Glass, P: Wichita Vortex Sutra

A new compilation of the music for piano solo by Philip Glass, icon of minimalism.

In his piano music, Glass presents structures of repeated patterns which slowly and gradually, seemingly unconsciously, change in rhythm, speed or form, creating a fascinating sound landscape of slowly shifting colours and patterns.

Dutch pianist Jeroen van Veen is a champion of the minimalist piano school. His earlier set of minimalist piano works (BC 9171) has won rave reviews in the international press: “The leading exponent of minimalism (Fanfare)”, “10/10” performance/recording, Classicstoday.

Accepted onto the early admissions programme of the University of Chicago, Philip Glass graduated aged just nineteen with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, practising the piano in his spare time. Subsequently studying at the Juilliard School, Glass’s name has since become synonymous with the minimalist style. His film compositions have earned him a Golden Globe as well as three Academy Award nominations. This selection of pieces showcases Glass’s music for solo piano, with each of the works baring the hallmarks of minimalism. Among the pieces featured in the collection is Metamorphosis, a set of five variations that evolve over the course of the entire work to create a stirring final movement. Also present are extracts from the soundtrack of Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours, as well as ‘Truman Sleeps’ from The Truman Show (which earned Glass a Golden Globe award for ‘Best Original Score’).

The collection ends with the ‘Trilogy’ Sonata, containing piano transcriptions of Glass’s three ‘portrait’ operas: Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten. Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen Van Veen studied at the Utrecht Conservatory and has played with many orchestras throughout Europe and the USA, under renowned conductors such as Howard Williams, Peter Eötvös and Robert Craft. An accomplished recitalist, van Veen has also appeared at festivals including the Reder Piano Festival and the Festival der Kunsten (Bad Gleichenberg). His compositional style is closely related to minimalism, and contains elements of jazz, blues and pop music.

“Philip Glass is surely the world’s best-known living serious composer. His is a readily identifiable, if ever controversial, style that is both imitated and parodied the world over. He is familiar to pop audiences, crossover audiences, new music audiences, opera audiences and increasingly to chamber music audiences and symphony goers,” (Gramophone)

To celebrate Glass’ 75th birthday on January 31, 2012, Sony Classical offers The Essential Philip Glass, a three disc overview of the composer’s prolific output that led to his rise as a cultural icon from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. It encompasses generous selections from the three seminal “Portrait Operas” (Einstein On The Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten) that established Glass as a serious, innovative classical composer, dance scores for Twyla Tharp (In the Upper Room) and Jerome Robbins (Songs from Liquid Days), theater works (The Photographer), plus music for solo piano and collaborations with artists as wide-ranging as Suzanne Vega, Linda Ronstadt, the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma.

Born in Baltimore on January 31st 1937, Glass began to develop his signature style while working in experimental theater and as musical director alongside Ravi Shankar for the film Chappaqua. He formed The Philip Glass Ensemble in 1971, whose blend of electronic keyboards, reed instruments and female voices resulted in a unique, and energetic sound world, heard at its driving, hard-hitting early peak in the Einstein On The Beach excerpts recorded in 1979.

In addition to eight Grammy Award nominations, Glass’ numerous film scores have significantly contributed to the genre’s development, earning him three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score. His score to The Truman Show (1999) won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and he also won the National Endowment for the Arts’ Opera Honors Award in 2010. Philip Glass is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

This unusual collection is dedicated to a very popular style: minimalist music. The style has evolved from austere, almost strict repetition to a more varied and free approach to material and technique.

The set includes works for solo piano by most of the famous ‘minimalist’ composers covering three generations from Cage, through Riley and Glass to Adams and Nyman.