Glass Double Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (UK Premiere)

[vinteuil]

.

... driving through the Arabian deserts with Koyaanisqatsi on the stereo, well, yes, it did provide an interesting background accompaniment. (I liked the fillum, too... ). And I liked parts of Akhnaten when I saw it at the ENO in 1985 (but I was very young then... ).

But otherwise, nothing but irritation.

[ahinton]

I'm another vetrosceptic

A musicologist colleague of mine calls him Philippe de Vitry.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Don't you think that limitation might be endemic to Minimalism, though? A trap awaiting the would-be progressive anti-Third Viennese Schoolist? Now, serialism's altogether a different matter in terms of the options it has afforded.

Not necessarily, I don't think - even though many of the figures associated with it are doing their best to make it seem so. The exception, I feel, is Reich - I don't like very much of his Music, either, but there does seem to me to be a vastly superior Musical intelligence at work than is the case with Glass or their younger followers. And Reich has definitely developed his Musical "language" in a more positive way than I can hear in the recent work of his contemporary - although I prefer Music for 18 and Drumming to even those Glass works that I do find interest in.

But absolutely yes - the possibilities that Serialism offers composers are vastly richer than those of minimalism.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A musicologist colleague of mine calls him Philippe de Vitry.

Ooh - that's not nice! The real de Vitry is someone whose work I can happily spend hours listening to. (Just as Taverner and Tavener ... )

[Nick Armstrong]

A Glass can be half-empty or less only if it had previously been fuller.

Then someone must have been drinking out of it before I came in

[Serial_Apologist]

Then someone must have been drinking out of it before I came in

You finally tumbled!

[teamsaint]

You finally tumbled!

has he written much for flute ?

[Bryn]

has he written much for flute ?

While Reich was held to Ransom in New York, Glass had Gibson, Landry and Pradon, none of which trio was primarily a flutist[sic].

[Bryn]

... while I'm here, I was listening recently to another "minimalistic" piano concerto, that by Howard Skempton, in the premiere broadcast recording played (beautifully) by John Tilbury and (not so beautifully) the BBCSSO, with Ilan Volkov conducting. IMO it's charming, concise and surprising where Glass's is bombastic, sprawling and predictable.

Miniaturistic rather than minimalistic, surely.

As to S_A's point re. serialism, what about that 12 note tune in the Skempton, eh?

[Richard Barrett]

serialism's altogether a different matter in terms of the options it has afforded.

Phew!

[ahinton]

Phew!

Where Glass is concerned, phewer would be better...

[Richard Barrett]

Miniaturistic rather than minimalistic, surely.

As to S_A's point re. serialism, what about that 12 note tune in the Skempton, eh?

There is of course a 12 note tune in Music in 12 Parts as well! What I would say about Howard's concerto is firstly that IMO it could only be improved by being a lot longer, although that isn't his way of doing things so fair enough, and secondly it's not much less repetitive than the Glass but (blindingly obvious really) when what's being repeated is interesting in the first place the repetition tends not to be a problem.

[Bryn]

There is of course a 12 note tune in Music in 12 Parts as well! ...

True, but you have to wait a lot longer to hear it in context.

[Richard Barrett]

you have to wait a lot longer to hear it in context.

Indeed. And I have no objection to listening to Mi12P for four hours whereas the half hour or so of his double piano concerto was quite hard going.