Customer Reviews

Philip Glass: La Belle et la Bête

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After being disappointed by Glass's Dracula, I passed this work up for too long. Imagine my horror when I discovered that this is the composer's career masterwork. LBeLB is more than movie music. It's more than an opera, although it makes a better opera than any previous Glass work in that category. This piece is nothing less than the composer's retrospective on his own life and work.

If it weren't for his trademark appegiation and instrumentation, a listener might not believe this is the same Philip Glass who wrote those repetitive, minimalistic works of the 70s and 80s. This Philip Glass uses his now-traditional forms to create an intensely, tragically romantic atmosphere whose haunting melodies will stay with you for a lifetime.

As a devotee of the ultraromantics, this work drew me in much faster than any other Glass work. The rich harmonies, pulsing chords and soaring lines are just as satisfying as Chopin, Rachmaninoff or Ravel, while achieving a dynamic power that would impress Liszt or Wagner. In "The Beast's Anguish," noone can listen to intense trebel lines, counterpointed melodies, oceanic bass and piercing electrified flute and remain unmoved.

In decades hence, when Glass is seen as the Beethoven of the late 20th Century, students will mine this piece for musical symbolism that adds multiple layers on the original story. In the jacket notes, Glass observes that Cocteau's movie was a self-portrait of an artist betrayed by his times. Students of composer will find that he reprises much of his own previous work, bringing forth previous leitmotivs and juxtaposing them to tell his own story on top of Cocoteau's interpretation of the ancient fairy tale.

Not since Mishima has Glass seemed so perfectly married to his subject. Obviously Glass identifies personally with the subject. The frequency and stridency of his detractors from all musical camps can't but hurt his soul, even if he secretly hopes that once he's safely dead those same critics will begin industriiously studying and revering his works. This work is his portrayal of the essential tragedy in any artist's life.

Regardless of whether you're new to Philip Glass, or long-standing student of his work, this is his life's masterwork. You owe it to both him and yourself let his musical world wash through yours.

- Arnold Hendrick, 2002

I agree with previous reviewers that this represents Philip Glass at his very best, but I want to warn potential buyers that there is a much better way to get the work, and that is by buying The Criterion Collection 2002 DVD version of the Jean Cocteau BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (the 1998 version does not contain the Glass work). That disc contains not only the fully restored film but contains as an alternative soundtrack the Philip Glass opera. Since Philip Glass originally composed the opera as a mixed media presentation of opera to accompany that film, this is unquestionably the preferred format. Seeing the movie while listening to the opera brings home the enormity of Glass's achievement. Incredibly, his music creates a second great film, one that stands as a monument to the genius of the original film. Moreover, Glass's composition perfectly complements the film, meshing with it completely in mood and tone.

Philip Glass is unquestionably one of the most interesting and least consistent musical talents in the world today. He is capable of being repetitious and boring, but he is equally capable of producing something profound and sublime. Perhaps because he was composing a piece to mesh with another work, limitation in this case inspired him to be more creative than usual. The music consistently attempts to mimic the organs that once provided the musical background for silent films in the Golden Age of cinema, and does so magnificently.

So, while I can't recommend the musical work highly enough, I do strongly recommend getting it in the 2002 Criterion DVD version. On top of the advantage of getting the film and a ton of extras, the two sets cost about the same, so there is no financial disadvantage to getting the DVD.

I bought the CD as soon as it came out about ten years ago. One day when I was sick at home (before computers demanded we work during sick days), I pulled out an old VHS tape of La Belle et la Bete and the new CD and attempted to play them with a tolerable degree of syncronicity.

It was quite a challenge at times, but the magic of the original film is captured so incredibly well in the music I wished that Glass had procured the rights to sell the film with his alternate soundtrack. In fact, according to a Terry Gross interview on Fresh Air, it took some effort to persuade the Cocteau heirs to allow Glasss to just do a few live performances (opera singers and the silenced film together).

I just found out today that the combined product has existed for a couple of years and it is already in my shopping cart.

I can't wait!

I used to complain that Glass hasn't composed anything of worth since Koyanisquatsi or the Photographer, but I stand corrected. I've just seen this piece performed in Gainseville, Fla. Breathtaking. The sung vocal in french , set against the vibretto of violins and organs is haunting. (Plus if you're lucky enough to see the piece, the use of sung french against english subtitles is humorous.)

This is my favorite of all the recordings of Glass that I have heard. In this recording, it is not the repetitive phrasing that is readily apparent, but colorful melodies that even the most adamant of critics will have to respect. However, there is an undercurrent of the traditional Glass that is constantly apparent supporting these melodies that will attract die hard fans as well. I recommend this recording to all. Of the 12 recordings that I own of Glass, this one I have listened to repeatedly.

Confined to setting musical lines to the speech rhythms of the actors in Cocteau's movie, Glass pushes his operatic skills to a new level. This is incredible music--even when it is separated from the film.

Glass is an important figure, who is serious about his work and has often found a fine balance between aesthetics and popularity; his style has a general appeal, even if the subject matter is odd or rigorous. This work is an excellent introduction for the curious while remaining a daring concept; write what is essentially an opera score to go along with the classica silent film by Cocteau. Ideally, the music should be played along with a screening, but as music along it works quite well. The text is the original French script for the film, and while there is an occasional clumsy moment of scanning, the work is beautiful, gripping and dramatic all on it's own. A surprise and a wonder.

Glass, like the 20th century composer Bohuslav Martinu, seems to produce far too much work that seems far too similar. With Glass, it makes one wonder how difficult it is to string together those arpeggios. But every now and then his imagination, like Martinu's, produces something incredibly singular. Like his monumental Akhnaten, or his great film scores for Mishima or Koyanisquaatsi, La Belle et la Bete is a vivid, emotionally charged work that utilizes minimalist techniques, yet moves beyond them, inhabiting a sound world that is very nearly French, in a style that -- because of his use of a spoken film as precise template -- suggests Janacek, and his use of speech melodies to propel the musical line. Whether it works with Cocteau's *sound* film (with a perfectly fine score by Auric), I can't say. But removed from it, La Belle has enough substance to live on its own, and makes one forget Glass's more forgettable output.

What Glass has done with this Opera is provided a new musical accompaniment to a showing of Cocteau's 90-minute film, "La Belle et la Bete", dispensing with Auric's original film-music and synchronizing the singing parts with the speech of the actors in the film. In the opening scenes the music is far lighter and more conventionally beautiful than most Glass, but then the poignancy of the story is more and more reflected in the score, both tender and mellifluous. The hypnotic quality of Glass's repetitions helps to enhance the magical atmosphere, while the use of the original French film-script prompts Glass to be more warmly melodic than usual. Glass's justification lies in the intensity of the score overall, with Gregory Purnhagen's wonderful baritone suggesting from the start a heroic, not a bestial figure.

Sometimes I try to convince friends to listen to some Glass music. The trouble is: which composition to recommend? Since this score came out on cd, I need not look any further. If you don't like this Glass music, you will never like it. If you like this very much, you will probably be moved by most of Glass' music. The music and the voices are beautifully balanced, and the sometimes quickly sung texts are due to the singers having to keep up with the movement of the mouths in the movie. I had the good fortune to attend a live performance of the music together with the screening of the movie. It was a moving experience, and as so often with Glass-music, it gave me the shivers - in the good sense of the expression. Buy this, and you won't be disappointed.