World Famous Comics: Philip Glass - Monsters of Grace
Philip Glass - Monsters of Grace
From: Orange Mountain Music Average Rating: Binding: Audio CD Format: Import Label: Orange Mountain Music Number of Discs: 1 Release Date: October 09, 2007
One of my favorites I bought this CD on a whim when I bought David Byrne's Knee Plays. However, who could resist a Glass of Rumi? I would love to see the Robert Wilson it goes with, but I dearly love the music and the words.
"Don't go back to sleep..."
Beautiful The first track, "Where Everything is Music", is worth the price of the album, even if the rest of the songs isn't fully up to the same standard, I think overall the album is one of Philip Glass' best song collections. As five-star as five stars get in my book. I used to only like Philip Glass' instrumental music, but albums like this one are changing my opinion. The combination of the music and the voices is stunning. Stereo Gram is another great track.
Glass amongst the monsters! As a long-time fan and admirer of Philip Glass this work has great moments and ordinary moments. The music, for the most part, stands on its own. It is tough to judge as it is part of a multi-media work featuring animated motion pictures to accompany the voices and instruments. The vocal performers also move as part of the presentation so it is much like listening to a soundtrack, you only get part of the picture. Still, the blending of voices and instruments in Philip Glass's wonderful, flowing compositions shine. I was priveleged to see the work performed at the Folly Theater in Kansas City in 1999 and enjoyed it immensely. Glass's music and Robert Wilson's animation and Rumi's sensuality were interwoven perfectly and I was surprised to hear of Robert Wilson's displeasure with the completed project. The music has an eastern flavor to it. High points include the ominous, pulsating instrumental, THE NEEDLE which reprises as part of the final selection and the flowing vocal, LIKE THIS. Most Glass aficianados will enjoy it and want a copy. I agree that this release is well worth the wait.
"Don't go back to sleep...." One of Glass' best works I am stunned and delighted. After ten years of waiting I googled for this work and finally find it on Amazon. YES! I was also fortunate to attend one of the UCLA performances and what I've never forgotten was this music. The high-concept for the production was to allow startling 3D images and sublime music to clash in the minds of the audience and let them (us) make our own meaning out of it all. Wilson's ideas were great, but the 3D rendering technology wasn't up to his ambition, many of the moving 3D images couldn't escape a certain cartoon feel, but Glass' hypnotic music never sounded better. He found the perfect lyricst in Coleman Bark's rendering of Rumi's spiritual poems. The middle eastern insturments weaving in and out of synth/piano notes, the lofty choir voices, the spinning notes. For years I've cherished a cassette with some of these songs recorded at a rehearsal. This is a classic.
Classical Glass! ... But Where's Wilson? I, too, was at the opening night performance at Royce Hall in April 1998. This was billed as Version 1.0 and a work in progress, I guess because the animation was not complete. I also saw the completed version 4.0 some four years later in the same place. As much as I loved the 3D imagery of the animated film, I was more entranced by the Wilson staging which was dropped in later versions. I had only heard of what a Robert Wilson theatre event was like. I'd never seen anything like it before. Weird and beautiful, I was stunned by the combination of exotic and visually dramatic scenes performed in mostly slow motion.
This soundtrack is a long time coming and I am intensely grateful to finally have this beautiful, lilting music as part of my home music library. "Like This" is one of the most moving Glass works I have ever heard, and that is saying a lot.
When I met Philip Glass several years ago, I asked him about making MOG on CD or DVD. He said that he was hoping to find a suitable medium and deal that would include and do justice to Wilson's animated movie. I don't know what the details of that search were, but it is disappointing not to have the opera intact, especially since its a digital movie. You can catch some of the MOG animation at the Synthespian Studios (formerly KWCC) website http://www.synthespians.net. I'd give you a direct link to the MOG excerpts, but the site is one big Flash program.
Buy this album! Long live Glass and Wilson! And bring "Einstein on the Beach" back to the American stage!
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