“This concert in particular will never happen again.” says Russian pianist Anton Batagov in his notes to his new recording of Philip Glass’ Complete Piano Etudes Live in Moscow. Since their publication in 2014, Glass’ Etudes have been recorded many times over. The Complete Etudes represent of a body of work which took Glass over 20 years to complete. Anton Batagov’s new interpretation is the first to be recorded live. “Live in Moscow” was recorded at Svetlanov Hall, one of the best venues in the city on a Steinway Model D using Batagov’s favourite microphones, Elation KM 901 which present an “absolutely natural sound, warm and breathing” including that special feeling of being captured live, that special sense of capturing a snapshot in time.

Metamorphosis was written in 1988 and takes its title from a play based on Kafka's short story. Numbers three and four are from Glass's incidental music to the play. Numbers one and two use themes from Glass's soundtrack to the acclaimed Errol Morris film The Thin Blue Line. Mad Rush was written for the occasion of the Dalai Lama's first public address in New York City, in the fall of 1981. Originally an open-structured or open-ended piece, it was first performed by Glass on organ during the Dalai Lama's entrance into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Wichita Vortex Sutra is the result of a chance meeting between two long-time friends, Glass and poet Allen Ginsberg, in St. Mark's Books, a popular bookstore in the East Village.

The superb orchestral music for this powerfully affecting film is by Philip Glass, The film stars Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman & Ed Harris. Slipcase. 2002

Tales from the Loop is a 2020 American science-fiction drama series based on the art book of the same title by Simon Stålenhag. The series is created by Nathaniel Halpern for Amazon, stars Rebecca Hall, Tyler Barnhardt, Duncan Joiner, Daniel Zolghadri, Nicole Law, Jane Alexander, Stefanie Estes, Tatiana Latreille, Christin Park, Alessandra de Sa Pereira, Alec Carlos, Danny Kang, Dylan Bodner, Jodi Lynn Thomas, Sean Connolly Affleck, Erik Athavale.

The Hours is the original soundtrack album, on the Elektra/Nonesuch label, of the 2002 film The Hours, starring Nicole Kidman (who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Virginia Woolf in this film), Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. The original score was composed by Philip Glass.
The album won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media (lost to the score of the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).
Due to the success of the music score, the following year it was arranged for the piano solo by Michael Riesman and Nico Muhly. The sheet music was published as a 64 paged book containing most of the tracks (excluding "For Your Own Benefit", "Vanessa and the Changelings" and "The Kiss").

Einstein on the Beach is hardcore Philip Glass with its frenzied (and repetitive) pace, nonsensical poems, and exhaustive length. While this opera helped propel his fame, I would not recommend diving into it if you are looking for an introduction to what Philip Glass writes. Personally, I discovered and grew to love this music through the compilation CD, Songs from the Trilogy. It is cheaper than any recording of these three operas and lets you hear the best of what they have to offer. Of the three, I think Einstein on the Beach is the most difficult to appreciate and even after purchasing, it sat on my shelf. Yet, over time, I begin to hear more than the "One, two, three" and violins sawing away: there's a delicate sound beneath it all. Akhnaten and Satyagraha have this quality as well, but it's easier to hear at first listening. So if you're a casual Philip Glass listener, be prepared to not like Einstein at first because it is so much different than his more recent releases.
For die-hard Glass fans, this recording is the longer (and cheaper) of the two available. If you enjoy his Music in Twelve Parts and other earlier works, this opera is a real treat. Since Einstein is such a monumental piece in the Glass library, it's a must buy. But if you're looking for something less hardcore, try Songs from the Trilogy. I gave five stars because when compared to other music, it's still awe-inspiring, but when compared to other Philip Glass music, especially the other two operas, it rates three stars.
\By Richard Morgan

The eclectic interests of pianist Paul Barnes have taken him from monasteries in the Judean desert to the Liszt Academy in Budapest. Exploring both minimalism and religious symbolism in music, Barnes has been featured three times on NPR's Performance Today and has recently performed in Jerusalem, Moscow, Greece, Seoul, Vienna, Budapest and in the major cities throughout the US.
Deeply inspired by the aesthetic challenge of minimalism, Barnes has given several world premier performances of works by Philip Glass and has published a collection of his own transcriptions from Glass's operas. Barnes gave the world premier performance of Glass's Orphée Suite in New York City in April of 2001. Orange Mountain Music is vey happy to present this collection of piano transcriptions of these major Philip Glass compositions performed by the very talented pianist, Paul Barnes.

『摩訶婆罗达』（Mahabharata）是印度两大史诗之一，也是世界各国有史以来篇幅最长的诗歌，长度约为圣经的十五倍，记述了北印度上古时期潘达阀（Pandavas）和库拉阀（Kuruvas）两大亲族为了争夺统治权所引发的战争。其中最有名的章节是『薄伽梵歌』（Bhagavad-Gita），经常被信徒独立出来吟诵、研究，内容叙述决战之前，维繫之神妙毘天（Vishnu）在人间的化身黑天（Krishna）对王子有修（Arjuna）的劝诲，包含了对道德、哲学与宗教的探讨。
Philip Glass 受荷兰鹿特丹市委託所作的歌剧 Satyagraha 於1980年9月首演，旨在叙述及阐扬甘地所创造的 Satyagraha [不合作主义]精神，全剧以梵文演唱，歌词则取材自『薄伽梵歌』当中的经文。歌剧的第一幕被命名为 Tolstoy，代表的是 Satyagraha 精神的过去式。演出时，舞台上方有影响甘地思想甚鉅的俄国大文豪托尔斯泰在书桌前伏首写作，第一景 The Kuru Field of Justice 舞台中央是甘地、Arjuna 与 Krishna 的吟唱，两侧合唱团则分别代表 Pandavas 大军（印度人）与 Kuruvas 大军（大英帝国）。
这一景由甘地的男高音独唱开始，接著与男中音 Arjuna 形成二重唱，然后加入男低音 Krishna 成为三重唱，最后由合唱团重复咏唱 Krishna 对 Arjuna 的谆谆教诲，是一段具有伟大情操、震撼人心的大合唱。剧情大意为心地善良的 Pandavas 王子 Arjuna 在战场上见到敌方俱为旧识亲友，认为互相杀戮只会带来罪恶，於是向 Krishna 表示想要退出战场。儘管 Ajurna 具备各种美德，但他毕竟只是一个凡人，看不见宇宙的整体秩序，所以即使亲人已经成为邪恶的支持者，Ajurna 受制於亲属之情，仍不愿将之击灭。Krishna 於是藉著对话来清除他的思想障碍，向他开示真正的宗教原理是使人达到不执著於物的境界。其实那些违背正义、投向恶魔的人，在正法中毫无价值。如果这些人成为统治者，将给人民带来莫大的痛苦，因此 Arjuna 必须放弃执念，拿起武器对抗邪恶，毁灭那些邪恶之徒。这齣歌剧透过舞台制作与歌词内容，表达了 Satyagraha 精神形成的哲学及宗教基础，也就是甘地的人文素养。
歌剧的第二幕及第三幕分别被命名为 Tagore（印度大诗人、诺贝尔文学奖得主泰戈尔）与 Martin Luther King（美国黑人民权运动领袖金恩博士，1968 年死於暗杀），代表 Satyagraha 精神的现在式与未来式。

This opera, composed in 1975 and premiered in 1976, is scored for four principal actors, 12 singers doubling as dancers and actors, a solo violinist, and an amplified ensemble of keyboards, winds and voices. It is imbued with the postmodern spirit both in its non-linear, poetic, mystic narrative and the floating, eternal world created by the shifting, mathematically precise patterns of Philip Glass' modal music. There are three primary visual sets linked to three musical themes that recur within the work: trains (recalling the metaphors Einstein used to illustrate the theory of relativity, and with which he played as a child), a trial setting (modern life and modern science examined), and a spaceship (a metaphor for transcendence, and/or an escape from nuclear disaster). Also, Einstein himself appears midway between the orchestra and the stage as a violinist (his hobby) and as observer/witness.

How better to score a movie that takes place in three tangentially related time periods than with music that strives for timelessness? The hallmarks of Philip Glass´s minimalism serve The Hours well. The film, based on Michael Cunningham´s novel, tells the stories of three women--Virginia Woolf in the early 1920s, a housewife just after World War II, and a book editor in the present--whose days relate in different ways to Woolf´s novel Mrs. Dalloway. Yet rather than construct a sonic montage of these three time periods (perhaps some Ravel for Woolf, some Max Steiner for the housewife, some Enya for the editor), Hours producer Scott Rudin turned to Glass, a contemporary-classical composer who has had a substantial side career in film, most notably with Koyaanisqatsi. The familiar Glass sounds--the endlessly layered violins, the static melodies, the glacial rhythms--all lend a consistent aural foundation to a story that moves fluidly back and forth in time. The music is scored for orchestra, string quartet, and piano. Those plentiful strings lend a thick cushion, a triumph of tonal suspension, for the piano part, which Michael Riesman plays coolly, emphasizing what are often single notes separated by thoughtful silences, as well as short sets of scales cascading in slow motion. Not only will these compositional themes be familiar to fans of Glass´s work, so too will several of the melodies. Some sections of the score are derived from his albums Glassworks and Solo Piano and from his opera Satyagraha--which, incidentally, involved the stories of three legendary men active in different eras.

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation.

2020 release. Guitarist Gerard Cousins's Escape features arrangements for solo guitar of Philip Glass's best known music. Appropriately, Cousins starts with a flowing account of 'Opening', the first track from Glass's iconic 1983 album Glassworks, designed to introduce the public to the composer's music. Cousins follows the mood with four tracks from Glass's piano pieces Metamorphosis, the second of which, 'Metamorphosis No.2', became the basis for the piece 'Escape!' from the Oscar-nominated score to The Hours. The album concludes with 'Knee Play 2' from Glass's 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach, a landmark of 20th century theater, and finally 'Truman Sleeps' from Glass's Golden Globe-winning score to The Truman Show.