Philip Glass: Portrait

Angele Dubeau (Artist), La Pieta (Artist), Philip Glass (Composer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Composer: Philip Glass
• Audio CD (October 14, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Analekta
• ASIN: B001FY7BCK
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,718 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #30 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Languages > English
  • #59 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Historical Periods > Modern & 20th Century

Track Listings

1. La Belle et la Bête "Ouverture"

2. The Hours Suite: Movement I

3. The Hours Suite: Movement II

4. The Hours Suite: Movement III

5. Mishima: 1934-Grandmother and Kimitake

6. Mishima: 1962-Body Building

7. Mishima: Blood Oath

8. Mishima: Closing

9. The secret Agent

10. Echorus

11. Company: Movement I

12. Company: Movement II

13. Company: Movement III

14. Company: Movement IV

15. Closing

Editorial Reviews

Gramophone, January 2008

Dubeau plays everything with alluring sweetness and sophistication and her colleagues match her tender, inflected playing note for note.

Product Description

This resolutely modern album is a musical portrait of Philip Glass. Angèle Dubeau has always maintained a passionate interest in all musical forms; this curiosity led her to explore the works of Glass and to paint a dramatic portrait of the composer with these personal choices of some of his most significant works for strings. For a number of years, Angèle Dubeau has collaborated with Philip Glass in New York while working on his first violin concerto. In light of this relationship, Glass authorized, for the first time, an overview of his work with musicians other than the ones he works with regularly. With this repertoire, Angèle Dubeau proves her artistic maturity while exploring new territories, bringing this discovery - or rediscovery - of this great composer of our time to her public.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your father's Philip Glass CD, October 31, 2008

By 

Steve49w "steve49w" (East Northport NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philip Glass: Portrait (Audio CD)

I was given this CD as a gift and not being a big fan of Philip Glass I expected his usual "knock-knock, who's there; knock-knock, who's there; ock-knock, who's there" kind of music. I was very pleasantly surprised with this "late period" Glass music. It's a very mellow and beautiful record. The sonorities that Ms. Dubeau and La Pieta are able to bring to this music are amazing. I am whole heartedly recommending this to anyone who likes good, mellow, evocative music.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Philip Glass Portrait by Angèle Dubeau and La Pietà., April 10, 2009

By 

Zadok_the_Priest "Handel enthusiast" (Province of Québec) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philip Glass: Portrait (Audio CD)

This CD was playing while I was in the record store and I just had to buy it. Beautifully played and with excellent sonics, this CD gives you a digest of Philip Glass' latest works without having to buy all the recent albums. The playing is uniformly good - the music if mainly for strings, with the Hours suite adding harp, piano and celesta. It is also mainly based on music for movies : Cocteau's "Beauty and the beast", "The Hours", "The secret agent" and "Mishima". Also included are music for the play "Company", "Echorus" and "Closing" from the album 'Glassworks'.

It is typical Glass throughout, there are no surprises here - all you need to do is listen to it and be enveloped in his particular, hypnotic, sound world. Even people who don't know much about Glass should be able to like this album - it's easily accessible to all, not spiky or dissonant. You can either sit down and listen to his signature arpeggiated violins, or play it as background music while ironing shirts. Either way, this is an excellent disc, and a great introduction to Glass for those who are new to him.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a disappointment for a Glass fan, December 22, 2008

By 

Kevin Goldsmith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philip Glass: Portrait (Audio CD)

After reading the other reviews and the description, I was expecting a radical re-imagining of Philip Glass' work. Instead, the work is a quite good, but quite literal, representation of several pieces in the Glass canon already presented in other recordings. The recording is good and the pieces are played well, but if you already own these pieces, you will not find much new here.

I wish that the performers had either taken more liberties with the arrangements to bring new life to them or had picked more obscure works that hadn't already been recorded several times, that would have made this a more compelling record.

This recording is recommended for those new to Glass or without a lot of his recordings or those who are complete-ists (and who will buy it anyway).