The Concerto Project

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Philip Glass

The Concerto Project is a collection of concerti written by Philip Glass. The series was begun in 2000 and contains eight works, the most famous of which is probably the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra . Some of the concerti in the volumes were written before the commencement of the project and were categorized into the series.

Concerto musical composition usually in three parts

A concerto is a musical composition generally composed of three movements, in which, usually, one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. It is accepted that its characteristics and definition have changed over time. In the 17th century, sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos, as reflected by J. S. Bach's usage of the title "concerto" for many of the works that we know as cantatas.

Philip Glass American composer

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been described as minimal music, having similar qualities to other "minimalist" composers such as La Monte Young, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically.

Cello Concerto No. 1 (Glass)

The Cello Concerto No. 1 was written by Philip Glass in 2001. It was one of the first concerti of the twenty-first century. The piece was commissioned by William and Rebecca Krueger, friends of both the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and the conductor Yu Long in celebration of Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday and the first anniversary of Maestro Yu's China Philharmonic Orchestra. The work was premiered by Lloyd Webber with Long Yu conducting the China Philharmonic during the 2001 Beijing Music Festival, and attracted significant attention as the first time the work of a major western composer had its world premier in China. A typical performance takes about 30 minutes. The work is paired with the Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra as part of Glass' Concerto Project, a series of collected concerti by the composer. The cello concerto is among the most famous of Glass' works for a solo instrument.

Contents

Volumes

There are four volumes of the Project:

The Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra is a double timpani concerto written by Philip Glass in 2000. It is paired with the Cello Concerto on Vol. I of Glass' Concerto Project, a set of eight concerti by the composer. A typical performance of the work lasts 25–28 minutes. It was written for Jonathan Haas and later recorded by Evelyn Glennie, and was premiered by Haas and Svet Stoyanov with the American Symphony Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, conducted by Leon Botstein. The work was commissioned jointly by the American Symphony Orchestra, the Peabody Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony and the Phoenix Symphony. In 2004, a transcription for wind ensemble was written by Mark Lortz, which debuted at Peabody Institute in 2005.

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Glass)

The Piano Concerto No. 2 was written by Philip Glass in 2004. It is also called the Piano Concerto No. 2: After Lewis and Clark, due to its musical representation of the American pioneers. It was composed for the Nebraska Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, the Lied Center for Performing Arts, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. It is included as one of the concerti in Glass' Concerto Project, a four-volume collection of commissioned works. The work itself deals with the journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, interpreting the stages of their expedition progressively in each movement.

Harpsichord Concerto (Glass)

The Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra was completed by Philip Glass in spring of 2002. It was commissioned for the Northwest Chamber Orchestra by Charles and Diana Carey and published by Dunvagen Music. Glass wrote the concerto with the Baroque tradition in mind; however, in order to approach the work in a modern idiom, he calls for a contemporary chamber orchestra to accompany the harpsichord. The concerto was premiered in September 2002 in Seattle, with David Schrader as soloist performing with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra. It is approximately 20 minutes in length. The concerto was included in Glass' Concerto Project, a collection in four volumes.

These concerti were all produced by Orange Mountain Music.

Background

Commission

Philip Glass wrote all of the concerti on commission from various ensembles or people; the Concerto Fantasy, for example, was requested by Jonathan Haas, a respected timpanist. Glass stated in 2000: "Jonathan Haas approached me almost ten years ago with an invitation to write a Timpani Concerto for him. It seemed we were in agreement to begin our project when a series of operas and symphonic commissions led to a series of postponements. Now, years later, the work is finally completed, a three movement concerto with cadenza. It has also grown into a "double" concerto requiring two timpanists playing a total of nine timpani between them." [1]

Similarly, the Cello Concerto was commissioned by friends of Glass, William and Rebecca Kreuger, for the fiftieth birthday of renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, who later premiered the piece in Beijing. [2]

Julian Lloyd Webber British solo cellist and conductor

Julian Lloyd Webber is a British cellist, conductor and the principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Beijing Municipality in Peoples Republic of China

Beijing, formerly romanized as Peking, is the capital of the People's Republic of China, the world's third most populous city proper, and most populous capital city. The city, located in northern China, is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of central government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast; together the three divisions form the Jingjinji metropolitan region and the national capital region of China.

Composition and influence

Some of the concerti were written about the same time as Glass' later symphonies, and distinct similarities can be heard, especially in the Toltec Symphony.

A Toltec Symphony is a 2005 symphony by Philip Glass. The National Symphony Orchestra commissioned Glass to write it to commemorate the 60th birthday of conductor Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin conducted the debut concert on January 20, 2005 at the Kennedy Center, which Philip Glass attended.

Along with Glass' recent symphonic work, the pieces mark a certain progression of Glass' musical approach; audibly, it can be seen that the composer has undergone major changes since his earlier, pro-minimalist period. Although Glass' music can still, in some sense, be categorized as "minimalist," the composer appears to have more classical tendencies, and has himself described his music as "classicist." These concerti are therefore a high-point of Glass' classical direction: they demonstrate a distinct combination of Postmodernist methods and older, more conventional repertoire (incidentally, Glass' favorite composer is Schubert, whose Classical-Romantic bridging can be heard as a considerable influence on the contemporary composer's stylistic moves).

Minimalism movements in various forms of art and design

In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It derives from the reductive aspects of modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices.

Classicism art movement

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint and compression we are simply objecting to the classicism of classic art. A violent emphasis or a sudden acceleration of rhythmic movement would have destroyed those qualities of balance and completeness through which it retained until the present century its position of authority in the restricted repertoire of visual images." Classicism, as Clark noted, implies a canon of widely accepted ideal forms, whether in the Western canon that he was examining in The Nude (1956), or the literary Chinese classics or Chinese art, where the revival of classic styles is also a recurring feature.

Postmodernism is a broad movement that developed in the mid- to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture, and criticism and that marked a departure from modernism. The term has also more generally been applied to the historical era following modernity and the tendencies of this era.

Also discernible is a slight influence from the post-Mahlerian revolutionaries, mostly that of Stravinsky—on whom Glass has written extensively—in that the tempi are occasionally irregular: an uncommon choice for Glass, who usually stays strict to rhythmic pulse.[ citation needed ] This stray from uncompromising adherence to Glass' branch of minimalism can possibly be interpreted[ original research? ] as an indication of a new level of musical progression, as well a statement supporting the continuation of an ongoing musical evolution. The concerti are considered[ by whom? ] hallmarks of twenty-first century classical composition, and have been performed many times.

For more information about the selected works, visit the Philip Glass page.

Recordings

These are recordings of the eight concerti within each of the volumes:

Vol. I

Vol. II

Vol. III

Vol. IV

See also

Related Research Articles

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Timpani or kettledrums are musical instruments in the percussion family. It is a type of drum categorised as a semispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Most modern timpani are pedal timpani and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century. Today, they are used in many types of ensembles, including concert bands, marching bands, orchestras, and even in some rock bands.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s she had shifted to a post-modernist, neo-romantic style. She has been called "one of America’s most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers." She was a 1994 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Zwilich currently serves as the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.

<i>Concert champêtre</i> harpsichord concerto by Francis Poulenc

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John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.

Barjansky Stradivarius

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<i>Concertos</i> (Michael Nyman album) album

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The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine.

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A double concerto refers to two distinct variations on the concerto. Most often, it refers to a concerto featuring two performers, as opposed to the usual single performer, in the solo role. These two performers' instruments may be of the same type, as in Bach's, Concerto for Two Violins, or different, as in Brahms's Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra.

Stephen Goss

Stephen Goss is a Welsh composer, guitarist and academic. His compositional output includes orchestral and choral works, chamber music, and solo pieces. His music draws freely on a number of styles and genres. He is particularly known for his guitar music, which is widely performed and recorded.

Jonathan Haas is an American timpanist. Philip Glass' Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra was commissioned for him by several orchestras.

References

  1. ↑ www.philipglass.com, vol. i.
  2. ↑ philipglass.com, cello concerto
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