Philip Glass’ Fifth String Quartet is the most substantial of his five quartets and the most traditional, using formal structures and expressive contrasts that go far beyond minimalism. While maintaining Glass’ unmistakable personal style, this is a quartet that delivers both driving energy and an unforgettable, threnody-like tenderness. Glass chose a string quartet for his score to the film Dracula to ‘evoke the feeling of the world of the 19th c.’, the music underpinning the film’s visual drama while avoiding obvious ‘horror’ effects. The String Sextet is an arrangement of Glass’s Third Symphony (Naxos 8.559202), combining symphonic scale with the intimacy synonymous with the chamber music genre. 

Glass: String Quartet No. 5 - Dracula - String Sextet

Buy on Amazon

String Quartet No. 5, Part V

Specializing in state-of-the-art distribution, marketing and promotion, Naxos of America distributes nearly 32,000 SKUs to traditional brick and mortar retail, as well as offering a comprehensive suite of services tailored to consumer direct fulfillment. Naxos of America is also the largest digital distributor of independent classical music, supplying a catalog of over 30,000 albums to hundreds of digital download and mobile outlets worldwide. Naxos of America offers marketing, e-marketing, publicity, e-publicity, physical and digital e-commerce services, licensing opportunities, streaming services, sales and customer service for all new releases and active catalog titles of Naxos Records and more than 150 distributed labels.

String Quartet No. 5, Part V

NaxosUSA