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Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass
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Track Listing
- String Quartet No. 5: 1 - I
- String Quartet No. 5: 2 - II
- String Quartet No. 5: 3 - III
- String Quartet No. 5: 4 -- IV
- String Quartet No. 5: 5 - V
- String Quartet No. 4 (Buczak): 6 - I
- String Quartet No. 4 (Buczak): 7 - II
- String Quartet No. 4 (Buczak): 8 - III
- String Quartet No. 2 (Company): 9 - I
- String Quartet No. 2 (Company): 10 - II
- String Quartet No. 2 (Company): 11 - III
- String Quartet No. 2 (Company): 12 - IV
- String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): 1957: 13
- String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) (1985): 14
- String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) (1985): 15
- String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) (1985): 16
- String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) (1985): 17
- String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) (1985): 18
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #59466 in Music
- Released on: 1995-02-07
- Number of discs: 1
Customer Reviews
Mature Glass
I am befuddled by the negative reviews of this recording, just as I am befuddled by those who dismiss Glass, Reich and their peers as "Minimalists" as if their development had ended where it started. Both Reich and Glass are now mature and accomplished composers who have transformed the radical ideas of their youth into a rich and unique compositional language.
On this recording, Kronos show us just how involving and nuanced Glass's "repetitive" language can be. The Quartet #5 in particular is a masterpiece. Perhaps my favorite Glass composition. It is chock full of wonderful melodic and rhythmic ideas. Yes, the rhythmic and harmonic backdrop consists of relentless diatonic arpeggios, but the continual harmonic and dynamic modulations pull the listener along like a raft floating down a roiling river. Kronos renders the music with impeccable accuracy while filling every phrase with humanity and passion. Wonderful.
I give it 4 starts rather than 5 because the CD sound quality is good, but not excellent, and I don't find quartets 2 and 3 as utterly delightful as 4 and 5.
Not much here
There's a common experience in listening to music in which as you become more familiar with someone's work, or with a particular genre, that you start to hear things you didn't hear intiially. Phillip Glass- and many of his minimalistic brethern, like Steve Reich- are the one counterexample; the more I listen to their music, the less I hear.
There was a time- in the 1980s- when I was a great fan of Phillip Glass. But the more albums I bought, the more it all started to blend into one long and irritating sequence. The patterns repet endlessly: loud/soft/loud/soft. Everything is forte or piano- there's no mezzo. The sequences of notes never change- endless streams of augmented and diminished triads, repeating over and over. It's like listening to a primative 1970s music sequencer.
The Kronos quartet deliver their usual technically flawless and dry performance. Certainly this group was meant to play the work of Glass- but for someone other than me.
Enlightening
This album was my first approach to a minimalist composer, and I didn't exactly know what to expect. The first time I heard it I felt enlightened. I just had couldn't stop listening this piece of music. Beautiful, trancey, ethereal.
If you are looking for standard western classical music, with a strong sense of progression towards that "extacy" moment, you could feel dissapointed. But then again, if you want that...why get a minimalist composer's work?
