World Premiere Recording of Early Glass

Last month Orange Mountain Music released a world premiere recording of music by Philip Glass. While this may not sound out of the ordinary, the music itself was composed in 1970. “Music in Eight Parts” was probably composed as a follow-up to the three pieces that were performed at what may be called the first major performance by the Philip Glass Ensemble, which took place in the downstairs recital hall of the Guggenheim Museum in New York in January of 1970. In April of 2019, Orange Mountain released the earliest commercial recordings of these pieces, “Music in Similar Motion,” “Music in Fifths,” and “Music in Contrary Motion,” as part of their two-CD album 50 Years of the Philip Glass Ensemble.

“Music in Eight Parts” does not even have an entry in the index of Glass’ autobiography, Words Without Music; nor can it be found on the Web page listing his compositions on his Web site. Indeed, he may have forgotten entirely about the piece until his score turned up at Christie’s Auction House in New York City late in 2017. That path to Christie’s may have begun when Glass had to deal with massive debt following the premiere of Einstein on the Beach in 1975. Part of his solution at that time was to sell off several of his scores; and “Music in Eight Parts” may well have been one of them.

Now the piece has its own Web page on Glass’ site. The composition itself is about half a minute shy of 22 minutes in duration. The recording is available only for digital download and streaming, and that Web page provides the necessary links to Apple Music and Spotify. Unfortunately, while the page provides generous background about the music, including images of both the original master score and the first page of the restored score prepared for the performance by Alex Gray, there is far too little information about the performance itself.

This is more than a little disappointing, because the recording was produced this past April. In other words it was created under shelter-in-place constraints. As a result, each of the performers recorded his/her part in the isolation of his/her own home. (Presumably, they all shared the pulse of a common metronome setting, which never had to change over the course of the performance.) Music Director Michael Riesman then mixed all of those source recordings to create the “ensemble performance.” Sadly, Riesman is the only name given recognition for this process, which strikes me as almost egregiously unfair to all of the other participants, without whom this recording could not have been made.

To be fair, the Web page concludes by citing not only Riesman but also Lisa Bielawa and Richard Guérin as producers. It also credits an “album design” featuring a reproduction of Sol LeWitt’s “Open Cube in Black on White.”

Nevertheless, the heart of this music is shared by all of the instrumentalists, who should not have been treated as the “unknown soldiers” in this campaign.