Title : Philip Glass: Glassworks
Author : Glass, Philip
Release Date : 19901025
Binding : Audio CD
Regular Price : $9.98
Amazon.com Price : $8.67
(13
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Editorial Reviews : Glassworks remains Philip Glass's bestseller from the middle period of his career, the recording by means of which many listeners familiarized themselves with his music. Conceived as a thematically whole instrumental studio album taking advantage of the promotional and marketing capabilities of what was then Glass's new major label (CBS, now Sony Classical) and targeted at consumers intrigued with his newfound notoriety, Glassworks features six parts (three per side on the original LP and cassette), alternately meditative and frenetic, that have since broken free and developed lives of their own. The most frequently rearranged and recorded part, 'Facades,' is an outtake from the score to Godfrey Reggio's film Koyaanisqatsi, which before editing had spent more time panning across the flat modernist surfaces of New York City skyscrapers, imparting a sense of alienation and despondency. Glass frequently performs the first part, 'Opening,' in solo piano recitals. When his ensemble performs the second part, 'Floe,' in concert, he adds a female voice where, in the recording, the horns perform the Sibelian accompaniment of stately rising and falling crotchets. Throughout, Glass popularizes his earlier idiom of relative rhythmic and harmonic stasis by enriching the instrumentation as well as modulating quickly and even--as in the case of 'Rubric'--at a vertiginous pace.
This album was one of the first by a contemporary composer to be recorded digitally, and it has held up remarkably well since 1982 despite the slight harshness and hiss. (CBS remixed the cassette version to satisfy users of portable stereos--back then a fairly new technology.) Fans of Glass will have added this title to their collections long ago, but if you're new to the composer's tonal, reiterative music, Glassworks is still as good a place to start as any. --Robert Burns Neveldine
Buyer Reviews : This album is a collection of shorter pieces for Glass's ensemble of the period (early 1980s, in this case), and as such, it isn't exactly in the form of what Glass was doing at the time...which was his expansive operatic works, notably 'Akhenaten' and 'Satyagraha'. But even with the atypical forms used here, this is a shining showcase, and perhaps one of the best introductions for new listeners to Glass's work, as well as to minimalism in general. The pieces range from the terse yet tranquil feel of 'Facades', to the introspective feel of 'Opening', to the swirling, trance-driven 'Rubrik'. For a similar album, check the rougher-hewn but just as essential 'North Star', which is the work that got Glass in the door as far as mainstream labels are concerned (it was originally released, as was 'Music in 12 Parts', on Virgin).
