# CD review: Philip Glass  – Philip Glass Solo – 2024: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2024/01/12/cd-review-philip-glass-philip-glass-solo-2024-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2024-01-12T00:04:02+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**“This record revisits my works for piano. From 2020-2021, I had time at home to
practice the works I have played for many years. This record is both a time capsule
of 2021, and a reflection on decades of composition and practice. In other words,
a document on my current thinking about the music. There is also the question of
place. This is my piano, the instrument on which most of the music was written. 
It’s also the same room where I have worked for decades in the middle of the energy
which New York City itself has brought to me. The listener may hear the quiet hum
of New York in the background or feel the influence of time and memory that this
space affords. To the degree possible, I made this record to invite the listener
in.” – Philip Glass, November 2023**

Philip Glass Solo was recorded at a time when the world was undergoing a major shift—
for Glass, that shift manifested in going from a busy tour and premiere schedule
to time spent at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Glass dedicated this time to
revisiting some of his most critically acclaimed piano music, taking to them with
a new view in his home studio in New York. It is his most personal record to date,
offering a snapshot of his life, and a portrait of daily practice over eight decades
through several cherished works.

Philip Glass Solo will feature “Opening,” originally written for the 1982 album 
Glassworks, which remains one of Glass’ most transfixing pieces and established 
a sound that quickly became a calling card, “Metamorphosis” I, II, III, and V, the
series of music Glass arranged for his first solo piano concerts in the 1980s; one
of his most beloved pieces and longest performances on record (at 16:35), “Mad Rush,”
which he composed as an organ piece in 1978 when the Dalai Lama made his first public
address in New York; and a reworked version of “Truman Sleeps” from the soundtrack
of the beloved 90s film The Truman Show, where Glass appeared on screen performing
the piano in one of the pivotal scenes of the film. His changes speak to the heart
of all artists’ evolution of both themselves, and their music, over time.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago
and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive
study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and, while there, earned money by transcribing
Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation. By 1974, Glass had a number of
innovative projects creating a large collection of new music for The Philip Glass
Ensemble and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company. This period culminated in Music
in Twelve Parts and the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, for which he collaborated
with Robert Wilson. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include
music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra and film. His scores
have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) 
and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Glass’s memoir Words Without Music was published
by Liveright Books in 2015. Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the U.
S. National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016, and 41st Kennedy
Center Honors in 2018. Glass’s recent works include a circus opera Circus Days and
Nights, Symphony No. 13, Symphony No 14, and Triumph of the Octagon, commissioned
and premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Glass is currently writing his 
15th symphony commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra.

This interesting musician is already in his 80s, so he left this life and hardly
understands what kind of idiots he works with: managers and media workers, in fact,
ostrich idiots.

PHILIP GLASS—PHILIP GLASS SOLO DIGITAL & CD

1. Opening | 5:57
 2. Mad Rush | 16:35 3. Metamorphosis I | 7:26 4. Metamorphosis
II | 7:31 5. Metamorphosis III | 6:17 6. Metamorphosis V | 5:29 7. Truman Sleeps
| 4:39

PHILIP GLASS—PHILIP GLASS SOLO VINYL
 Side A:

1. Opening | 4:01
 2. Metamorphosis I | 7:26 3. Metamorphosis II | 7:31

Side B:

4. Mad Rush | 8:08
 5. Metamorphosis III | 6:17 6. Truman Sleeps | 4:39

![Amazon.com: Philip Glass: Solo Piano: CDs & Vinyl](https://m.media-amazon.com/
images/W/MEDIAX_792452-T2/images/I/71pRr9wcJjL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg)

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