Philip Glass – Violin Concerto No. 2 “The American Four Seasons”

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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

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John Adams – Harmonielehre

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CBSO, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Classical music, Classical music review, Harmonielehre, John Adams, Minimalism, Sir Simon Rattle

A razzle-dazzle Rattle-Battle!

A youngish Simon Rattle recorded this thrilling version of John Adams equally thrilling Harmonielehre in 1993, (and it was released in 1994) well in the middle of his tenure with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and it is a stunning, exhilarating ride.

My EMI classics version comes with disc notes which made my eyes and brain spin, , full of references to how Adams’ piece nods to Schoenberg’s writing on harmony, and tracing the Minimalist movement in the States, but these were not notes which spoke particularly to me.

I first heard this piece in a concert devoted to ‘minimalists’ and though I’d gone for pieces by two of my favourites, Part and Glass, this was the piece that sang out to me.

What did make sense to me (both in the notes for that concert, and the liner notes here) is that the initial inspiration came from a dream which Adams had had, of a huge tanker rising out from the San Francisco Bay and taking flight.

The terror and the shock and the glory of this is there in the explosive beginning. I remember the first time I heard it, like some sort of rollercoaster punch to the gut, nearly lifting me out of my seat. There is so much beauty in the frequently returned to power of this waking kraken, roaring out of the deep. Perhaps the surprise of the piece though is the delicacy and grace, a musical line also arises and is sweet, flowing, lyrical. The arch of musical line and the brute force of pulse, shimmer, repetition and development, the little threads of change which I find so exciting in minimalism, seem to tussle, tangle and weave with each other. It’s like a dialogue between grace and power, powerful grace, graceful power.

(if you stay with the Youtube, it will automatically spool on to continue playing this piece, cut into the sections Youtube uploads generally seem to arrive in)

The second movement surrenders its opening completely to an expressive, expansive, unwinding, like coming free from gravitational pull. And curiously reminded me of the dreamy languor of Debussy, particularly L’Apres Midi d’un faun. But just when it seemed safe to drift dreamwards, Adams begins to wind everything up, and there’s another kind of dialogue between dynamic tension, forward propulsion and the slow unwinding. I found this marvellous to listen to ‘in my body’, like some kind of sympathetic nervous system/parasympathetic nervous system juxtaposition – heart speeds, heart slows, heart speeds, heart slows.

And then there is the third movement. Oh my. All shimmer, geometric, like light on the surface of water on a lake, with a running breeze creating an extraordinary visual effect. This movement seemed, at times, quite Glasslike, his kind of hypnotic bright shimmers, lulling and rocking the listener, and firing them up, little jolts of change of rhythm and musical line. And finally, power, energy as that tanker pulls out to the stars

A wonderful piece, both playful and sombre, filled with sunlight and crackling with thunder and electrical storm.

           John Adams

The additional pieces on this CD are the mischievous ‘The Chairman Dances’, taking some music from Adams opera Nixon In China. It is subtitled ‘A Foxtrot for the Orchestra’ and, yes, the listener rather wants to cavort and twirl! And it is happy/silly, like some of the early Penguin Café Orchestra – particularly, Telephone and Rubber Band, all wrapped up in a centre of dance orchestra stateliness.

The CD is completed by two fanfares, the first, Tromba Lantana is almost melancholic, introspective, and then the final, titled ‘Short Ride In A Fast Machine’ is precisely that, another shot of high energy octane, a big shout of fun and celebration

This marvellous CD – both the execution of the pieces, and the programme itself, is a wonderful celebration/showcase of a composer who is so much more than merely a minimalist party liner.

Rattle having fun with the Berlin Philharmonic

The version I have is the 2007 re-release of the original 1994. I’ve included both links to the UK site, it is only the cover which differs (and, for all I know, the liner notes) It is also available as an mp3 download, and the usual ‘snippets available’ for 30 second appraisal.

There seem to be limited copies, and slightly different pricing, on the physical discs. The Stateside site, more sensibly, merges the two rather than confusedly having two listings

Harmonielehre John Adams/Simon Rattle/CBSO 1994 Amazon UK
Harmonielehre John Adams/Simon Rattle/CBSO 2007 Amazon UK
Harmonielehre John Adams/Simon Rattle/CBSO Amazon USA

Steve Reich – Different Trains – Smith Quartet

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Classical music review, Different Trains, Minimalism, Reich - Duet, Reich - Triple Quartet, Smith Quartet, Steve Reich

Beauty and Terror

This is a difficult album to sit with – because of the title piece, Different Trains, which is of course a famous piece of modern music which contains the dreadful weight of our twentieth century history within it. ‘Inspired’ by an awareness of the musical and rhythmic possibilities of the sound of trains, Reich wove these train sounds, together with recorded speech, and strong music, into a 3 movement piece, America before the war, Europe During the war years, Europe after the war. The dark despair of certain train journeys in Europe is overwhelming in this piece, their destinations underscored by the voices of camp survivors woven into the last 2 movements. A horrific, horrifying piece. It IS a piece of music, but one which I find it impossible to relate to in terms of musical interpretation. It is a piece which had to be written, given events, but should NEVER have had to be written, at least the last 2 movements, hence the unbearableness of this piece.

I am grateful for the ordering of the pieces in this. I have a version Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint with Pat Methany, and have to say I cannot listen to anything after Different Trains itself, as I am too overwhelmed. It seems equally impossible, disrespectful, to ignore DT and just play Electric Counterpoint.

On this disc, I can come to DT after the experience of the very very beautiful Triple Quartet, and Duet. Music which is edgy, driving, containing that sense of movement and journey – indeed, it hints, inexorably at the Different Trains which darkly await, but I can be moved by the strange beauty of the dissonance of these cross rhythms, arising lyrical lines which weave through close, jarring harmonic. ‘Triple Quartet’ is so called because the quartet either accompanies itself, having prerecorded, twice, itself playing the music, if it happens ‘live’ or has 3 quartets playing together. Triple Quartet Duet – duetting violins and doubled viola and cello duets is lyrical, sweet, and warm, dedicated by Reich to, and inspired by, Yehudi Menuhin for his humanitarian works

I have recently discovered the Smith Quartet. I am enamoured.

Tracks are: Triple Quartet;Duet:Different Trains
Steve Reich – Different Trains – Smith Quartet Amazon UK
Steve Reich – Different Trains – Smith Quartet Amazon USA

Philip Glass – Smith Quartet

Tags

Classical music, Minimalism, Music review, Philip Glass, Smith Quartet

Ravished by Smiths’ Glass Works!,

I love Philip Glass’ music like I love the air I breathe. I have had the Kronos Quartet CD for these pieces for some time, which does not include the first quartet – the most unsettling in many ways, the most dissonent.

I recently went to a concert where the Smith Quartet – whom I was unfamiliar with, played all 5 of the Quartets (Glass has written 8, but i believe he withdrew 3 of them as not being works he is satisfied with, so are not available on disc or mp3)

Any half way decent live concert will of course hold much more than a recording – the intensity of collective experience, what happens when musicians, music, audience connect and the energy, focus and presence of all continuously build the experience. That concert was extraordinary. Glass’ music often feels as if inhabits my body, I feel it, like breath, like blood, within bone, transformational. Indeed, at that concert, strangers turned to us in the interval, overwhelmed, as we were, saying words like ‘transforming, spiritual, beyond description’

This 5 years old recording cannot of course equal the live event, but it certainly points the way to it. There is a great intensity, passion, inhabiting of the music in the Smiths’ playing, so i find it hard in some ways to sit still with this, the spiralling, dynamic quality of the music as it coils and uncoils, expands and condenses within this listener’s body. Salute, Smiths!

I am now busily investigating what else the Smiths have recorded – Different Trains and am looking forward to hearing how this compares to the version I already have Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint

Smith Quartet – Philip Glass