Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

Orange Mountain Music presents this new limited edition 11 disc boxed set - The Symphonies by Philip Glass. This collection features conductor Dennis Russell Davies who has arranged the commission of nine of ten Glass symphonies, leading the orchestras over which he has presided during the past 15 years including the Bruckner Orchester Linz, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. This collection is the fruit of a 20 year collaboration between Glass and Davies and showcases a wide variety within this surprising body of work by Glass. Symphonies Nos. 1 Low (1992) is based on the music of David Bowie and Brian Eno and represents Glass’s first step into the history of symphonic writing. Symphony No. 4 Heroes (1996) is also based on the music of Bowie & Brian Eno and was created as a - symphonic ballet. Both are new recordings that were released individually by OMM in 2014 with the Sinfonieorchester Basel. Symphonies Nos. 2 (1994), No. 8 (2005), Symphony No. 9 (2012), and Symphony No. 10 (2012) are purely instrumental works for large orchestras. Symphony No.6 Plutonian Ode (2002) is based on Allen Ginsberg's epic poem and features soprano Lauren Flanigan. The massive Symphony No.5 - Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya (1999) is a choral symphony with an outstanding roster of soloists including Eric Owens, Denyce Graves and Ana Maria Martinez. Symphony No.7 - Toltec (2005) is a grand affair invoking the Toltec tradition of ancient Mesomerica.

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

It might be a surprise that the music of Philip Glass has generally spread farther beyond the U.S. than those of the other first-wave minimalists: Steve Reich in particular seemed more congenial to those of an avant-garde frame of mind. But the sheer innovative spirit of Glass' music, its tendency to define its own sound worlds, seems to have carried it confidently into its second half-century, and Glass champion Dennis Russell Davies, now conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, has had little trouble turning it into an ensemble versed in Glass' ways. The Symphony No. 1 ("Low") is so called because it is based on David Bowie's album of the same name; the British composer and producer Brian Eno had a hand in the album and is also credited in the subtitle of Glass' work. (The second movement, "Some Are," is not a track from the original Bowie album but was recorded at the same time and eventually issued as a bonus track; Bowie later incorporated this movement in turn on the album All Saints) This was Glass' first symphony, and it's almost as if using popular tunes, albeit rather minimalist ones, allowed him to make the leap to full-scale orchestral dimensions; it stretched his musical language slightly. In so doing, the work built bridges between the popular and concert spheres that by now are commonplace, but were not so in 1992, when the piece was composed. This is only the second recording of the Symphony No. 1. The first was also conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, but this version, under the supervision of Glass' own Orange Mountain Music label, is closer to the state of the art. Recommended for Glass fans.

James Manheim, Allmusic.com

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

Much of Philip Glass' music is marked by a sort of insistent, repetitive, rhythmic momentum which can become hypnotic. In Glass' Symphony No. 2 (1994), the composer weaves together lengthy threads of simple substrate and brief fragments of contrasting melodic lines, constructing a work that is at once simple and complex. The composer's own notes regarding the work indicate that its ambiguity is purposeful; that is, it is a polytonal construct in which emphasis, and therefore the aural effect, is actually dependent upon how the listener hears the work. Glass likens this to the manner in which an optical illusion can seem to be different things as the viewer simply wills it to be.

Constructed In three movements of about forty-five minutes' total duration, the Second Symphony is built from blocks of conventional chords and steady rhythms. Glass effects chromatic complexity through the use of successive modulations, generally varying by a tone or half-tone around a fundamental key. All three movements contain variations on Glass' most commonly employed device, a repetitive minor third undercurrent supporting musical statements of great simplicity and the occasional eerie, plaintive melody. Although the mood changes throughout the course of the work, the rhythmic drive remains, and the overall effect is that of building the same structure over and over from different materials. The final movement begins on a more dissonant and animated level but retains the rhythmic insistence and block-like structure of its predecessors.

The Second Symphony is important in Glass' output as a rare example of the composer's use of a traditional abstract form. At the same time, the Symphony reveals a close stylistic affinity with Glass' program music, most notably the evocative score to the 1981 film Koyaanisqatsi.

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

During the 1980s, Philip Glass became well known for frequently traversing the borders between high and low art, popular and classical music. He collaborated with artists such as David Byrne and Suzanne Vega and even did a couple of celebrity product endorsements. In the 1990s, however, Glass seemed to have made a serious effort to establish himself more firmly in the classical music canon, as reflected in the series of symphonies undertaken between 1992 and the end of the century. However, there is still a bifurcated quality to these works; two of the symphonies are based on songs by David Bowie and Brian Eno and were originally released on the genre-bending Point Music label, while the others were released with much less commercial splash by Nonesuch. Among these more conservative, "non-crossover" works, the Symphony No. 3 is perhaps the most restrained and classical in its form, character, and color.

Composed in 1995, the work is cast in four movements and scored for a small string orchestra (originally, the 19 strings of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra), and reflects Glass' attempt to synthesize and temper the austerity of his early minimalist ideals into a more lyrical and emotionally compelling style. The ponderous first movement, with its uneasy stepwise alterations in the plodding bass tones and pulsing string figurations, serves as a prelude to the lively second movement. Here, Glass subjects angular, restless melodies to gradual harmonic adornment, expanding from a nimble unison line into complex polyphony. This harmonic process is propelled forward by incisive rhythms and constant metric twists. The third movement begins with the quintessential Glass string texture: arpeggiated minor triads in the lower strings with a simple, syncopated melody in the middle register. This familiar texture, however, clothes a centuries-old form: the chaconne. (Of course, one could say Glass has long been writing chaconnes without calling them such, since the term simply implies variations on a repeating harmonic progression.) Glass adds layers of figuration or melody to the orchestral texture with each iteration of the repeating chord scheme, so that by the end of the movement it seems that virtually everyone in the ensemble follows a distinct line within a complex, polyphonic web. The symphony ends with a driving, syncopated finale that revisits the second movement's energy with even more harmonic unpredictability and rhythmic vigor.

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

The transgression of the boundary between high art and low art, classical and pop music, is a theme that seems to have recurred in virtually every generation of composers from Mahler to the minimalists. No other artist working at the turn of the turn of the twenty first century embodies this tendency more than Philip Glass, the former student of Vincent Persichetti and Nadia Boulanger who helped turn early minimalism's experimentalist austerity into a pop culture commodity. And no other works better represent his overt attempts at stylistic border crossing than his orchestral collaborations with pop stars David Bowie and Brian Eno – including the work under consideration here, Glass' Symphony No. 4 "Heroes." In retrospect, a crossover between these two musical realms would seem natural, since the original Bowie/Eno projects that inspired Glass' symphonic adaptations were themselves borne of a certain highbrow/lowbrow tension. Bowie, the rock star, and Eno, the rock music producer who occasionally moonlighted as a minimalist composer (or, arguably, vice versa), spent substantial time during the late '70s in Berlin recording a series of ostensibly rock-oriented projects with artsy aspirations. These included three albums, Low, Heroes, and Lodger. As Glass later explained, in these albums Bowie and Eno "used techniques similar to procedures used by composers working in new and experimental music. As such, was widely appreciated by musicians working both in the field of pop music and in experimental music." Likewise, Bowie acknowledge the influence of Glass' early works, which he and Eno had both heard in concert earlier in the decade. This influence proved reciprocal, as later in 1993, Glass borrowed three songs from Low for his "Low" symphony, and, after two more intervening symphonies, began adapting several tunes from the Heroes album for his own "Heroes" symphony in 1996. Upon mentioning his work-in-progress to Twyla Tharpe, the famous choreographer expressed interest in using the score as the basis for an extended dance piece. The resulting work is cast in six movements approaching 45 minutes in length. Glass adapts the melodies from the Bowie/Eno album rather freely, as in the opening movement, "Heroes," which retains the general harmonic contour of the original song, but fills it with Glass' characteristically busy arpeggiation and colorful orchestrations. Often, the result sounds much more traditional than either Glass or Bowie/Eno; the mysterious modal harmonies and odd meters of the second movement, "Abdulmajid," accentuated by castanets, recall the exoticist fascinations of Saint-Saëns or a contemporary. Occasionally, Glass leans toward the melodramatic, as in the heavy-handed chromatic descents in "Sense of Doubt," or the pensive angst of "V2 Schneider," leading some critics to hear the works as camp rather than crossover. Ironically, though, others hear emerging from Glass' orchestral deliberations on Bowie and Eno's rather lyrical melodies a sound more aligned with the lush neo-Romanticism of Elgar or Delius. By crossing over to the world of pop music, Glass actually takes a step in the direction of his classical training.

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

By and large, minimalism is in steep decline, but every now and then something comes along to give fans of the style hope. This is the case with Philip Glass’ brilliant Symphony No. 5 “Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya”. This mammoth two-CD work is more of a symphonic cantata than an actual symphony and is similar in design to Shostakovich’s dark Symphony No. 14. While the Shostakovich is a meditation on death, Glass’ symphony is a 12-movement storytelling of the whole of creation from beginning to end, as written in just about every holy book, poem, or epic fable that the world has known. Segments come from the Koran, the Bible, the Popul Voh (Mayan), the Rig Veda, the Hawaiian Kumulipo, and Zuni myths, as well as from Japanese and Chinese sources. All are sung in English. The texts themselves come printed on individual folding cards that also have some of the text written in the original calligraphy. The packaging is quite original, if somewhat bulky.

As for the performance values, the studio ambience is quite warm and all components (choir, soloists, orchestra) are judiciously miked. (But why are the God parts or even those of Death always sung by males? Where is political correctness when you need it?) Still, all of Glass’ familiar rising and falling filigrees are here, even if much of the music itself sounds like notes from Koyaanisqatsi or The “Low” Symphony. That aside, this may very well be Glass’ masterpiece. It certainly accomplishes what Steve Reich failed to do in his abysmal symphonic cantata, The Cave. The music here is captivating and the texts are lovingly sung by all involved. And while we may have heard elements of this music before, here it all seems fresh, vibrant, and vital.

ClassicsToday

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

By some way Philip Glass’s most powerful concert work, Plutonian Ode, sets a scathing anti-nuclear poem by Allen Ginsberg. Glass meant to compose an accompanied recitation, following their earlier collaboration Hydrogen Jukebox, but Ginsberg died before it could happen. The symphonic solution came about when Dennis Russell Davies wanted a new piece to mark Glass’s 65th birthday in 2002. It brings together Glass’s theatre and instrumental styles in two near-operatic scenas and a massive slow ritual march. An initially dark tonal palette, rich in horns and lower strings, generates latent energy that bursts out in despairing, idyllic and grotesque developments. When the soprano’s declamations ride over it – as here with eloquence and the necessary stamina – they seem to urge the music on, and indeed the biggest moments are for orchestra alone. They culminate in the grandeur of the final variations, which rise from an oscillating line to repeated sequences all the more devastating for their simplicity, especially so in this intense, committed performance. The second disc overdubs a recording of the poet declaiming his text – understandable given the work’s genesis, though with mixed results: rather than fade down the singer it would surely be better to omit her. Either way, the music demands hearing. It will change received views.

Robert Maycock, Allmusic.com

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

Philip Glass wrote his Seventh Symphony, "Toltec," in 2008, in response to a request for a piece to honor Leonard Slatkin. Glass was inspired by the work of Mexican writer Victor Sanchez exploring the culture of the Toltecs, one of the most significant pre-Hispanic civilizations of Middle America. Glass' three-movement, 35-minute score has an elemental feel, and in some ways resembles the sections of Koyaanisqatsi that dealt with Native American traditions. The program behind each of the movements concerns the inescapable link between nature and human stewardship of it, a recurring theme in Glass' work. The first movement is purely instrumental, the second makes significant use of a wordless chorus, and the third uses a chorus at its conclusion. The first movement is especially effective in the variety of motivic material Glass brings in, and in its tonal and textural contrasts. The most memorable movement is the second, which has a propulsive rhythmic momentum, and where the use of the chorus adds an insistent urgency. The final movement is generally slower and more contemplative, and while it builds to a large climax, the lack of diversity in its musical material keeps it from having the kind of visceral power Glass probably had in mind. Dennis Russell Davies, a longtime advocate of Glass' music, leads the Bruckner Orchester Linz and the Linz Opera Chorus in a precise and committed reading of the score, but the impact of the whole is diminished by the anticlimactic third movement, which doesn't have the passion that characterizes Glass at his best. The sound is clean and present, with good balance.

Stephen Eddins, Allmusic.com

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

BAM! It's probably not the way you'd expect the Eighth Symphony from a composer often associated with altered, hypnotic states to begin. Glass' style has evolved significantly, though – especially over the last few years. Speaking about his recent commission from the Bruckner Orchester Linz, Glass states, in his own liner notes, that the "the subject of the work is the language of music itself."

Glass, whether you love him or hate him, more than any other has a style that is not only easy to identify but completely unto his own. Compared to his early works, there is an abundance of thematic ideas and dramatic shifts of contour that permeate the dark palette of Glass' creation. There is still a flow that listeners familiar to the music will recognize as classic Glass, but there are more surprises – more jolts, more twists and turns, and more harmonic adventure. There is a melancholic element here, too, in a way that is reminiscent of his film scores for The Hours and The Secret Agent.

After the initial shock, the first movement continues with some of Glass' traditional, pulsating three against two figures. The orchestration is somewhat different, though; haunting writing for the brass toward the end is superimposed over extensive use of percussion, in a way that is not altogether unlike Bartók's orchestral writing in the Concerto for Orchestra. In fact, the second movement begins with a pulsating figure strikingly similar to the ominous opening of the "Elegy" of Bartók's masterpiece. Further ironic, then, that this movement also bears some homage to Shostakovich; a passage scored for flute and harp is hauntingly similar to a passage found in the coda of the first movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony (although in Shostakovich's case, he uses the celesta instead). All things said, it works – this fusion of styles, from twentieth century masters to the Eastern influence so prominent in Glass, combines to craft a work that is ultimately convincing and moving – especially that eerie second at the end of the final movement.

This recording takes advantage of Dennis Russell Davies' long-standing relationship with the composer, a charming photographic memento of which is featured on the album cover. The Bruckner Orchester Linz is excellent; the woodwinds perform Glass' more virtuosic moments with seeming ease, and the lush string harmony that Glass writes here certainly benefits from the warmth and resonance of all of those five string double basses pictured. The clear sound quality helps to make for a satisfying listen. A must-have for Glass fans and a good disc for skeptics to reconsider this oft-marginalized composers work.

Ryan Hill, Allmusic.com

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

Glass came to the symphony late. His first, the Low Symphony, was premiered in 1992 when Glass was 45. He has since continued to address this historically-loaded form and has now crashed the barrier of superstition around writing a Ninth Symphony: his Tenth was premiered this August in Aix-en-Provence.

The piece is full of Glass’s usual stylistic elements: undulating patterns, stabbing chords, laid-back melodies over edgy rhythms, sudden bustling interruptions from brass, woodwind and percussion; but overall there is a stately, lyrical feel. Glass says he thinks of it as being close to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, insofar as it begins and ends very quietly. The performance is sympathetic and excellent, as you might expect given that Dennis Russell Davies commissioned eight of the ten symphonies and premiered most of them.

Barry Witherden, BBC Music Magazine

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close

The general line on Philip Glass' later music is that he modified the strict minimalism of his earlier compositions in the direction of traditional tonality. This is true enough as far as it goes, but with many pieces it's necessary to understand something more specific in order to get their appeal: Glass over the years has perfected a repertoire of devices that suggest rather than imitate rhetorical devices of Romantic orchestral music of various kinds. This has contributed in large part to his continuing popularity, and it's well exemplified by this recording of the Symphony No. 10, conducted by Glass' champion Dennis Russell Davies, played with suitable energy by the Bruckner Orchester Linz, and nicely recorded as usual by Glass' Orange Mountain Music engineers in Austria. The symphony started life as a work (the last one, apparently) written for the composer's own ensemble, to be performed at a fireworks display in Zaragoza, Spain, in 2008; it was later orchestrated. Its five movements thus have propulsive quality in common with various festive works of the 19th century, and it's capped at the end by a 2012 Concert Overture in the same vein. It's a great deal of fun, but Glass is really not writing neo-Romantic music: the structures have the same rigor they ever did, but are simply ornamented with things that sound familiar. With the big, upbeat quality of the music, this is a good place to start with late Glass.

James Manheim, Allmusic.com

×

Dennis Russell Davies - Philip Glass: Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (2016) 11 CD Box Set

Close