Naxos New Releases: September 2015

Philip Morris Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer. He is considered one of the most influential music makers of the late 20th century. His music is also often controversially described as minimal music, along with the work of the other "major minimalists" La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Glass has distanced himself from the "minimalist" label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures". Though his early mature music shares much with what is normally called "minimalist", he has since evolved stylistically. Currently, he describes himself as a "classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied such composers as Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.
More: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Philip_Glass

Documentary about Philip Glass:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5FFhXp-AWx80Piw8sr4SYaX7uQwIVyA7

Playlist with videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5FFhXp-AWx9oqmeqQ6702qZeXxjXuWje


Philip Glass

modern classical

I composed this work in January of 2013 for the Mars Hill College Saxophone Quartet. The MHC Sax Quartet premiered it April 20, 2013 during the Mars Hill New Music Festival. 
The hall was in complete darkness. Each performer began playing in a different corner of the concert hall surrounding the audience.  Slowly each performer began moving to the front of the hall. When they played the last chord the lights quickly filled the hall.

Quartet for El Anatsui was inspired by the artwork of the Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui. He creates wonderful sheets of metal, wood and cloth that are hung on walls or stand alone on the floor. Each time one of his sculptures are presented at a museum they are presented differently. Which inspired me to write this piece which can be played differently at every performance.

Mars Hill College Saxophone Quartet
Alan Theisen - Alto
Andrew Jenkins - Alto
Dalton Woody - Tenor
Bradley Smith - Baritone

Quartet For El Anatsui (Open Piece No. 3)

Catalog #: SSSRCD0001
Release Date: October 16, 2006
Label: Sweetspot
Format: CD+DVD
Ensemble:: Alarm Will Sound
Notes: percussion credit (glockenspiel) 

(excerpt) Music for Mallet Instruments Voices and Organ

Metamorphosis I - Philip Glass

Performed live in Rudolph Ganz Memorial Hall at CCPA
February 16, 2014

Philip Glass - "Mad Rush"

Ten Xinjiang Dances for violin and orchestra, or A Xinjiang Musical Tour by Chinese composer Du Ming-xin (b. 1928) takes the folk songs and instrumental music widely popular in Xinjiang as its starting material and, retaining the regional characteristics of the originals, enriching its expressive power by means of variation and development, with the violin finding free scope for displaying its melodiousness and various techniques. Founded in 1979, the Singapore Symphony is led on this 1985 recording by Choo Hoey, its first appointed director and conductor, was appointed conductor.

10 Xinjiang Dances

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"Gaorita"

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

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String Quartet No. 5, Part V

Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy® Award, Christopher Rouse is one of America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music, creating a body of work perhaps unequalled in its emotional intensity. Conceived from the start as differing from a traditional piano concerto, Seeing brings together seemingly disparate elements to explore the notion of ‘sanity’ through the music of Robert Schumann and Skip Spence, swinging between extremes of consonance and dissonance, stability and instability, to create a disorientating and hallucinatory work seen through the lens of mental illness. Kabir Padavali or ‘Kabir Songbook’ presents a range of the great Indian poet’s religious concerns, from extraordinarily beautiful ecstasy to impishly humorous allegories.

 SEEING KABIR PADAVALI

Seeing

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-69) constantly sought ways to develop her style, and it is this continuous line of development that is perfectly exemplified in her series of string quartets. String Quartet No. 2 was premièred in 1943 in challenging circumstances but attests to her positive spirit. The prize-winning String Quartet No. 4 is one of her most performed works, perfectly balancing formal complexity, approachable themes and harmonic sophistication. The powerful and intense String Quartet No. 5 is a compositional tour de force.

Bacewicz: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 2 

Allegro Giocoso

Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony in F major ‘Urbs Roma’ was his prize-winning entry to a competition organized by the Bordeaux Société Ste Cécile, but the work remained unpublished in the composer’s lifetime. This early work is notable for a masterly final movement that, unusually, comprises a theme and variations. The symphonic poem La Jeunesse d’Hercule is a portrayal of the conflict between pleasure and duty, while the Danse macabre is amongst his most popular orchestral works.

Saint-Saëns: Symphony in F Major, "Urbs Romana" - La Jeunesse d'Hercule - Danse Macabre 

Molto vivace - Piu presto - Prestissimo

Philip Glass turns 75, and I’d like to share my solo piano performance of his masterpiece written about 35 years ago: the main theme from Einstein on the Beach. Our intellect refuses to accept the shocking simplicity of the Absolute. We keep searching for something "really serious" and elaborate. By playing this music today I want to say that ultimate wisdom is very simple. Happy birthday Philip!

Philip Glass: Knee 5 (from Einstein on the Beach) performed by Anton Batagov

Invention for Piano is the first piece I ever completed. This is a midi recording. One day I will work on the score again and make it a little more playable.

Invention for Piano

Mad Rush (Philip Glass)

I composed this piece in the summer of 2012. I had heard a few open instrumentation works by different composers and I felt i should give it at try.

Open Piece No. 1 was premiered by the Central Michigan University New Music Ensemble December 9, 2012 in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. 

I will post the names of each performer when I receive them.  They did a fine job.  

CMU New Music Ensemble:

Mike Romaniak - Electronics
Kevin Keith - Piano
Jennifer Blackwell - Soprano Saxophone
Jenna Veldboom - Alto Saxophone
Nathan Brown - Trombone
Melissa Bialecki - Cello
Kevin Wilson - Double Bass
David Abraham - Percussion
Steve Bott - Percussion

Open Piece No. 1 for any instruments performed by the CMU New Music Ensemble

Warner CD - Steve Reich - Different Trains - III After The War

A quick iPhone recording of one of my favorite Philip Glass compositions. Sorry for the mistakes!

Philip Glass - Opening (from Glassworks)

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String Quartet No. 5, Part V

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