One Way Glass

The recording of the original production of Philip Glass' and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach has iconic significance both in the development of the musical style unfortunately known as minimalism, as well as in the history of music in the late twentieth century. It was a watershed moment when Glass and his ensemble brought the nearly five-hour opera to the Metropolitan Opera House in 1976; his unique aesthetic convictions moved from the rarefied atmosphere of loft concerts into the face of the classical music establishment in a way that could not be ignored.

Leave it to Christoph Eschenbach and the Houston Symphony to deliver one of the more impressive classical discs of 1999: a pairing of the violin concertos of John Adams and Philip Glass. Hearing the works of these two American music mavericks side-by-side is a study in contrasts: Adams's postmodernist composition from 1993 is filled with spooky overtones, as the violin threads its way through the piece, always at the forefront. It doubles as a ballet (the NYC Ballet cocommissioned the piece), yet never forgets the traditional violin-concerto form. Glass's composition from the late '80s is less complex. It, too, is based around a traditional structure of three movements, but these are passages we've heard from the composer for the last decade, though never quite so well assembled.