern" era, I would look into acquiring a copy of Martinu's interesting harpsichord concerto."