Customer Reviews

Philip Glass; Steve Reich Music 4 Hands

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I LOVE the opera recording, so I was afraid that the 2 piano arrangement might be a little too sparse...but I ADORE this version. All the inner voices of Glass' music are brought out and in the end, just like with the opera, I am very moved. Glass is a Romatic at heart, and this version like the opera recording shows it. .

I disagree with the previous reviewers comments in that there are NO STRINGS on this CD.
It features two seminal works by two important composers of our day: Philip Glass and Steve Reich.
This recording of Reich's Piano Phase is poignant! The performances are flawless and the recording is wonderful.

The transcription of a suite of instrumental music from Glass' LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES is wonderful. Davies and Namekawa, the pianists, have made an effective transcription of the original 3 piano-part Glass opera, to 2 piano/4 hand instrumental suite.
It's really wonderful, especially the Sleepwalking music.

Just FANTASTIC!

If you like Philip Glass and the sound of pure piano then this recording is worth listening to - its that simple. Davies is a well known conductor and pianist in most classical music circles, and he plays with the central pianist in his own orchestra - so they both understand each other very well.
This makes the dual piano approach work out in the end, and Reichs piano phase gets the treatment it demands and frankly deserves.

Philip Glass' opera LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES is far too seldom performed. It is a brilliant piece of writing and very demanding on the performers and so it is only in the rare Music School setting that we can experience this rather stunning work. Fortunately, the instrumental aspect of the opera is confined to three pianos (this is indeed meant to be a chamber opera) and the two performers here - Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa - have transposed the three piano 'orchestration' to two pianos, four hands. The two 'transposers' perform this haunting score with great dexterity and perfectly balanced precision of coordination - not an easy task in the exposed music of Philip Glass! As performed here there are six scenes: Overture, The Bedroom, Paul Sleepwalking, Snow Falling in the Playground, Elizabeth Chooses a Career, Death of the Twins / Finale. A brief summation of the story helps to appreciate the various scenes depicted here: 'Les Enfants Terribles', is based on Jean Cocteau's novel written in 1929. Glass invited the American choreographer Susan Marshall, to help adapt and direct a dance/opera based on the novel in which singers and dancers would share center stage. The tragedy articulates Cocteau's belief in the power of imagination to transform the ordinary world into a world of magic. Les Enfants Terribles takes us to the world of Narcissus and, ultimately, Death. Hence the tragedy and power of the piece -- a snowball becomes a ball of poison. Dargelos becomes Agathe. A "Room" (normally a place of imagination and creativity for Cocteau) is transformed into a space that jealously refuses to let its "Children" grow up. A harmless "Game" turns into a fierce struggle that ends in destruction. The natural world is represented by the snow, which falls relentlessly throughout the opera and (like the spectators) silently looks on, bearing witness to the unfolding events. Here, time stands still. There is only music, and the movement of children through space.'

The performance by Namekawa and Davies captures all of this strange story and the 'condensation' to two pianos works tremendously well. The other work on this recoding is Steve Reich's 'Piano Phase', an 18 minute examination of repeated sounds that morph into strange configurations. It is a far more intensely minimal work that Reich's other pieces and in the hands of Namekawa and Davies it sails forth. Very fine recording, this, and one that makes the music of both Glass and Reich make miraculous sense. Grady Harp, January12