Philip Glass has always been canny about finding venues for his music, and this has helped him realize large-scale projects like his operas of the 1970s and 1980s. In the years since then, even if he has not made something personal about his minimalist language in the way that his contemporary Steve Reich has, he has realized that his style can be inflected back in the direction of traditional classical forms and made to suit most any occasion. The two keyboard concertos recorded here provide pleasing examples. Neither one ...
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Philip Glass has always been canny about finding venues for his music, and this has helped him realize large-scale projects like his operas of the 1970s and 1980s. In the years since then, even if he has not made something personal about his minimalist language in the way that his contemporary Steve Reich has, he has realized that his style can be inflected back in the direction of traditional classical forms and made to suit most any occasion. The two keyboard concertos recorded here provide pleasing examples. Neither one is a concerto in the usual sense, with the soloist defining an independent identity. Instead the keyboardists in both works generally provide Glass' trademark pulse, and in the outer movements they rarely get a rest. In the Piano Concerto No. 2, After Lewis and Clark, the most effective movement is the central "Sacagawea," evoking the Shoshone woman, pictured on the U.S. dollar coin, who saved the bacon of the two explorers. The movement is constructed around two flute themes, one of...
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