MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Philip GLASS (b. 1937)
The Concerto Project, Vol. II
Piano Concerto No. 2 “After Lewis and Clark” (2004) [35:36]
Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2002) [23:17]
Paul Barnes (piano)
R. Carlos Nakai (Native American flute)
Jillon Stoppels Dupree (harpsichord)
Northwest Chamber Orchestra/Ralf Gothóni
rec. Bastyr University Chapel, Kenmore, Washington, USA, September 2005.
ORANGE MOUNTAIN MUSIC OMM0030 [58:53]
Experience Classicsonline

Of contemporary American composers, Philip Glass may well be the best represented on disc. Naxos has begun building a library of his orchestral music. Then there is Orange Mountain Music, purveyors of the recording under review, who have as their mission “to serve the fans, aficionados and academics studying the music of Philip Glass”. Their catalog shows close to three dozen releases. Glass has written a lot of music. And, while being a controversial and polarizing figure, he has a uniquely loyal following, so there’s certainly justification for the availability of his works, and in multiple interpretations.
 
“The Concerto Project, Vol. II” consists of world premiere recordings of two keyboard concertos.
 
The Piano Concerto No. 2 has the subtitle “After Lewis and Clark.” Like some other minimalist pieces (Nixon in China) the attempt at topicality can result in a bit of a stretch. Pianist Paul Barnes commissioned the work after having cut his teeth on transcriptions of Glass’s operas. Barnes “was particularly interested in the challenging task of presenting both the white and the Native American perspectives” on the Lewis and Clark expedition.
 
The first movement, “The Vision”, consists of high-energy, forward-propulsing writing typical of Glass, “signifying the tremendous resolve and energy required of Lewis and Clark for their extraordinary expedition.” The second movement, “Sacagewea”, features a thoughtful, ambivalent dialogue between the piano and the Native American wooden flute played by R. Carlos Nakai. The composer says of the third movement, “The Land”, “I wanted this final movement to reflect the expanse of time — what the land was before the expedition and what it became after.” It consists of a theme and six variations which the piano and orchestra alternate in canon-style. The movement concludes with a cadenza composed by the soloist.
 
The Harpsichord Concerto has returned as a vital contemporary form: I think particularly of Górecki’s work in this genre. Harpsichordist Jillon Stoppels Dupree remarks on how baroque Glass’s work sounds. It does indeed form a surprisingly seamless hybrid of the baroque concerto and contemporary minimalism — though more of the former than might be expected. In contrast to other of the composer’s works which I might describe as “neon bright,” this work is lightly textured and graceful in development. Dupree describes her rehearsal sessions with Glass, noting his humility in being willing to reduce orchestration to one-to-a-part to allow the harpsichord to be properly heard. The results evince the effectiveness of the collaborative effort.
 
The stereotypical image of a work by Glass is of ostinato repetition of short musical phrases, which transform very, very gradually over tens of minutes. The works on this recording show more variety and traditional musical development than that picture would predict. That said, this recording will be welcomed with great enthusiasm by Glass’s fans, while those who aren’t attracted to his unique style won’t find much here to change their minds. The booklet notes are written by the respective soloists, which is a nice touch.
 
Brian Burtt

see also review by David Barker (June 2008 Recording of the Month)
 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.