Tags
Classical music review, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Marin Alsop, Minimalism, Philip Glass, Robert McDuffie, The American Four Seasons
Shimmers, soaring violin, and addictive brilliance
Philip Glass I know is somewhat of a ‘Marmite composer’ – even among his fans (of whom I am one) and this particular piece of work appears to be even more Marmiteish than most.
Some regretted the early Glass turning away from much more avant-garde work, following instead a combination of minimalism and extreme romanticism, finding him become too accessible perhaps, or too formulaic, as the rushes and the glittery shimmers and repetitions he is known for, plus his lyricism, has meant he has often been the background to film, TV and commercial, with snippets of works getting regular airings.
Personally, I find his trademarks work for me well, and have only once felt he was running a little on empty and plagiarising himself – his 2011 opera The Perfect American – but that is possibly because I can’t imagine anything from Glass, in operatic form, can match Satyagraha, where the subject matter (Gandhi) met the elevation of the music. The Perfect American portrayed Disney, a darker, less elevated individual than others (Einstein, Gandhi, Akhnaten) who have been a useful fit for Glass, a Buddhist, in his operas
This particular piece was written for the American violinist Robert McDuffie in 2009 and is referred to as ‘The American Four Seasons. McDuffie had been interested in a piece which would serve as a ‘companion’ to Vivaldi’s popular work, but it was not, as far as I understand, composed as any kind of variation on Vivaldi – it was merely a work in four movements.
McDuffie did connect it more to the Vivaldi piece. Glass created a set of four solo pieces for the violin (specifically for McDuffie) to stand in place of violinist cadenzas within pieces. Each ‘solo’ now precedes one of the four orchestral movements
The order in which each movement and solo is to be played is then left to the individual soloist and conductor. That is, the interpreters decide which piece belongs to which season, and, indeed the order in which the ‘year of seasons’ should start.
Personally I found that part of Glass’s explanation – handing control to the players, or, in these days of playlists, to the listener to programme and change a playing order as they choose, a bit spurious. I chose to buy the CD for a better quality of sound than a squashed MP3. And so unless I want to be fiddling around with the remote out of some desire to play mindgames, listen from start to finish. Curiously, I’m not even particularly ‘bovvered’ to want to play guessing games over seasons. I am content with this as a wonderful piece of music. And will continue to eat spoonfulls of this musical Marmite with enormous enjoyment, again and again
Marin Alsop conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in this recording, from the European première of the piece at the Royal Festival Hall in 2010.
Meanwhile………apologies, it was a blogger who alerted me to this recording, and I didn’t note down who you were before rushing off to buy it, more than a month ago. I can’t find who you are from any tag search – if you read this, please leave me a comment, and I can embed a link to your original post which included this, but wasn’t specifically ABOUT the piece
Discovered! It was, of course, Victoria Addis’ fabulously absorbing, wonderfully analytical blog A Hermit’s Progress I have been happily spending time on that blog, and the link will take you to a veritable cornucopia of wonderful musical delights, in a rare musical blog post on her site – she is normally writing (and speaking) equally engagingly about literature
Philip Glass -Violin Concerto No. 2 Amazon UK
Philip Glass -Violin Concerto No. 2 Amazon USA
Lady Fancifull 
Brilliant review as always and – are you sitting down? – I rather like that piece of music! I think that’s the first time I’ve said that about Glass. Not sure how I’d get on with a whole CD’s worth, though. I shall investigate youtube…
I had to immediately move from sitting to a full lie down in order to avoid fainting. Brilliant! Of course, with the whole ‘ order it as you like’ instructions from the composer it does also suggest this could be listened to as a single prologue and season, so you could get the album and listen to a season in isolation if you don’t want to go through an entire year at a sitting.
I shall have some Arvo Part coming up in due course. What are my chances?
Haha! Don’t push your luck, madam… 😉
Hooray! I love this piece! And I love that as a listener you get to dictate your own preference for the seasons (which is nothing to do with me being a power hungry control-freak at all…ahem ;P).
Brilliant! Soon as I saw your comment I remembered it was YOU! Have done a pingback, and will RE ‘like’ your post so it appears in my sidebar again – I discovered you can UN like, and then RE like for this to happen.
And incidentally – I’ve recently finished another recc of yours, Tim Parks The Novel, – so thanks for the alert on that one. I’m reeling with delight and will ‘ping’ when I post. I’ve somehow managed to finish 4 books and now have 4 reviews to construct before I dare proceed further with nose-in-a-book. As 3 of them are Vines, I dare delay no longer.
Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the Parks, or that it was at least thought-provoking, and I’m really looking forward to your review — though it sounds like you’ve got a lot of writing to do! I’m always astounded by how many reviews you manage to put out, especially when they’re all of such high quality.
Thank you! I found the Parks made me almost incoherent with delight! Not to mention unstoppably long- winded.
Haha fantastic! I will settle in with a cup of tea for that review then!
And thank you so much for the kind words– it’s made very happy on a day when I’m in bed with a cold!
Hope you feel better soon and that you can take good advantage of ‘comfort reading’ opportunities!
So does this mean that winter can follow spring while summer may come on the heels of fall? 😀 I’m not sure I like giving that much control to the listener.
As much as I did enjoy this excerpt, I wouldn’t—ah, fiddle—with the order.
Tee hee I think it’s more that it’s left to the listener or, more realistically, the performer, to decide which movement if which season. Apparently McDuffie and Glass had a difference of opinion on that one, hence a kind of ‘ whatever’. I envisage Robert shaking his bow at Philip, and saying ‘ That phrase, my friend, was a field of jocund daffodils,’whilst Philip stabs his pen crossly around a clef sign, and mutters, ‘conkers, they were conkers you wretched fiddler’. ‘Why can’t you play the phrase hard and knobbly instead of going all soft and petally on it?’.
Robert pokes Philip none too gently in the gut with his bow and says ‘ My piece, now, Maestro musical scribbler. Conkers indeed!’
Brilliant! Add a few fiddle-leaf figs or fiddle-head ferns to the mix and you’ve got a cacophony of opinions, each insisting that their way of doing things is the right one.