Glass: Symphony No. 4,

Description

Philip Glass (b. 1937) Heroes Symphony • The Light  Although he remains best known for the works written for his own ensemble (above all, Music in Twelve Parts of 1974) and works for the stage, not least the trilogy of operas written in collaboration with Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach (1975), Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1984), orchestral music has been at the forefront of activities for Philip Glass for much of the last two decades. Already in 1987 his Violin Concerto [Naxos 8.554568] gave notice of a new interest in the forms and procedures of the Classical and Romantic eras, an interest that has led to eight symphonies and a number of independent orchestral works.The symphonies evince a wide range of approaches to the genre. Only two (Nos. 2 and 8) are full-length abstract designs. No. 3 is a compact work for string orchestra [Naxos 8.559202, Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3], No. 6 a setting of Allan Ginsberg's Plutonium Ode, while Nos. 5 and 7 are large-scale choral works, symphonic in designation only. Nos. 1 and 4, though multi-movement orchestral works, are distinguished by having drawn their inspiration from decidedly non-Classical sources.In 1993, Glass completed his Low Symphony, a work taking inspiration from the Low album released by David Bowie in 1977. Among the most prolific and influential of rock musicians, Bowie had established an international reputation with such albums as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), Aladdin Sane (1973) and Station to Station (1976), enhancing the individuality of his music with often elaborate stage-shows where he appeared as the character central to each album. After an exhausting 1976 world tour, Bowie decided on a radical change of approach to making music. Relocating to West Berlin, in the then divided city, he began a collaboration with Brian Eno that changed rock music as decisively as any other development in what was a radical and innovative era for the medium.A former member of rock band Roxy Music, Eno had gone to make a series of solo albums, but was then about to devote himself to the possibilities of synthesizer technology in what became known as 'ambient composition': abstract and often understated electronic music intended to create an environment for listening rather than being the focus of attention as such. Beginning with Low, an album of powerful songs and evocative instrumental pieces, he and Bowie went on to create two further albums in Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979), each drawing inspiration from the segregated city, with its tangible resonance of the 'cold war' era, that was then Berlin.Having selected several tracks from Low to create his Low Symphony, Glass did the same for Heroes in his Heroes Symphony of 1996. The immediate incentive came from American choreographer Twyla Tharp, keen for a work for her new dance company. Glass took six of the ten tracks from Heroes, reworking them so that the