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Music in Twelve Parts

Music in Twelve Parts cover art
79324

Track Listing

Click tracks with speaker icon to listen
1.01Part 118:16
1.02Part 219:18
1.03Part 313:15
1.04Part 417:18
1.05Part 5 (beginning)4:26
2.01Part 5 (conclusion)18:47
2.02Part 614:11
2.03Part 719:59
2.04Part 818:16
3.01Part 912:14
3.02Part 1017:09
3.03Part 1114:30
3.04Part 1218:19

News & Reviews

  • Philip Glass to Celebrate 75th Birthday at Carnegie Hall; Composer "Changed the Landscape of American Music," Says NPR

    Nonesuch Records wishes Philip Glass a very happy 75th birthday today. The composer celebrates with the US premiere of his Ninth Symphony by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He previews the performance on WNYC's Soundcheck today at 2 PM ET. He was the subject of a feature profile on NPR's Morning Edition earlier today. "Composer Philip Glass changed the landscape of American music," says NPR. "Glass came up with a new way to make music, and with it, brought a new audience to the concert halls."

  • "Einstein on the Beach" Launches World Tour in Ann Arbor; "Classical Music Event of the Year" (Detroit Free Press)

    Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach returns for the first time in 20 years with the launch of a major international tour, starting with preview performances at the Power Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this weekend. These mark the first North American presentations ever held outside of New York City. "It's only January, but the classical music event of the year is already upon us," exclaims the Detroit Free Press. "Glass and Wilson strip down the fundamentals of movement, image, text and music to essentials and then elevate their essence to operatic grandeur ... It's hard to overestimate the impact of Einstein on American music, art and culture."

About this Album

This CD box set is now available for sale in the Nonesuch Store; however, free, instant album MP3 downloads, included with other discs in the Store, are not currently available with box sets.

Music in Twelve Parts, written by Philip Glass between 1971 and 1974, is a deliberate, encyclopedic compendium of some techniques of repetition the composer had been evolving since the mid 1960s. It holds an important place in Glass's repertory—not only from a historical vantage point (as the longest and most ambitious concert piece for the Philip Glass Ensemble) but from a purely aesthetic standard as well, because Music in Twelve Parts is both a massive theoretical exercise and a deeply engrossing work of art. This evening-length piece, presented here on three CDs, represents, according to Glass himself, the culmination of his Minimalist period. The New York Times calls it "monumental" and recommends this set as the best recorded version of Glass's landmark work.

After the piece's 2009 West Coast premiere, some 35 years delayed, the San Jose Mercury News exclaimed that with Music in Twelve Parts, Glass's writing leads "toward a new euphoric breakthrough." The paper described it this way: "There is a Baroque intricacy at work, a micro-level of interlocking gears, as well as a larger, tranced-out story line: the landscape, the percolating groove, the spaciousness of the piece, which feels improvisational, related to pulsing, early '70s jams by, say, Miles Davis or even the Grateful Dead."

"For a full-body immersion in the early compositional world of Philip Glass, you can't do much better than Music in Twelve Parts," says the San Francisco Chronicle. The issues the composer addresses in the piece "are endlessly productive and nuanced. And to hear a composer lay out his palette in such richly evocative detail is a rare and rewarding delight."

Credits

MUSICIANS
The Philip Glass Ensemble
Michael Reisman, musical director, keyboards
Lisa Bielawa, voice
Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, flute
Philip Glass, Martin Goldray, keyboards
Richard Peck, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Andrew Sterman, flute, soprano saxophone

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Kurt Munkacsi and Michael Reisman
Recorded March-June 1993 at The Looking Glass Studios, NYC
Engineers: James Law, Dante DeSole
Assistant Engineer: Skoti Elliott
Mixed by Michael Reisman at The Looking Glass Studios

Design John Gall
Cover photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe

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