Glass: The Light / Symphony No. 4, 'Heroes'
$25.00
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PHILIP GLASS
Glass: The Light / Symphony No. 4, 'Heroes'
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop
[ Naxos American Classics / CD ]
Release Date: Thursday 1 March 2007
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
Although he remains best known for the works he wrote for his own ensemble, orchestral music has been at the forefront of Philip Glass' activities for much of the last two decades.
"…Alsop provides a blend of warmth and energy that particularly suits Glass's lyrical side and his constantly shifting rhythms." (BBC Music)
"What a long way Philip Glass has come between composing The Light in 1987 and the Heroes Symphony in 1996. The former is inspired by Einstein's discovery of the 'uniform speed of light' and is an undulating, minimalist piece, with changing orchestration eventually leading to a 'transformation' of the initial motive and a final cessation of the pulsing. It lasts for 24 minutes and some listeners may find it difficult to stay the course. The Heroes Symphony, however, has six movements (chosen from ten) to make a varied but fairly cohesive structural whole with attractive and changing invention and imaginative scoring and percussive detail to match the character of the six named sections. Glass moves from Arabic exoticism to the plangent brass darkness of the Sense of Doubt, wistful woodwind writing for Sons of the Silent Age and an animated close for the enigmatically named V2 Schneider. The result is hardly a masterpiece, but is undoubtedly entertaining in Marin Alsop's persuasive performance, excellently played by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and very well recorded." (Penguin Guide)
