Philip Glass: Concerto for two pianos and orchestra (European premiere) Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 Katia Labèque, piano Marielle Labèque, piano Paris Orchestra Jaap van Zweden, conductor
The Glass - composition doesn't work. It is merely manneristic, with no flow and no idea. Minimalist phrases are squeezed into the classical form of the instrumental concert. The Labèque sisters make the best of it, as do the orchestra and the conductor, bravo! But, either way, the play isn't coming out.
May be some composition not good facture idea think theme sound and ritmical composition Neoclassical by philip glass ideal. That's all... But... Composition not really rich and have only The same ideas and structures are only slightly updated by the orchestral palette, there is no special harmonic vertical
This may sound like a joke but the best way to listen to Glass is to not actually listen to it. I found this first with his early "minimalist" work from the late '60s to mid '70s; if you try to listen it becomes a maddeningly frustrating waste of time so inevitably, if you endure it, your mind will begin to wander and you will stop listening, though you can still hear it. Then something interesting starts to happen; you begin to be affected by the shifting pulses and lengthening and contracting repititions, and the result can be both restful and suspenseful at the same time. His later music adapts much of classical conventions to its structure but still, I find this distracted form of listening is most effective and probably why the majority of the composer's work is written as accompaniment to other things (like theatre, film and dance etc.). Where his music is most paradoxically challenging is in a concert setting where the focus can't help but be centered on the music itself. Those who have come to the music of Glass through his scores and operas are usually better suited to appreciate his music in a concert setting but others who may first be encountering his music in that setting are usually the ones left scratching their heads and looking around as if it's some kind of joke!
The work tries to avoid all the pre-existing motifs in the repertoire and has no creative core ideas. Here’s a learner and educator who has broken the code as he sees it as to composition. This music may not last though it’s so popular because of the beats (not so evident here admittedly). Phoney and inexpressive.
Glass's music lost its uniqueness based on non-Western music techniques after Einstein on the Beach. The attempt to reconcile a rhythmic melodic syntax (Hindu music as a founding reference) with the Western harmonic capture apparatus only ends in mannerism. The serialist "Sonatas"! of Boulez remain as exemplary catastrophes of mannerism. The anti-serialist reaction of minimalism was radical in its militant stage. Today, only a mainstream pastiche remains of its potent and founding singularity.
