Glass, Philip Symphonie Dennis Russell Davies

Philip Glass' 1987 album Songs from the Trilogy is made up of brief selections from his three portrait operas, Einstein on the Beach (1976), Satyagraha (1980), and Akhnaten (1983). It gives a good idea of what the music from the operas sounds like, but at the same time it misrepresents what the music is actually about. In developing his "music with repetitive structures" (the description he preferred over "minimalism"), Glass was creating a new kind of experience, one in which the traditional temporal expectations of a piece of music are overturned, where changes happen incrementally and very slowly over a long (sometimes a very long) span of time.

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.

I have played and conducted Philip's music for 25 years, including the first performances of all six symphonies, several of the operas, the original 6 piano etudes and the Tirol Concerto. With each new work I have been increasingly impressed by the skill with which Philip has refined and extended the expressive possibilities of his musical language to move his listeners. Learning, practicing and performing the Tirol Concerto has been rewarding and exhilarating from the first conceptual discussions with our Tyrolean friends in Schwaz — pianist Thomas Larcher and art curator Bettina Schlorhaufer, through countless performances before widely varied audiences both in Europe and North America. Philip tailormade the concerto for me together with the brilliant Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and we love performing it.
— Dennis Russell Davies

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."

This disc of Philip Glass' Tirol Concerto for piano and orchestra is among the first wave of releases from Orange Mountain Music, a label started by Kurt Munkacsi and Don Christensen out of their attempt to archive the master tapes of Glass' music. Most of the releases slated to appear are of older recordings, including many that have not been heard before. But the Tirol Concerto for piano and orchestra dates only from 2000 and was recorded in 2002.

The third in the Glass’ trilogy of operas about men who changed the world in which they lived through the power of their ideas, “Akhnaten”‘s subject is religion. The Pharaoh Akhnaten was the first monotheist in recorded story, and his substitution of a one-god religion for the multi-god worship in use when he came to power was responsible for his violent overthrow. The opera describes the rise, reign, and fall of Akhnaten in a series of tableaus. Libretto (Egyptian, Arcadian, Hebrew, and language of the audience) by the composer in association with Shalom Goldman, Robert Israel and Richard Riddell. Vocal text drawn from original sources by Shalom Goldman.

Symphony No. 9 is Philip Glass' ninth symphony. It was written between 2010 and 2011. It is written in 3 movements. It was commissioned by the Bruckner Orchester Linz, Carnegie Hall, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

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.